David Hockney paints with his iPhone, results not typical
By Laura June 
posted Oct 11th 2009 9:36AM
posted Oct 11th 2009 9:36AM
Artist David Hockney isn't afraid of picking up new media -- over the years, he's used Polaroids, photocollages, and even fax machines to create his art -- in addition to regular, old-fashioned painting. Now, he's taken to using his iPhone to create new works of art. The resultant "paintings" have been exhibited at the Tate Gallery and Royal Academy in London, as well as galleries in Los Angeles and Germany. Like artist Jorge Colombo (whose iPhone fingerpainting was featured on the cover of The New Yorker), Hockney uses the iPhone app Brushes to create his works. In an interview with the New York Review of Books, Hockney notes that he prefers and still uses the original version of the app, not the more recent updates. Hmm... maybe the reason our own Brushes paintings stink is because we're using the update!
[Via All Things D]
[Via All Things D]
if your paintings stink that means you haven't washed your hand...
Confucius say...
No...he needs a stylus.
Yes, but that wouldn't be iPhone news!
The raging hordes of MS Fanboys will do or say anything to discredit the iPhone. Even when an artist chooses it as his tool for his artwork.
He's using it as a tool because he is a tool and he has an audience of tools who will buy a commodity and a name, rather than an artwork from an artist. Obviously the stylus-generated artwork employs a far superior technology. Equally obvious is the fact Jorge Colombo is a superior artist. I do like, however, that Hackney blames the updated app for his difficulties in accomplishing what a grade school kid can do ... only better. And no, I'm not talking about representational art. I'm talking about any art.
I don't know how good his non-iphone/ipod touch paintings are, but these paintings suck, especially the first two. I've seen MUCH better paintings on both the Colors and Brushes apps for the Iphone/Ipod Touch.
For your curiosity:
Brushes: http://brushesapp.com/artists/goro/sparks.jpg
&
Colors: http://colors.collectingsmiles.com/details/11095-Hola!_by_anastasky.php
Heck that looks like he didn't even try or make an effort, or maybe he's not used to the medium, either way these works don't aren't display worthy. But I guess quality is in the eyes of the beholder.
The reason that this is a story is because David Hockney is a well established, artist and is an considered influential artist. It's like the story about the queen of england playing Wii. It's a story not because she rocks at fake bowling, it's because she's the freaken queen of england.
Peter R.-
enjoy your Thomas Kinkade cottage paintings
@ Pom
I don't care whether it becomes National or Worldwide news that everybody would be telling their grandchildren decades later, my only gripe is with the fact that Hockney's crappy iPhone paintings are on display at the Tate Gallery and Royal Academy in London. I thought people only displayed quality art, not this nonsense. Hockney is a well respected artist/painter, so anything he displays should represent the quality of his past works, these do not. These iPhone paintings lack effort and look like they were created by a 4 year old child, they're not display worthy works, and not what you'd expect from a professional artist. No one's work should get displayed because they're an influential artist or their well-known name, art should be displayed because of it's high quality.
peter, you're absolutely right. this is the epitome of mediocrity. no one can seriously defend this work. all of hockney is basically picasso-lite.
pom, enjoy your david hockney middlebrow shit.
Great.
The look nice. Too bad all that people are going to see is "Oh look, he did that without a Stylus, I guess the iPhone is the best at everything after all."
art is one of the few things styli are better for when it comes to touch screens...
Agreed. At least it's definitely not hackneyed, right?
What a load of shite. I can't draw to save my life and I've produced better work than that. Look what you can do on the DS http://colors.collectingsmiles.com/
Yeah, but you don't have an agent.
Didn't know you could get Colors! on the iPod/phone now. Should have known lol
I'm not the biggest fan of Hockney, but no, you aren't better than him. Beg e veryone to downrank you so fewer people will be aware of your ignorance.
Hey, Spanky
Anyone with an avatar and a screen name such as yours, should be be careful with his or her comments in/on the art scene. I´m not advocating iPhone-art here, but you should definitely stick to your "glamour excuse for soft-porn"-illustrations. *chuckle*
With a reply like that, it confirms that Pedre is Gay
Here's some more brushes art, and it's one you can get involved with using twitter. http://fingerpooting.tumblr.com/
Why does the first piece of art have his right eye replaced by someone groping themselves?
Wait for the tablet, 10 inches of multi-touch goodness for creative fingers. All said, let's hope Apple allow a stylus to be used with future devices. Pen, pencil and brush have, are and always will be the most effective and intuitive medium with which to be creative.
Wacom are not still in business for nothing.
But didn't HTC recently patent a stylus for capacitive screens? You can't just use any old thing like on a resistive screen.
I'm waiting for Wacom's capacitive stylus. That will close the gap of functionality between resistive and capacitive.
Congratulations iPhone users. Apple has found your new UI designer.
(Seriously they are pushing too hard. They want to make the iPhone the Everything Device. What is next? a toilet paper application? A Tampax Application ? A Durex or Trojan application? I guess the iPhone already serves its purpose on birth control. Many girlfriends are being neglected by their boyfriends as they are paying more attention to their iPhone. "Baby, c'mon, give me a kiss, a caress, at least touch me... !" "Sorry hun, I would but .. Can you do this *** pinches iPhone screen to zoom in and out *** I thought so, now go back to bed, and it is Mr. iPhones Jobs for you ..."
What's with the incomplete brackets?
Apple aren't pushing anyone. Developers create an app, people that want to use this app download it and use it. I don't see what your problem is, other than being upset that the iPhone App store is a huge success, and you're left griping and making bad jokes about girlfriends...
If you had read it correctly you would have noticed that:
(1) They are pushing too hard = developers
(2) Apple aren't (should be) Apple is. That is why if I had written about about I would have used "It is pushing"
(3) It is called sarcasm - or at least an attempt
(4) How do you know I don't have an iPhone and I am the one trying to zoom in and out of my girlfriend.
You, you sir, have iPhonitis which increases your risk of suffering Fanboy Syndrome by 314%.
Given the extremely poor readability of your original post, it's rather audacious of you to accuse someone of not having "read it correctly."
You're just as annoying as the apple fanboys that I regularly downrank too.
Even though there's no official iphone toilet paper or tampon applications most users spend so much time with them up their a** holes that you can pretty much just say that's what the device is for.
As for David Hockney.. he's another reason why http://iphonessuck.com
Honestly, I have done better than that on Sketchbook Pro for the iPhone.
I actually just came in here to mention Sketchbook Mobile Express, and how it's somewhere around a thousand times better than Brushes. I'm not bit with art like I used to be, but I tried both programs out, and there is just no contest. Sketchbook wins, Brushes fails.
I've done much better with VS Painter on my phone, then again, I was using a stylus. This guy must've done it like it was a finger painting on the iPhone/iTouch.
Put up, or shut up.
here is a quick sketch I did in Autodesk SketchBook on my iPhone
http://www.me.com/ro/ahmedskaka/Galleries/100005/Eye/web.jpg?ver=12552713980001
Yes, I've done some artwork with that app too. It's awesome. He doesn't even need a stylus, but with one it's even better.
ok if that doesnt work try this link
http://files.me.com/ahmedskaka/nt7hu2
Nice work. Looks better that whatever that David Hockney guy did on the same device. But alas, the guy has an agent... unless you have one too.
Cute sketch but still not better than Hockney. Get some education and find out why.
I have nothing against the guys artwork I just wanted to share my piece, I think it a cool new medium... chillax people
Well color me impressed. He managed to create some middle school art show quality drawings on his phone.
>Get some education and find out why.
I love this line. Just terrible. What you are really saying is that you should just accept what the establishment tells you without thinking for yourself. I have an education and the results looks pretty typical to me. If you put these in with 50 other no-name drawings I doubt you'd be able to pick them out as Hockney. A real painting would be different. This is new-medium hype. Can your education and use your brain.
Awesome drawing!
Nice drawing of a hairy cornea.
j/k, it's pretty good.
marbles this is bullshit and you know it. That stuff is worse than half the things made by the lowly public who will never be in any gallery other than deviantart.com, and no where remotely even in the same league as a standard professional commercial artist who will never be in an art gallery.
Oh! my God! These pictures are so crappy it is worth me looking at getting an iPhone so I can do rubbish artwork as well! Excellent!
This definitely cements Hockney's status as an art Celebutaunt. When the only reason it makes it into a gallery is because your name's on it you might as well be Kim Kardashian's ass.
Wow, apparently the only thing more ridiculous than an Engadget operating system discussion is Engadget art criticism.
Wonder how he drew those small small details with just a finger! And btw which App was used ?
Brushes. Those squiggly things under the pretty pictures are words. They are your friend. Learn to use them.
he just pinched to zoom LOL
What a load of crap. Oh wait, it's "art". Even a piece of crap can make a statement or something.
yeah , it is total rubbish .
Hey Engadet, I sent you a tip about how I could make my $5 calculator say BOOBS, where's the respect?
My 7 year old has made better art on the iPhone then this! Seriously? This MUST be a joke, right?
No, you seven year old has NOT done better work.
Let's see something yoru 7 year old has actually done.
The stuff Hockney did really is great because it does have composition and a certain quality. The old complaint about all abstract art that it could be done by a child is simply nonsense.
Dr Yusuf:
Art done by 4 year olds also have composition and a certain childish quality.
>The stuff Hockney did really is great because it does have composition and a certain quality.
Yes, that flower in glass is breathtaking in it's composition and quality, it's certainly beyond the level of a 7 year old, that's at least 9 year old work.
>The old complaint about all abstract art that it could be done by a child is simply nonsense.
That what's art consumers say when people question why they spent obscene amounts of money on crap.
Dr. Yusuf Al-Kindi, Yeah. My kid HAS made better art. This garbage posted at the top of the page, which people like you feel is SO damn good, is no better then a child's doodle. In other words, it sucks shit. ESPECIALLY the "face." But, if you're a doctor, it makes sense. It more than likely matches the quality of your penmanship. :)
This is one thing the Apple tablet will be great at. I really hope they partner up with Wacom, or at least develop their own technology with equal quality. It also needs to be cheap, most artists aren't as well off as David Hockney.
Why are these considered so good?
They aren't meant to be good, it's 'modern' art. It's about money and celebrity... not skill.
It's like pop music and fashion, If enough people tell you something is good, you assume they must be right ;0)
I prefer artists like JW Waterhouse who is 'good' in the traditional sense:
http://www.jwwaterhouse.com/view.cfm?recordid=50
...that said, these are rough doodles, not highly polished works of art. I'm sure JW's sketch books would have been filled with things like this.
yeah but JW waterhouse probably wipes his arse with doodles like these. i dont think he'd stoop so low as to display them in a gallery.
david hockney is a tosser and so are all 'modern art'-ists
this is one of those few thibngs abt art that i detest... the glamorisation of insignifigance. i can appreciate these pieces as sketches or note taking of ideas but it is hubris to plow that into public space as art. its unpurposely unfinished and unrefined and using a bludgeon as a tool to convey an idea where a better tool is available. these rank up there with the guy who decided to shit in a can and hawked it off as art. look at the lines... they are clumsy and primitive, not by choice but because the tool used was the wrong choice. i would have a lot more respect if the artist actually did his homework rather than just picked up the closest tin can, shit in it and called it art.
It's not art if I can do it.
I'd pay upwards of $20 for this art.
Only if it came with an iPhone though.
Since when is it acceptable to make art using tools that handicap you. An iphone is not designed to paint on, so off course this does not compete with other approaches. I'm sick of this 'yes-off-course-canvas/photoshop-looks-better-but-then-again-this-is-more-difficult' bullshit. It's not an excuse.
LOL look at all these rabid MS Fanboys saying anything to discredit the iPhone!! This time around the MS fanboys are once again running their mouths off talking about art like they think they know something.
So Typical of them.
Last time these MS fanboy people and their kind did the same thing was when Engadget ran the news about Apple charging $10,000 to produce an EP for iTunes (graphic design, photography, video making/editing, coding, etc, etc). They started maliciously chastising Apple, accusing them of ripping off artists, music labels, being greedy, blah blah. Basically talking like they knew something. But then people that work in the media industry jumped in and said that the actual average industry cost is way above and beyond $10,000 for producing a media package like the iTunes EPs. So in fact Apple is being of great benefit to the music industry by charging less.
But as we see, the hordes of MS fanboys do not like to see positive Apple news.
do you live in like some weird head space where you are fighting the just and good fight against some kind of virtual 'software/hardware' army?. maybe you should tell this story in a comic book styleee with you in leotards and with a viking helmet leading a garrison of men in to certain death to defend a corporation which makes a quite nice mp3 player and phone.
"tonight we dine in starbucks, grraaagh"
I'm pretty sure it doesn't take a "rabid MS fanboy" to realize that art is shite. Take your meds?
@ N900
There you go, you and your kind just proved what I was saying. Fanatic MS fanboys.
That is not art, its just ugly !
Don't worry, this IS a joke.
Those pictures look like crap. The iPhone is obviously not a good medium for detail work.
The iPod Touch/iPhone can be used to create well detailed art, but it seems Hockney decided to be half-assed with it. Check my earlier post in the thread to see examples of what I mean.
I'm jealous.
Its one thing to say he does crap iphone art, and another to say he is a crap artist. That he definitley isn't.
This is news? My own small efforts on Brushes have proven to much greater avail........
http://twitpic.com/e7ll7
Not dissing, but is this meant to look like really, really good or something? I've seen much better almost everywhere else...
I like yours better.
Holy crapfest batman I'd never bother to save a image if I did something that horrible in photoshop. Yeah great it's fingerpainting on a touchscreen, still looks like crap polish a turd as much as you want though.