Write and draw on the run: a way to get it done!

This is a scanned in pencil drawing, and then I took it into the Art Set Pro app, used the smudge tools and added some sepia tones. It’s a page from my handmade book called, “Mother as Writer”.

When the kids were little, I spent many a day grabbing for a pen or pencil amid: folding washing, tying shoelaces, scooping some kind of mess of the floor, making beds…a sketch here and there; words plonked onto an empty envelope – or whatever was handy. Always lots to inspire me!

My art work schedule was much as you can see on the page below, from my hand made book “Mother as Writer”. There’s more excerpts on top of my page, “About”. 

I still have plenty to do at home; it’s a job you really never get to retire from. And I never tire of the daily colours and shapes that come with this work: the dazzle of dishes on the sink, a weave of washing or flowers glowing at me just outside the window; they often request to be captured in pencil lines, or watercolour washes, or to be caught in a frame of words.

To do this, these days, I mostly grab for my iPad paints and pens and love that with a few quick moves and taps between apps, I can share it so readily here, with my friends, in this internet galaxy.

You may find the writing tip sheet below, a handy reminder about writing on the run. It is a free printable.

For personal use only; not to be used for commercial purposes. If you share it with friends can you please direct them to my blog to download it. Thank you. More information about this pdf, under the picture. To download, touch on the title,

Catch your thinks into ink

Catch your thinks into ink

This picture is 23.86cm x 17.9cm centred on A4 (the paper you will need to print on) 210mm x297mm(about 8″ x 11″) It has a white border.

I ‘ve added some information below; about the apps and processes I used, to make this sheet. There’s probably quite a few, ways of doing it. However, for me after, a bit of a search around, I found these apps provided the most flexible way in create this pdf.

Looks a bit wordy, but really quite easy. Like most things, practice helps.

How I put together this, “Catch your thinks into ink sheet”.

1/ I drew the washing basket in the “Bamboo Paper” app. I saved the drawing to “iPhotos” a few times to show the different stages in the drawing, as you can see on the sheet.

2/ With the finished drawing, I place it into an app called, “TypeDrawing” (unfortunately this app is no longer available. The “Phonto” app can do a similar job) and put in the squiggly lines the of words, that flow into the washing bsaket.

2/ I took the final drawing into a landscape shaped page in “Book Creator” and had it cover the whole page.

3/ Then, I brought two of the earlier stage drawings into “Book Creator” and made them small enough to sit in either corner of the large drawing.

4/ I tapped on text in “Book Creator” and typed in most of the writing. You can easily move the text to where you want it. I tapped on the word screenshot in “Book Creator” and it was sent to “iPhotos”.

5/  From there I placed it into the “Phonto” app. Where, on the bottom, I put: my blog title, web address, and a copyright symbol and my name. I also put the symbol and my name to the left of the central drawing. I used “Phonto” for these words, as in this app you can regulate the light or darkness of words. I wanted to make them more subtle in appearance.

6/ I took the drawing into an app to resize it, which is sent back to “iPhotos”  with a more suitable pixel size for my blog. It’s called “Image size”; very handy.

7/ Then to create it into a pdf, I took it into the “Pages” app. There I positioned it so it will print up, on an A4 sheet of paper, with a white border around it.

8/ Finally, to get the pdf file onto my blog, to become a free printable, I emailed it to my WordPress site. This was the only way to get this type of file into WordPress, using my iPad.  I can quite easily upload my media/images from the “iPhoto” library onto my blog, however, it doesn’t hold pdf files.

As well, when uploading my drawing videos on the iPad, I’ve had some difficulty, however I worked out a way around that, by also mailing them to the blog. Yay! I don’t much like using a computer.

On a few occasions, I’ve had to get an image file number, from my blog dashboard using a computer.  Though a fine tip stylus may help me access them easier on my iPad.

Mostly, building this a web/blog site on my iPad and arranging my content on my site has been easy (and lots to learn) and fun. WordPress are very helpful.

Catch your thinks into ink
The black and white version. I like  the greys as well.

P.s My mum saw the black and white version, she liked it, but thought a bit of colour would be nice. Hmmm, thanks mum :)….kinda agreed with her, (always print them out to check how they look) and so I added a bit. *I do lot more printing of my iPad and some traditional art these days: updated 2020.

Thankfully, I could easily, slip the colour one into “Book Creator” under most of the words. Phew!….

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