London Adobe #CreateNow: This is EXACTLY how the event went...

Categories: artwork, events

Tags: Adobe, stylus t. Frog, London, Photoshop Touch, Create Now, CreateNow, Adobe Sketch, Adobe Line, Ink and Slide, Bluetooth stylus

Date: 10 July 2014 20:52:49

So it's been a HECK of a month (and we're still only 10 days into it...) It started with the end of year graphics exhibition. Well. Exhibitions. One at the Bar Des Arts in Guildford, courtesy of the very amazing Kath Jones' organisational excellence, followed, three days later by the graphics takeover of the Creative Corridor from my good self, Aidan, Beth, Gio, Alex and Kath again. One the wine had worn off from the open evenings it was back on the road to the #CreateNow event hosted by Adobe all over the world. I had a ticket to waddle up to the London leg of the journey and, while there it was... well... This was the first picture I drew, in Adobe Sketch on the tube from Waterloo: Which set the tone, I think. Adobe had, a long few months ago, announced the Project Mighty (a fascinating looking connected stylus) and Napoleon (a connected ruler). Shortly before the Create Now events they had also launched a series of free iOS apps (Sketch, Line, Photoshop Mix, Voice) with the first two working more than happily with the Ink and Slide (as Mighty and Napoleon had been renamed). And I knew they would be there. Which is why I was too :) The excellent @BeatleJase lent me his Slide ruler (see what they did there?) from the get go, which is why I went easy on him when drawing: (to be fair this was drawn at the end of the day and we were all a bit punchy) The first pic I drew with Slide was this: Took a bit of getting used to, and I don't think I'm the target market for it, but it's a very nicely constructed piece of kit. Beautifully so. It feels too light to be a working unit and then, when you lay it on the screen, it... to borrow a phrase, just works. So after the brickwork I drew this: ... and, again, I was impressed with how effortlessly the ruler was a part of the screen. Now... the problem with an Adobe Create Now event is that, really and truly, I would love to be just listening and catching up on what's being said and the new functions that are being teased. But I felt like I should be drawing, so, with only half of my attention on the stage I'm pretty sure this actually happened: Eventually the effortlessly cool @Mchaize and @Rufusd finished their product demos and I held Rufus up with a water pistol filled with indelible purple ink. One of us was coming out of the stand off inked. Fortunately for both of us the water pistol was whisked away by the Adobe magicians to be turned into the next big input device*. And I had an Ink stylus to play with for an hour... *Copyright me. A water pistol screen input was always going to happen I'm astounded no-one came up with it before me. The problem was - Rufus happily told me once the ink/water pistol had been whisked away - that the Ink stylus only works (currently) with iPad 4 and up. And me, being a part time teacher with an understanding - but equally part time teacher - wife, am still on my trusty 3. Help was at hand and I hooked up with another show attendee who was happy to share her iPad 4 with the Ink stylus. I didn't mind sharing... much... :) The combination of not my stylus and not my iPad led to this: ...and a few other pics that you can see on my Flickr Feed. Incidentally the final pic above was an excellent talk, as was the talk which preceded him about Hollywood special effects but by that point I was happy to just let things happen. All in all the day completely delivered on its remit of showcasing awesome aspects of creativity and made me want to play with desktop software which is not always the case as I'm far more at home with a tablet (or several tablets). Sadly once Rufus worked out that I'd swapped his stylus for a banana I had to get the heck of (colour) Dodge: and all of that art and exercise led to Stylus T. and I being tired little screen painting partners on the way home: Although somewhere along the line I think I dreamt that I carried on with my Frog and Blueteeth picture which since the Inky addition has now had a Jot Touch PixelPoint added to it too. And that is that, I think. 'twas an excellent day, as the Adobe shows always are. Loved being able to sit and draw in it. All of the above pics, natch, were drawn with Adobe Line (free), Sketch (free) and Photoshop Touch (not free but worth every penny) on an iPad 3, iPad 4 or Tesco Hudl. Hope you like. On the Jot Touch PP score... I'd love to play with the Ink and Jot next to each other. I've got some things I want to say about the Touch but I want to play with the Ink at the same time to see if my thoughts are still fair... 'Til the next time :)