Monday, April 09, 2012

I may have found it

I did a little more research on drawing apps for my Kindle Fire and found Sketchbook Pro. It seems to be the drawing app iPad users prefer and is available for the Kindle. It wasn't free. It cost all of $2.99 and seems to be much friendlier than those other apps I reported on yesterday. I will need to take some time to delve into all the features and, of course, try out everything and practice them all a bit before I feel competent with it. But here are a couple of very quick tryouts.

Nice painterly effects and a simple, straightforward way to do some blended shading.

I can work with this.

Joanne said I should have gotten the iPad. Well, maybe in a perfect world, where it doesn't cost 3 times what the Kindle Fire cost. It's main advantages would have been the slightly bigger screen and the 3G or 4G connectivity. The Kindle requires Wi-Fi. It is the small price to pay for saving $400. It's a toy. I don't fool myself about that. So is an iPad—albeit a slightly fancier toy. For really precise drawing, I have Illustrator and Photoshop on my computer. What I was looking on for in the Kindle was an app that would allow me to make quick, simple sketches on the fly. Maybe it won't turn out to be anything I will really use, but I rather like the idea of fooling around with quilt ideas or just entertaining myself with it. And, really, if you haven't, you should look at a Kindle Fire. It is very cool. I can read my email and blogs and Facebook with the greatest of ease and the screen shows photos on web sites and blogs beautifully. Most of the apps out there are available for both iPad and Kindle and other tablet devices, so those are the same and work the same on either device. Angry birds and Words with Friends are super on it. I do wish they would get the Kindle version of Draw Something  out there, though!

On a very, very low tech drawing note, I just had to show you this Easter egg, decorated by nature.

I dyed a dozen eggs in solid colors. On Easter morning my son hid them out in the yard for my grandchildren to find. This egg was solid red and placed outside in a bed of damp sedum, branches of which imprinted themselves onto the egg, along with fine speckles I suppose from the dew. It couldn't have been better designed if it had been done on purpose!

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:26 AM

    Love the egg...grandkids participated in an Easter egg hunt at the hotel...won some fun prizes. It is so quiet without them here:-(.

    Beth

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the tip! Having a netbook for my travel computing, I couldn't justify an ipad for drawing alone ( apart from the cost it's hardly pocket sized which is my preference for sketchbooks) But I was already thinking about a Kindle. Just have to wait until this version in launched in UK...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love the egg! Thanks for the heads up on the apps. Have been looking for a good one and not much success. I will give this a try.

    ReplyDelete
  4. did you crack open the egg? i notice that it is also done in a 'terry style'...i would try to figure out a way to get the stinky parts out without destroying the shell...

    i agree that price is more important than brand name for me too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am curious about the Kindle Fire. I have a regular old Kindle that my son gave us a few years ago. I download and read lots of books on it. I also play Scrabble on it.
    I've noticed that illustrations and pictures from books are not attractive at all. They are sort of blurry and mottled. I wonder if the Kindle Fire can handle color illustrations in books.
    If the illustrations are good, that might tempt me to get one.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous11:10 AM

    Love your drawings. I would like to know what the name of the is app is that you used to create the man's head and the worm. Love the lines. Can't find the sketch n draw that you mentioned. Also, can't find an email for you. Help!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love my Kindle Fire. It does what I need it to do and it does that well.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sketchbook Pro is available for android and iPads, and is the one I settled on after trying lots of others. Good choice.

    I didn't know the Fire could use Wifi. We don't have a cell contract, so only Kindle's whispernet (or whatever it's called) would work, and that only for Amazon etc.

    But if the Fire uses Wifi, that's enticing. I too am too cheap to buy an iPad, but find the Android clumsy. I love my Kindle (one of the earliest versions) and if the Fire is as good as the original _and_ has wifi with Sketchbook Pro, well, hmmmmmm.

    ReplyDelete