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De Young Museum exhibit highlights the iPad art of David Hockney

"Yosemite I, October 16th 2011" (Credit: David Hockney)

British painter and photographer David Hockney caught on to the ability to use iPhones and iPads to create art years ago; in fact, in 2009 we covered a story on how Hockney was making small paintings on the iPhone as gifts for friends. Now the influential artist is going big, painting on the iPad and printing out the works an a larger scale for an exhibit at San Francisco's De Young Museum.

The iPad paintings are part of a series called "Bigger Yosemite" and part of a larger Hockney exhibition at the museum. Some of the paintings have been printed out on a huge scale, with some of the works of Yosemite National Park measuring nine feet wide and 12 feet high. The 76-year-old Hockney started making paintings on the iPhone in 2009 with the Brushes app, and jumped to the iPad when it arrived in 2010.

Hockney loves the portability of Apple's devices as a digital sketchbook, and used the devices on two trips to Yosemite to create the paintings that make up "Bigger Yosemite." At a 2010 Paris exhibit of his digital paintings of plants and flowers, Hockney remarked that "sometimes I get so carried away, I wipe my fingers at the end thinking that I've got paint on them." The De Young Museum exhibit includes 17 paintings made on an iPad and printed out, as well as 147 other digital works on seven LED displays.

"David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition" runs through January 20, 2014.