Happy New Year 2021!

 (Drawing and painting in Pages)

My annual New Year's card with a study after Modigliani, a Snowman and a little Robin. To add the past year's flavour I drew a few covid masks, a subject of so much debate and angst.

Everything here is drawn using Pages tools.

The mask itself is a modified Polygon from the Shapes menu with a Border and an Advanced colour fill. The straps are curved lines with endpoints.

The figures 2021 are drawn with the Pen Tool. When you click on Shapes in the Tool Bar you can see it in the top right corner.

'Modigliani's' model is a combination of edited shapes with colour fills.

Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas 2020!

(Drawing in Pages)

Miserable as this year has been, still there is a cause to celebrate Christmas as a beginning of somethinig new and better.

Here is a drawing I made with tools available in Pages.

The faces are edited shapes from the Shapes menu. 

Eyes, eyebrows and the beard I made with the draw tool, the little pen you see at top right when you click on Shape in the Tool Bar.

Halos are coloured shadows from circle shapes hidden behind the faces. 

Note that Mary and Joseph have shadows going down to indicate their bodies.

The second image shows the shapes used in this computer graphics when selected.

If you have any questions ask me. 

Christian Fish sign.

We were talking about early Christians.

A friend, who is well-versed in Bible and Biblical stories, told me how they used the Fish sign as a secret password to recognise each other when Christianity was still considered a dangerous extremist sect and Christians were persecuted. I've always thought of it simply as a reference to the bread and fish miracle. But it turns out there's more to it.

You meet someone who you think might be one of yours. You put a dot in the sand with a big toe. The person standing opposite you would look at it and draw a curving line around the dot. You look at it and, with his foot, draw another curving line. They join up near the dot and cross at the other and, thus forming a representation of the Fish.

I decided to try it in Pages and here is what I got.

Click on the Shapes menu in the Toolbar of your document and choose the circle from the menu. Reduce it to the size of a dot.  

Click on the Shapes menu in the Toolbar of your document and choose the pen tool in the top right corner. 

Draw the first line by clicking in the document, then drag, let go to make the second dot, then drag again, let go and double-click on the last dot to finish the line. 

Adjust the curve as you like by dragging the midpoints, they appear automatically as you hover the cursor over the line. 

In the Inspector side pane make it thicker, change colour (here it is Mocha), and add shadow. 

Repeat the above to draw the second line. And you get a lovely looking Fish sign. 

Keep it in your document, make a screenshot or export to PDF to reuse elsewhere.

Red Ribbon for the International AIDS Day

Eve. Advanced Drawing with Pages.

Over the years, I've posted here many times on the hidden gem, i.e. little known powerful set of design tools in Pages. In many ways it is no less sophisticated than similar Adobe applications but incredibly easy to master — and a pleasure to use. Some may even find it therapeutic, a respite from your usual work. Try, for example, to design a family or a company logo or even copy a famous picture.

As Apple updated Pages, menus, tools, and shortcuts have evolved and changed. However the basic principles of drawing with Pages tools remain the same in the current version of Pages. The main tool you would want to use is the  'Pen Tool', or draw tool. In the current version, Pages 7.2, October 2018, you will find it at the top right of the Shapes menu (see screenshot at the end of this post). Click on it and begin to draw shapes, lines, modify them, give them colour, and combine several shapes to create your own original image.

Here is a detail from 'Eve', a famous print by Eric Gill (1926). (I am not publishing here the full version to comply with Google's advertising rules, but you can see it on my other blog, 'Reading Art', here. You can support both, I Work in Pages and Reading Art, by donating via PayPal, click the button at top right of the blog.)  

This image is made entirely of lines and shapes created in a Pages document. See below for more explanations.

In the image below I've selected a hair on the woman's head. Note: it is a shape, not a line. To draw it, you need to click several time with the drawing pen and double click at the end of the shape. Then curve it, give it colour (here, it is Tin from the crayon box), move it around, drag to shorten or elongate. Repeat to create more. Zoom in when you work on small details of the picture.

This next image below shows the same detail but with a different hair selected. Now, this is a line. It may be easier to draw: from the shapes menu you select 'Line' rather than Drawing Pen, and then modify it. However, it gives you fewer options when you want to change style, curvature or other features. Working with the drawing pen may be more fiddly but allows you more creative space.

Visit Reading Art blog to see the full image, and you can see the original print on Wikipedia/Wikimedia here. 

Pen Tool in shapes menu.

  

A Study after Modigliani.

Italian artists Amedeo Modigliani was friends with Russian poet Anna Akhmatova in 1910s. He made several dozen minimalist portraits of her. 

Here, I am recreating one of Modigliani's drawings with Pages' Draw tool, adding colour and some other effects. 

This is an unfinished study. I am publishing it to show the work in progress. 

Detail, head.

Composition:

The Snowman (2015)

My traditional drawing of the New Year's Snowman. 

All details, including letters, made with Apple's Pages tools.

Happy New Year.

After Modigliani, a Study Made in iWork/Pages.

This is a study after Amedeo Modigliani, the great Italian artist of the 20 Century.

I drew it in Pages using the Draw Tool (find it in Shapes menu) and combining edited shapes with various gradient colour fills. Style options for lines in Graphic Inspector give additional possibilities when working on details, for example hair. 

How to Draw a Halloween Pumpkin.

This is a short video I made in Keynote with slides from Pages (to make screenshots: Command+Shift+4) showing how to draw a Halloween pumpkin in a few easy steps.

Obama cancels summit with Putin. A cartoon strip.

Here's a cartoon I made the other day with drawings made in Pages with the Draw Tool (Pen) and put them into a ComicLife template. 

Read more on how to create a drawing/picture with iWork/Pages tools here.

Read more in my new book 'iWork for Mac OSX Cookbook' (2012), follow me on Twitter at iworkinpages, like my page I Work in Pages on Facebook and add me to your circles on Google+.

Sunny on CafePress Designs.

I've put my Sunny design on CafePress. See it on 76 different products including t-shirts and tank tops, mugs, bags, cushions and fridge magnets.

You can buy any of those via CafePress or try your hand at making your own.

See the how-to here, includes my video tutorial.

Read more in my new book 'iWork for Mac OSX Cookbook' (2012), follow me on Twitter at iworkinpages, like my page I Work in Pages on Facebook and add me to your circles on Google+

Summertime. (Drawing in iWork)

Here is another design I made dreaming of a good relaxing summer.

It consists of several overlapping shapes. The woman's body is one continuous line with a number of editing points. The left hand is a separate shape and so is the hair. Shapes have gradient colour fill. The Sun on the right is an earlier design (see here).

The larger shape has image fill instead of colour fill.

In the picture below you can see the editing points. You can add (Command+Alt and move cursor over the contour of the shape, let go when pen with plus sign appears) or delete (select an editing point and hit delete) as many points as you like.

In this close-up you can see the curving handles of an editing point. Click on the tip of the 'propeller' and drag to change the curves of the shape.

Read more in my new book 'iWork for Mac OSX Cookbook' (2012), follow me on Twitter at iworkinpages, like my page I Work in Pages on Facebook and add me to your circles on Google+ 

Sunny.

Summer is here and I made a Sunny smiley. Two versions are slightly different — I was experimenting with colour coordination.

Drawing in iWork Pages.

A few days ago I drew a picture of a blonde girl in turtleneck sweater. Here are two slightly different versions of the same picture,

In the previous post I showed the 'apple-cheek' technique.

The pictures below show how I constructed the eye with three superimposed ovals with different colour fills. Click in the colour well in Graphic Inspector to choose the colour.

Start with the largest. Insert an oval shape from the shapes drop-down menu and change its dimensions.  Then make the others.

The white 'glint' in the centre of the black pupil is the fourth shape — an edited oval. Import an oval and make it editable: Format > Shape > Make editable. Click on the red editing point and rotate the curving handle to turn the oval into a thin crescent-like shape. Do the editing in large dimensions, then reduce the finished shape in size via the Metrics Inspector. Check the 'Constrain proportions' box there.

When all the elements are in place, select them all and group: Arrange > Group.

Ovals make up the eye.

Rotate curving handle.

Group the shapes.

Read more in my new book 'iWork for Mac OSX Cookbook' 

Follow me on Twitter at iworkinpages  

Like my page I Work in Pages on Facebook 

and 

add me to your circles on Google+ 

A Study in Apple-Cheeks.

This drawing started as an exercise in adding color to cheeks and then developed into a fuller picture. Contact me if you want to use this one or commission similar.

The image consists of shapes drawn with iWork's draw tool (pen) and then edited.

I achieved 'the rosy cheek effect' by putting an oval shape with Advance Gradient colour fill over the girl's face. Advanced Gradient is in Graphic Inspector. Here it is separately:

And here's a screenshot of the Graphic Inspector showing the colours. Note that you have to choose 'Ripples' to change from sideways gradient to radial.

I was lazy and decided to edit my earlier drawing of a pumpkin into the girl's hair. Do you recognise it?

Read more in my new book 'iWork for Mac OSX Cookbook' (2012)

Follow me on Twitter at iworkinpages  

Like my page I Work in Pages on Facebook 

and add me to your circles on Google+ 

High Brow Effect (The Yawn.)

I was trying to draw a yawn, not a scream.

What I discovered is that when you move to main shape of the head up, which makes the forehead larger, the image as a whole seems to become more attractive. To myself, I've called it the high brow effect. And its features also feel more feminine. Especially after I've reduced the size of the hand.

Here is a sequence of my studies of the Yawn. The forehead slowly grows and then the hand gets smaller.
First:

1.

Then:

2.

Then:

3.

Then

4.

And reducing the size of the hand:

5.

Read more in my new book 'iWork for Mac OSX Cookbook' (2012). Follow me on Twitter at iworkinpages, like my page I Work in Pages on Facebook and add me to your circles on Google+.

More Runners Drawings.

I've made a few more runners, this time in colour and featuring both a man and a woman. All drawings are a combination of lines drawn with the Pages Draw tool (or Pen).

The brown colour is Cayenne and the grey is Steel from Crayons in Colour Viewer. The blonde woman's hair is a slightly modified Banana, and the dark haired woman's hair is Licorice.

The colour of the shadow in some drawings is a real human skin colour I picked off a photograph. The background rectangle is also coloured with varying shades of human skin off a photo (Graphic Inspector > Advance Gradient Fill > Radial Gradient Fill.)

All designs ©Alexander Anichkin. Contact the editor if you'd like to commission one like this.

 

Black Ribbons at London Marathon.

Six days after the Boston Marathon bombings over 35 thousand people ran in the London Marathon, 700 thousand cheered them on in the streets and Prince Harry, who fought in Afghanistan, presented medals at the finish. Many held up posters saying 'Boston, we are with you.' 'We shall never surrender' to the terrorists, was the message.

As a sign of solidarity in grief many wore small black ribbons. In case you want to put a black ribbon on your website, avatar or any other document, here is a sample I designed in Pages.

The ribbon consists of three rectangles I imported from the Shapes menu.

Next step is to make the rectangles editable: Format > Shape > Make Editable. Then, Format > Shape > Smooth Path. Do it with each rectangle.

When the rectangles are editable they show red dots — editing points. Drag them to change the shape of the rectangle.

When you Smooth Path of the editable shape, each editing point, when selected, also shows propeller-like curving handles. Drag these to change curves.

In Graphic Inspector, select either Gradient Colour Fill or Advanced Gradient Colour Fill. Choose complementing shades of black and dark grey to give the shapes volume. Add shadows.

Send the shape at the top, that represents the bend in the ribbon, to back: Arrange > Send to Back.

The shape on the right should be at the front: Arrange > Bring to Front.

Move the shapes with the mouse or keyboard arrows together to form the image of the ribbon.

When finished turn your Pages document into an image, PDF, JPEG or PNG. Remove the white background with the Alpha tool in Preview. Now you can use it in your projects.

The picture on the right shows the ribbon with editing points selected.

You can also make a ribbon with the Draw Tool, the last option in the Shapes menu. Read this earlier article on I Work in Pages: 'Draw your Awareness Ribbon in iWork.'

Advanced Gradient Color Fill in iWork graphics.

This drawing shows how Advanced Gradient fill in iWork can be used to give volume to your designs.

Current versions of iWork have the Advanced Gradient colour fill option. Open Graphic Inspector and click on the Fill tab to choose this option.

Click on the sliding arrows under the colour well and when Colors Viewer opens choose the colors to mix. You can mix two or more colours. Dragging the arrows changes the 'proportions' of the mix.

The two square icons below the colour well are to choose the direction of the mix. The one on the left mixes colours sideways, the second - like ripples on water. Dragging the blue point in the middle changes the position of the centre of the 'ripples.'

Next, under Stroke, click on the drop-down menu, choose Picture Frame. From the Picture Frame menu select the one with blurred edges.

Move the gradient-coloured shape over the caterpillar's body and head, duplicate and move around. To move the shape behind the caterpillar's eyes and mouth, use Arrange>Send Backward.

You can, of course, give Advanced Gradient fill to the main shapes themselves.

Minimalist Nude (4). Work like Picasso.

This video shows the great artist Pablo Picasso at work. He paints several minimalist pictures with just a few strokes. Lines in his drawings can be replicated in iWork with the Draw tool.



See previous posts here (finished work), here (steps) and here (video tutorial on curving lines in Adobe Illustrator). And have a look at the copy of Picasso's dog made in iWork.