Dorchester — Mar 10th 2020

David Moon ran through Markup as it is used in Notes, Mail on IOS and attachments in Mail on Mac OS, but also how, with the latest systems, to link from Mac to IOS device to create a drawing. Preview has a greater range of options in Markup which David suggested should be covered on a separate occasion. Whilst using Markup on Photos on the Mac, David showed how to call an IOS device to freehand marking up, except there was an alignment problem. (A visit to Apple Bath next day we eventually worked out it is a problem which only occurs if the photo was taken in Portrait orientation, Landscape works fine)

David then showed how similar palette for freehand drawing is available in Pages on IOS devices. In Pages on the Mac, whilst you can include vector graphics and shapes you cannot draw but selecting the media insert icon David showed how to use IOS device to create a freehand drawing.

David finished with a very brief introduction to the Raster painting programs iPastel and Procreate before Georgia Cheer gave a presentation of how she completed an Apple Store course on Procreate. There, they recommend you take a selfie and the use that or another photo as a background layer with reduced opacity over which to create a traced sketch. The excellence of Georgia’s self sketch, proved that this is a very good way to start learning to drawer and paint in raster.

Strangely the iPad Vector app, Vectornator which David planned to show, will not display correctly through AirPlay or a lightening connection to a projector (confirmed by Apple). But John Lemon had no such problems with EazyDraw (App Store) on his Mac and he showed us three ways he uses this vector app. Firstly engineering and architectural layouts and drawings, showing his super ‘Hobbit’ house barbecue into which he had fitted custom designed, using EazyDraw, shelving. His second example was a cleanly laid set of directions to reach a fairly obscure destination in Wales, including a traced road route, cut down to bare essentials, with text appropriately located in text boxes elaborating the route and photos showing the final turning and destination building. His third and final example was creating a logo, rather as Georgia had in her painting example using a photo, in this case of a dog’s face but tracing over it using a build up of Vector shapes. He completed the Logo by encasing the completed image in an hidden ellipse around which had placed text, all to great effect.

In the absence of Vectornator, with John’s help we took look at creating curves using Vector graphics.

We concluded with David showing an example of where had used Affinity Photo to separate an object from its background in a scanned image and inserted it into an Affinity Designer document to create a poster. Euan confirmed that he could have done the whole exercise in Affinity Designer because of the ability to switch into Raster mode made available by Affinity Photo without the need to switch from one app to the other; the Joy of Affinity!

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