What Apps Are We Using This Month? with Sarah Bichachi
Welcome to TheAppWhisperer’s new section, “what apps are we using this month” series, where we discover which apps you are particularly enjoying. Kicking us off today is non-other than Award Winning Mobile Artist, Sarah Bichachi.
First of all, I would like to thank Joanne Carter for this invitation to be featured in this prestigious website. I’m Sarah Bichachi, 66 years old, residing in Surprise, Arizona, an art lover and a performing artist… a jazz vocal to be exact who works as Merchandising Assistant in retail regularly and do gigs during day offs. I used to dance ballet in my younger years, but I still play the piano today. When I was diagnosed with cancer seven years ago, chemotherapy temporarily debilitated my activities. But it opened a new door to my artistic path… a path that led me to a new art form we call Mobile Art.
Apps are very interesting tools in Mobile Art. Although the apps I use vary depending on the ideas my imagination concoct, I have two basic apps that come as constants in my editing equation. First and foremost is Icolorama. This app comes in handy with editing raw images because it has almost all the tools necessary in enhancing photographs, balancing light and dark, denoising, toning and the like. Icolorama makes a good starter in my editing process before adding anything else to my primary subject.
Then, I go to Procreate. I find Procreate very convenient for color infusions because it has a tool that localizes areas in your image for coloring or superimposing other images into your primary layer without fear of it smearing outside your margins. It has a layering technology that can make you add anything you desire as much as you want to your edit without destroying your primary image, not to mention its library of awesome brushes to paint into your layers if you wish to do so as well.
Then, after Procreate is the time I will escalate my usage of apps depending on what my imagination dictates. I like to use Carbon for black and white toning. It also has a wonderful combination of grains and noises. There is Elasticam to disfigure images, Distressed FX+ for colorful grunge, Metabrush and Glaze for painterly effects, Formulas for blurry duotones. Because I love portraits, I use LightXExpress’ awesome variations of lighting and shade adjustments, filters and editing tools to set the mood and character of my subject. In Mextures, I can create and save my own textures. It is simply amazing! The list goes on and on.
This month, I was working on one of my Efflorescence series which required several blendings for a perfect collage of my face evolving into a flower. iColorama is the perfect app for interlacing two images with a fading opacity, Metabrush for the painterly effect on my face, Distressed FX+ for the grunge and LightXExpress for toning with a slight touch of a Mexture emulsion.
In my work ‘A Poem She Wrote’, almost everything was drawn and colored in Procreate. The checkered floor I tweaked in Elasticam and the final blending for the pencil and my selfies was done in iColorama.
In Monochromatic Dream, I first shaded my face in Procreate, blended the other images in iColorama, used Carbon black and white filters and toning presets then added the stars and clouds back in Procreate.
To read our other interviews in this series, please go here.
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Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
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