http://drawger.com/donkilpatrick/ Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:04:43 EST FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://drawger.com/_images/drawger_leo_logo.gif http://drawger.com/donkilpatrick http://drawger.com/donkilpatrick/index.php?section=articles&article_id=13921

About two weeks ago, like many others, I received the shocking news that Imre Molnar has passed away. This is a huge loss for his family, for the College for Creative Studies, and for many others who knew him.   Imre Molnar is one of the five important mentors in my life so far. I am a firm believer in that one can find mentors of all kinds throughout life, but there are those rare individuals that stand out from the rest that you remember often. There are many mentors in one’s life, but there are few who challenge you. Imre was one of these for me. I have found in many instances when I remember mentors such as Imre that these remembrances act as catalysts for meaningful change in my life. His challenge to me many times was to not become complacent, and to not accept mediocrity from myself, but to expect more. This is not an easy task.   Many times a mentor like Imre can be frustrating, but I have found that this is the case only because I knew his criticisms were right most of the time. Imre always did this in a kind but firm manner, and few people possess this talent to lead you towards the serious self-reflection of things that you can improve upon.   I miss him already, and it will take some time to find another mentor like him, but maybe I never will. Maybe the lesson that I need to reflect on this that I need to see in myself the qualities that he saw and be that kind of mentor to others. I feel that it is sad that it takes something like this for me to reflect upon this, but maybe not.   You see someone like Imre is like one of those rare comets that streams by the earth every few hundred years, and is brilliant to watch. You feel privileged to have been here to see it. They are only here for a short time, but how memorable they are!   I will never forget him, and I will do my best to be that kind of mentor.  

]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:04:43 EST http://drawger.com/donkilpatrick/index.php?section=articles&article_id=13612

This past November I finally broke down and purchased an I-Pad 2 after having debated with myself for some time. I have found that this has been one of the most productive tools that I have had the pleasure of using, and I have really enjoyed experimenting with using this as a tool for my art and illustration.    My primary goal in buying this was not to have an overgrown I-Phone, or just to waste my time with video games or something like that, but it was to have a goal of using it as a means to be more productive. I set out with the intention of learning to use this as another painting medium, as well as have the convenience of taking something more compact on the road with myself as I travel.    I have downloaded almost every art app that is one the market currently, and have bought a range of styluses that one can use with the I-Pad. In the process of working on my i-pad, I have received all kinds of questions about which apps are good to use, what stylus works best, and how one can take one of these things outside with them if they want to do some plein air painting. I hope to use this post to answer some of these questions by reviewing what I have bought and used thus far, but by no means is my review conclusive or definitive. I am sure that there are better reviews out there online, but I wanted to give the perspective from someone who has got back into painting, and offer my two bits.    The apps-   Like I mentioned I have downloaded almost every art app out there, and enjoy most of them for various reasons, but my favorite app I have found so far is Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro. I like this app most because it is most like Photoshop, and from what I have used so far, it has the most export options that can be a challenge for an I-Pad. Sketchbook Pro has the ability to export layered Photoshop files to Dropbox, and not only that but it can export layered files that have transparent backgrounds on the layered image file. I enjoy using Procreate and Inspire Pro in conjunction with Sketchbook Pro, but my experience has been that these other apps don't offer the same export options (but maybe someone out there can correct me on this, and I welcome that...). I have started illustration jobs on my I-Pad in Sketchbook Pro, export the file to Dropbox, and then download these images to my laptop to place the finishing touches in Photoshop without any kind of difficulty. It has really made my life more convenient when I don't feel like taking my entire digital studio with me when I am out and about.  One thing that I really enjoy about using Sketchbook Pro with Inspire or Procreate is that I can work an illustration up to a certain point in Sketchbook Pro, and then place the finishing touches in Procreate and/or Inspire Pro. I have found that these two latter apps have a more painterly feel to them, and I usually take an image in them to soften edges, or add a more painterly feel to them. I also prefer the user interface with Sketchbook Pro more so than I do with the other apps. It has a color wheel window and brush options box that is easy to use and relatively quick to work and change with.    The I-Pad 2- I haven't really used other tablet devices as much yet, but I have downloaded the Sketchbook Pro app for both my I-Pad and my daughter's Kindle. There is a big difference between these two in terms of surface reactivity and some differences with interface, and I hope to compare the I-Pad with more robust tablets in the near future. I have found as with most of my Apple products that I use, they almost always get it right when it comes to the user's experience. I hope that in the near future that the I-Pad will follow what Wacom already does well with the Cintique screen. This will make having a brush stylus more effective and responsive, and less reliant on an app's interface for changing brush size, opacity, etc.    The styluses- In addition to buying almost every art app around, I have also purchased a range of styluses for my I-Pad. I have bought styluses on the lower end of the price scale as well as those that are on the higher end of the pricing scale, and I have found that they all have their strengths, and a couple of them have had issues even though they are on the higher end of the pricing scale.    To be honest, I have found that painting with my fingers has been the most effective, and I feel like I have a better connection with the medium this way.    The "two dollar" stylus from Walgreens. When I was in Salt Lake earlier this summer, I came upon this stylus as I was at the cashier's, and bought a few of them thinking that my children could use them and there wouldn't be any worries if they trashed them. I didn't expect much from these cheaply priced styluses, but they have actually worked very well considering they aren't anything special. They aren't made of the higher quality materials as the others, lack a little bit with sensitivity, but they mostly work just fine while painting.   A "Griffin" stylus. I bought this the other day while at Target shopping for my children's school supplies. This stylus costs $14.95, and is a decent stylus for the price. I use it primarily for blocking (massing) in shapes and toning my surfaces in Sketchbook Pro, and have better responsiveness than the cheaper stylus I bought at Walgreen's. All in all, it works well, but the tip on this stylus is distracting because of its larger size.    The Wacom "Bamboo" tablet stylus- Before I found a couple of styluses that actually use a brush, I dropped 40 bucks on this stylus for my I-pad, and out of all the styluses I have bought, this stylus the most disappointing for me. It only took two weeks of normal wear and tear the non-replaceable rubber tip on it, and now it is basically useless. I don’t feel that the price tag is worth it because with this stylus Wacom really doesn’t offer anything that resembles what one can do with their other product line.  Partly due to the technology of the I-Pad not being as sensitive as a Cintique screen, and partly due to how Wacom failed to envision what a tablet stylus could be, I have no love for this particular stylus.   The "Sensu" brush- a student of mine turned me to this brush tipped stylus on Facebook a few months back. I watched the videos on the Sensu website, and I had to have one. The tip of the brush has the look for a typical Round brush, and the bristles work well. I ordered one of these a couple of months ago, and it worked so well for about three weeks then stopped working altogether. I was left wondering what could have happened to this for it not to work, and could think of anything because I treated this like a baby.  I was so disappointed because this happened around the time that I was taking my I-Pad out to paint with on location. I have bought a replacement, and I hope that if there were problems with the early styluses, that Sensu has worked out the problems. This is the stylus that I recommend most, and I would have given it five stars had my first one not crapped out on me.   The "Nomad" brush- I just got this in the mail within the past few days, and after opening the box, I saw a brush that looks more a brush used for a can of rubber cement. It took a little bit of time to get myself used to how large the bristles appear while painting, but it is a decent brush. I might use it for larger washes, and for blocking in large areas, and use the Sensu stylus for finer detail, but I feel that it might be a bit excessive.   My fingers- in all honesty, I feel that simply using your fingers to paint on an I-pad is the best way to go. I have had no problems using them, and they won’t wear out for a while I hope. I really see no difference between using my pointer finger for painting on my I-pad than I do when I hold a brush in my hand while I am painting with traditional media. I always keep in mind that the brush that I hold is an extension of my hand, and it makes a difference how I rotate that brush when I make a brushstroke. Sure it is strange at first to go back to finger painting, and I sometimes have difficulty because I worry that maybe this is pat of that trend where people might be getting away from learning the muscle memory to draw with a pencil or paint with real paint and a brush. I feel that way for a bit, then I get caught up in how fun it is to use this thing, and it has really had an improving effect on my work with traditional media.   I searched online for ways to mount my I-Pad on a tripod so that I could take it plein air painting and into figure drawing sessions. After spending a few minutes searching online, I found a backing with a screw mount for a tripod, and this has worked out extremely well, and makes it so simple to take everywhere. The Grifiti i-Pad tripod mount costs $20.00, and has not only been useful for my plein air painting and model drawing/painting sessions, but has proved itself useful for watching movies, and as an impromptu display with a Bluetooth keyboard for typing up emails and other documents.  There are Velcro strips on the back of the Grifiti tripod mount, and the hood I made out of black matte board attaches to these without a problem, and this hood works great for when I am outdoors and want to fight off the glare of the I-Pad’s glossy screen. The hood i made looks similar to what an American football referee might look into for reviewing a disputed play on the field...   All of the illustrations in this post were created primarily using Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro app, and i export them to dropbox. I really like how Sketchbook pro allows you to save out your image as layered Photoshop files. The image resolution is pretty good, but i usually take my images into Photoshop anyways and do a bit of work on them to "crispen" them up. Most of what i am showing here isn't necessarily reflective of what i am doing right now with my work, but it has been a fun experience, and i really feel that there are real possibilities with this medium. I am using Sketchbook pro right now to do studies of pieces that i am currently working on for my first solo show in November. I will post these soon after the show opening on November 3rd. So all in all I have found that making that purchase was well worth the money this past November, and though the technology for touch screens will improve in the not so distant future, it is a great medium to explore right now, and I am excited for the possibilities. 





















]]> Sun, 09 Sep 2012 22:21:04 EST http://drawger.com/donkilpatrick/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12813

Signal-Return- Teach, Serve, Connect, and Produce.   A couple of the large reasons I have been A.W.O.L. from Drawger these past few months have been both that I have assumed the role of Chairperson of my department at CCS, and that I have been involved in an amazing collaboration- Signal-Return.   Last night we held our preview opening at Signal-Return, and it was one of the most special nights of my life.   When I was asked to participate in this project over a year ago, I jumped at the opportunity. I knew then as I do now that this would not only be an amazing venue for artists, illustrators, and designers, but for writers and the Detroit community as well.   In the process of working on this project I have gained a lot personally as an artist and person. I have made friendships with my fellow board members and director that have changed my life forever, and they are as much of an inspiration to me as the project itself.  I am excited for what is ahead! I can’t wait to work together with them as we hold workshops, participate in the Detroit community, and invite artists (i.e. many of my fellow Drawgerites…) and other creative minds, and truly make this a space where everyone feels welcome and is willing to truly collaborate and participate.   Be on the lookout for some amazing workshops in the immediate future, workshops that deal with learning letterpress, binding of books, and creating posters and broadsides.   Be on the lookout for amazing printed material for sale in our storefront! Come on down to Detroit’s Eastern Market to do your holiday shopping!   I want to take this opportunity to personally thank my fellow board members- Toby Barlow, Helen Ectors, Ryan Schirmang, Megan O’ Connell (our director), Leon Johnson, Michael Stone Richards, Rebecca Mazzei, Blake Vanier, and Amy Deines.   I also want to thank the many individuals and volunteers that have been such a great support to us so far- Christian and his team of M1/DTW (our architect and responsible for designing our beautiful milwork), Naomi, Amanda LeClaire (for taking a ton of photos of construction from week to week...), The fine folks from Eastern Market Corporation, Eric McClellan, Andrew Davis, Christian Mulligan, Aaron, Lucas, Mark Stead, Fosdick printing, Inland Printing, Don Schultz, Andrew and Dave Churchman, Jessie Doan, Phil Cooley, Bryan Baker, Mark Moreno, and many more who I know I am forgetting at the moment. Please forgive me for my poor memory, and please remind me to include the names of those who I have forgotten.   Here below are photos of the construction process from the start to where the space is now. We hope to work with you soon.



































































]]> Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:29:18 EST http://drawger.com/donkilpatrick/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12310











































]]> Tue, 10 May 2011 04:38:16 EST http://drawger.com/donkilpatrick/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11930

It has been too long between this and my last post here on Drawger, and these past two months have been quite momentous for me in almost all senses of the word.  I have come close to posting this or that, but when I get it all ready, I lose my enthusiasm for what I was about to post so I have waited.  I have a lot of new work and news to share, and I will post that later. Last weekend my wife and I decided to give our old, jank sectional couch away, and I am glad to have seen it go. We bought it a summer ago so that we could seat all of us together, and have a couch that our kids could trash without us worrying about it. It was the type of couch that eats everything that falls out of your pockets, and I lost everything from my cell phone to pens to my money in this thing. One of these things that were lost in this couch was my Parker 45 fountain pen that was my go- to pen for everything. Before it fell out of the couch when I was moving it into the moving truck, I thought that I had lost the pen in one of my travels. In the meantime I was able to make due with other stuff that I have, but it just wasn’t the same, and I even bought an inexpensive Rotring pen to use for whatever job came my way. The problem with a lot of what I was using is that it just didn’t have the same feel, or line quality that I got with the Parker. The Rotring leaked a lot, and skips like crazy. I don’t ever recommend getting one if you want to get into the fountain pen/ portable dip pen thing. I filled the Parker 45 with ink, and to my surprise it wouldn’t write. I tried cleaning it in an ultrasonic cleaner, and everything else I could think of, but no dice (* side note- I was eventually able to use the Parker. I found out how to properly clean it via the Internets…). When this sort of thing happens I get can’t let it go, and in my search for something online that would replace my Parker, I found an amazing pen that only costs 14 bucks- the Noodler’s Ink Co. piston-fill fountain pen. This Noodler’s pen can be taken apart completely, and is so easy to take apart that it only takes using a Q-tip to do it. You can also swap different nibs into it, and if you are careful to clean it out right away, put all kinds of ink into it. The problem for me when I travel is whether or not I should bring my crow-quill pens and such, and this Noodler’s pen solves that for me. I can take this with me anywhere and load it with whatever permanent ink I want, and if I clean it out right away, it won’t clog up on me. I have been using Noodler’s ink in it, but I am sure you can use a variety of ink.  

















]]> Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:04:16 EST http://drawger.com/donkilpatrick/index.php?section=articles&article_id=11647

I recently was invited by my good friend and artist Andrew Davis to contribute work to an interesting project. He was contacted by a gentleman who is filming an independent film at an abandoned church in Detroit. When Andrew described this all to me a couple of weeks back i didn't know what to make of it, but i was intrigued, so i went over to the space to check it out and speak with the filmmaker. The church was most likely built sometime in the early 1920s, and used to be a Catholic church. It has a vast interior that my photos don't really capture, and hasn't held meetings or been occupied since 1988. The filmmaker had the permission of the building's current owner to film in there, and the owner was open to the idea of artists adding to the space in soem sort of way. the idea was to prepare the space for it's next life as a community center. My thinking was to remember what this space meant to those who used to inhabit it, and to add not detract from it's integrity. I hope that this was accomplished. A big thanks to Andrew Davis, Jeff Mullin, and Ray Domzalski for teaming up and assisting me with this.











































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