Drawing with iPad and Pencil

I'll admit that Elinor looks a little creepy

Jessi and I recently purchased new iPad Pros and an Apple Pencil. Jessi got the 12.9" for drawing artwork and I got the slightly smaller 7.9" for casual use and meetings.

And, the Pencil (or any stylus I'm sure) is really cool. It's gotten me into art too. Check out these drawings I made for the Furlo Bros Tech Podcast:

Episode 238: James & Matthew Hit Peak Tangent

Episode 239: Everyone Told You Apple Virtually Had a Ton of Gold

Episode 240: Everything Annoying with the Stock Market

I know I'm not the best artist in the world, and that's one thing I really like about the iPad: It helps someone as non-artistic as myself make something that still looks cool. There's something about the vivid colors combined with copious amounts of water color that works.

Right now my app of choice is Paper by 53. I really like their fountain pen and water color brush. I pretty much use those two exclusively. I start by finding a picture I want to draw and save it on my iPad. Then I import it into Paper, which automatically makes it a base layer.

Then I trace on top of the picture in a new layer. I use their color picker to make sure my colors match the picture's color too. Once I'm done, I delete the original picture and am left with my "artwork".

Whiteboard Videos

The other cool trick is creating whiteboard explainer videos. Here's one I made for ProDIYLandlord:



That was also made using Paper. I plugged my iPad into my Mac and recorded my iPad's screen using QuickTime Player.

I also read my script into a microphone, and combined the video and the audio in iMovie. I sped and slowed down the video to match my words.

(BTW, that opening title was made using Keynote, which allows you to record your presentations)

Pretty cool, right?