iPhone Art: Incredible Drawings Made On iPhones (PHOTOS, POLL)

For its November 16, 2009 issue, New Yorker magazine featured an image of the New York skyline at night, with one unusual twist: the image was created not with brushes, pastels, or pencils, but on the iPhone.

Jorge Colombo, an artist, drew the cover using Brushes, an iPhone app.

He's not the only artist to use the Brushes application to "finger paint" these mobile masterworks.

We asked HuffPost readers to submit their own iPhone artwork, made with apps, iPhone cameras, and their imagination, which we've featured in the slideshow below. From portraits to landscapes, still-lives to abstract works, the iPhone "paintings" are colorful, moving, creative, and absolutely worth a look!

Check out some stunning examples of iPhone sketches in the slideshow below, be inspired, and then send us your own!

Have you used the Brushes app on your iPhone? Captured portraits, landscapes, or still-lives in paintings on your phone? Show us!

iPhone Art

 

Click participate, upload a picture of your iPhone drawing (and a description, if you'd like) and click submit!

Using the "Brushes" app on the iPhone, artist Jorge Colombo has created covers for New Yorker magazine, such as the one seen here.

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Comments

[Geri Davis]

There are three revolutionary things at work with the Brushes application, and possibly with the other similar apps:

1. The ultra-portable plethora of colors and brush sizes available. If this were not digital you would need to pack a palette, a collection of brushes, paper towels, container of medium (water, turp, etc.) - plus your work surface... that's a lot of stuff!

2. The medium is self illuminated - meaning you can work in any light conditions, including complete darkness - this is totally revolutionary! Whistler is probably rolling in his grave at the thought. Twilight, concerts, nothing is out of bounds. That's why Jorge Colombo's cover comes across as so of-the-moment; ten years ago he would have had to work from photographs, which distort the light and just don't look the same as the way our eye sees in the dark, or else he would have needed to light his surface, which is extremely challenging.

3. In a word: Ground. The ability to fill and work in layers allows you to work in a way that is majorly time consuming if not impossible with physical media. Grab the main colors, drop them in, and sculpt into them with darker and lighter tones, it's a really flexible format for working with lightscapes.

[mikemedeiros]

This is NOT news. The New Yorker already did this for their June 1 , 2009 issue.

[Krek]

Apple shareholders will be delighted

[celere]

Several of the images shown are *most certainly* art. The medium doesn't really matter; it's what you do with it.

[Politiqo]

What app do you use to make these drawings??

[Pupadup4oBama]

I think it said "brushes" it's probably like $10

[firewmn]

&.." finger paint"...app..

[1201go]

There are lots of free/inexpensive alternatives as well. (ex: MyPaint, iDoodle, Colors, Sketchbook Mobile, etc)

[Benjamin Rabe]

Mostly I use Brushes which is 4.99, but there's also SketchbookMobile, Layers or Inspire to name the main ones. You can find more info on http://fingerpainted.it

[Geri Davis]

Jorge Colombo uses Brushes, David Hockney evidently is using Brushes as well. The other apps listed above are not the ones used in the images you see posted here. Brushes is $4.99, and totally worth it. Have fun!

[James Caroline]

makes me think about covers for my next book...

[peaceonearth]

There's an iphone app called iWallFlower that allows you to see the iphone art that has been submitted by people worldwide, and submit your own. You can rate them and view them by highest rated for the week, and every week there are some that are astoundingly beautiful. One of my absolute top favorite apps.

[Pupadup4oBama]

wow, thanks!

[javajava]

Not art, ephemeral expression. Akin to visual posting. There is no argument about the talent in the creators in new visual medium nor the impact and artistry of some of the images but art ought to evoke a more visceral response. Art is not just pretty pictures. Those images will be swallowed under a tide of like images in your mind by tomorrow. Digital media continually evolves and the skill-set to manipulate media is being defined here, in my opinion, as expression of artistic vision. It is craft. How many of the millions of magazine covers created, however appealing visually, are truly works of art.

[ptobe]

I believe that you're definition of art is woefully lacking. It necessarily requires a very personal appraisal = it will be different for every person = it cannot possibly be considered a universal standard = EPIC FAIL.

What is art, if not "ephemeral expression"? That which causes you to post pseudo-intellectual decrees might move me to tears.

My grade twelve English teacher had a much simpler, more elegant, more cogent definition for "art" than yours: "Art is an experience shaped and shared." I've never heard a better. As an artist myself, I get very tired and very bored of hearing haughty and arrogant pronouncements that confine "art" to the realm of those who share a particular sensibility.

Hey - you're entitled to your opinion about the quality and effectiveness of other people's artistic endeavours, but to simply deny it's qualification as "art" is supremely imperious.

[Mannock]

Since the end of the Second World War, the static pronouncements of art have changed in an astounding manner and art embraces a larger circle of works. But at the core, your English teacher's line is the one that works. This New Yorker cover IS and artwork. It certainly caught my eye as such. The New York Times profiled a black and white iPhone photographer recently. I am sure that there many who complain about this too, but it is as your teacher says, shaped and shared. Also, kudos to the digital artists for their audacity.

[Mannock]

Sorry, this work just cries out "Art". Colombo is a real artist and he knows what he is doing. It may be a short cut, but he used it well, much like Picasso's Bull's Head http://www.homodiscens.com/home/core_content/ways_of_knowing/image-j/index.htm . It is not fair to demean this as merely a short cut of sorts. While it may be, it is an audacious one!

[1201go]

cool definition your teacher has.

Poet Mark Doty said "Making Art is the discipline of paying attention.

[javajava]

For the record. I define ephemeral as short lived. I take your point on how you feel about how your work is defined and who who makes definition. The teachers quote is elegant. As to being imperious, I have my opinions.

[Agathena]

I agree with javajava who has carefully described the difference between digital manipulation and art. The headline calls it iPhone art and that's what it is. Everyone is looking for a shortcut to actual drawing and painting. People want to immediately possess a skill that takes years of practice before it can produce something called 'art.'

[Mannock]

Sorry, this work just cries out "Art". Colombo is a real artist and he knows what he is doing. It may be a short cut, but he used it well, much like Picasso's Bull's Head http://www.homodiscens.com/home/core_content/ways_of_knowing/image-j/index.htm . It is not fair to demean this as merely a short cut of sorts. While it may be, it is an audacious one!

[1201go]

So, in order to create "real" art one would have to not take short cuts. Therefor they would not be able to take a short cut by using pigments or canvas created by others, in fact it would also preclude the concept of the particular medium...or do we pick a random point and say "here is the short cut that is accepted"?

[washlib]

I call it art. Since "art" is subjective, I am completely right, for myself.

You are welcome to have such a narrow definition of "art", but creativity comes in many forms, and digital is just another type of paintbrush and canvas.

I take it you didn't look at all the pictures? Some of them were quite memorable.

[GodYesOrNo]

We just love everything Apple, just wish they would make an iCar.
GodYesOrNo.com

[SmartladyDem]

There are rumors about an Apple Itablet coming out after Christmas, I can't wait.

[GodYesOrNo]

So nothing on the iCar,eh?

[Geri Davis]

I actually had a dream last night that apple was making trains for New York City. Shiny quiet things that floated in the air, they were hypnotic!

[lilnyc]

These people are incredibly talented!

[hopefull2008]

Oh this is so ... I can't believe it .. that this could be happening .. images on a digital device ...

[Lexie]

I love the streetcar picture. It looks like a Toronto streetcar, which for some reason Torontonians are very fond of.

[SparkyGump]

Not too surprised at this. Once I was giving a friend's younger brother a ride. While we were waiting for the light, he drew a caricature of me on the steam of the window. I was floored. It was like 30 seconds and he was yakking away about his girlfriend or something and he makes this totally cool picture on my car window! While I've never been artistic, I've always been most impressed with spontaneous creations like those featured here.

[oxytocin77]

These are trivial little drawings that would garner no attention if they were done in traditional media. It's depressing to see them get all of this attention just because it's done on a holy iPhone.

[Aabby]

wow- I hope no one such things of your work. These people are very talented. it may not be your cup of tea...

[Antifascist-08]

Jealous much?

[Antifascist-08]

Lets see you do it on your phone.

Creativity rules.

Grumpy old reta rdica ns su ck.

[JoDeeVa]

Did you even read the intro? David Hockney/ Jorge Columbo trivial little drawings? In fact, any and all of these talented artists most likely draw, paint, create in your so-called "traditional media".. the fact that they can do it on an iPhone, is why they do.. just another way to be creative. That's what art is all about.. it evolves. As another commenter noted, artists will draw in steam on a window. Why limit yourself? Just because one may have an issue with the "holy iPhone".. they would do just that and whine about the attention others get?

[washlib]

um, since when is garnering "attention" required to call something art? Inspiration and creative use of tools including digital media is what is required. Would you say the same thing about picasso, or Michelangelo's "little drawings"? While i'm sure they would consider them inconsequential, the world at large still considers them "art".

I would put some of those prints on my wall, and that is my definition of good art. btw, 95% of the crapola i see in galleries that they call "art" you couldn't pay me to hang.

Did you look at all the pictures? I have a hard time believing you think all of them to be "trivial little drawings".

[fcsakes]

You people are so talented - I envy that.

[pieeye]

Not so much talent as it exceptional skill. Anyone can learn to paint and as soon as you have mastered that, any tool will suffice.

[bobbobato]

that's not necessarily true. On the iPhone,it's extremely difficult to draw since you could only use your fingers and thus can't do very much detail work, since you can't see what your doing.

[insideoutgraphics]

Not all painters know how to draw and those that can draw, are not predisposed for painting.

Not everyone can be taught to paint as you suggested. Yes people can toss the pigment as well as pixels but it does not automatically follow that they will do it well. I thought the graphics were splendid. I'm an oil painter as well as CG artist. Wonder what VanGogh would have produced with an app like this:-)

[ptobe]

I wholeheartedly disagree. These sketches display much more "talent" than "skill". It's very simple to master the swipe of a finger across a smooth surface. It takes talent to parlay that into the images displayed here.

The very definition of "skill" suggests that each new tool requires a new set of "skills".