iPhone Paintings and Amazing Guitars

An animated video I painted and created using an iPhone and the amazing people I met during my life in Venice, Italy.

Sitting at a dinner table where nobody speaks your language can be frightening. Trying to stay engaged in the foreign social scene can be a difficult task when everybody speaks Italian and you’re trying to process a million words with the pathetic tourist vocab you learned on the plane ride over. Luckily, during my two months in Venice, I had my portable paint brush to relate to the people around me. I have found that my loyal iPhone helps me stay in the game when otherwise I would be tapping my fingers waiting for something to happen. In this case, not knowing the Italian language, the Brushes app helped me stay confident by giving me the universal language of colors and shapes. Brushes made me feel productive and “part of the group,” which is a state of mind most of us need to feel happy.

Brushes is an art tool for the iPhone. Using the multi-touch screen and a finger, I was able to paint portraits of my new acquaintances and share them. The paintings have stories, ones that I will remember forever.

The process of meeting strangers in the foreign land was simple: walk up to a group of friendly looking people, pull out the iPhone, launch Brushes, and paint. Eventually, someone might notice my subtle glances across the screen and become curious in what I was doing. Or, if nobody seemed to realize what I was doing, I would flip the phone around to reveal the finished painting. With a grin on my face, I would wait for their reaction. I found that the responses were almost always positive, sometimes leading to further conversations, drinks, private parties, free dinners, and even romance!

Once such story involved a very wealthy Italian business man who happened to be the subject of one of my paintings. We were in one of the many small coffee shops in Venice. After showing the man a finished portrait of himself, he invited me out to dinner, at his expense, for the next three nights.

I also met my girlfriend Marija by using Brushes to break the ice. I asked her if I could paint her and she responded with delight. I knew she was the one for me.

The Brushes app has helped me relate to the environment around me in ways that I would have never imagined. All of the paintings I created in Venice were intimate conversations with my subjects whether they realized it or not. The simple dialogue of translating what I was seeing outside into the painting inside was so potent that I am still able to remember each and every moment I experienced during these dialogues.

Some of the paintings took seconds to start and finish while others took an hour or more. I found that the Brushes app was particularly absorbing on train rides around Europe, the bar and nightlife scene, and moments of downtime. The internet connectivity of the iPhone allowed me to send the paintings instantly, via email, to the person being painted, which was fulfilling for me. I was also impressed with the export feature which allows each and every brush stroke to be replayed in chronological order, producing beautiful animations of the whole process.

My two month stay in Venice was absolutely amazing and the Brushes app and the iPhone helped me document my experience and connect with the locals in ways that were comfortable for me as an artist. If you’re like me, you usually have a pen and paper in your bag, but sometimes, when you need them most, they are no where to be found! Not true with my cell phone. Somehow, that little gadget always stays close. I have to admit, the iPhone and Brushes duo seem like the perfect match for me.

The article above was written for VeryTogether.com.