T is for Trouble: an interview with fingerpainter Matthew Watkins
(We met Mr. Watkins in shabby café south of the Tiber, 11h am. He arrived very well-dressed though slightly tired out, sipping his macchiato, a nervous tick on the left eye.)
fingerpainted.it: Mr. Watkins they say, suspiciously black cars with tinted screens have been seen in front of your place lately. Any ideas why?
Matthew Watkins: Ha ha… If you are refering to my latest series “T is for trouble” I can tell you that I have the right to remain silent, though I find that increasingly difficult because I am having so much fun!
Tell us a bit more about it: it’s called ‘T is for Trouble, an ABC of crime’, so it certainly is for little kids? What’s the idea behind it?
It’s true that I started writing for children, older children, but by the time i got to C it was all over… I was making a book for adults.
Orpaned Stories – 140 characters and 1 fingerpainting
“one hundred and forty characters of story, with no past and very little future. Fingerpainted on my iPhone”
…says Matthew Watkins, and if you are already a fan of his little stories, make sure you follow his OrphanedStories on twitter.
It had already been a very long day but no wild dogs were going to stop Herb from getting to Groveners Farm. An Orphaned Story.
iPhone ping pong paintings – the movie
Remember that chat between Matthew Watkins and me?
Well, here’s the movie:
iPhone mash – a ping pong painting from Benjamin Rabe on Vimeo.
A first glimpse: Creating a storyboard on the iPhone
(In this post, Thierry Schiel shares his first experiences in creating a storyboard completely on the iPhone. Thierry is a traditional animator on some 10 feature films and has also created and directed two full length CGI feature films “Tristan and Isolde” and “Renart the Fox”. He is also one of the most skillful fingerpainters you’ll find.)
Making a storyboard for a short film means doing between 150 to 200 drawings to tell a story. For my current CGI film I decided to try changing my PC/Wacom habits and to use the combined strength of Sketchbook Mobile and Hitchcock apps on my iPod Touch.
But would it work like it should?
The drawing part
It was very easy to do a drawing test as I had already used for some time Sketchbook Mobile and really appreciated its qualities. At first I was really impressed by how close a result I get to what I usually do on my desktop. With SBM I get the unique combination of layers, high resolution and beautiful lines for my drawings.
Matthew Watkins is ‘numero uno’ in Europe to exhibit his iPhone paintings
[This site is on display during the exhibition, so if you want to leave a message to the visitors, please do so in the comments!]
Bari, Italy | 19.09.09: Matthew Watkins, canadian artist living in Italy and editor of this site opens the gates to his first art-show, L’arte ai tempi dell’iPhone today at C&C, the Apple-Retailer in Bari, Italy.
Matthew has not only put up a large collection of his fingerpaintings, visitors will also be able to see the world’s first handmade Tibetan carpets designed on an iPhone.
Like many, Matthew has discovered fingerpainting (i.e. painting on the iPhone) early 2009, and it has unleashed his creative forces in such an impressive way that by now he has painted over 300 little masterpieces. Every piece seems to tell his own little story, and often he adds some additional lines or even dialogues to enrich those ‘orphaned stories‘ as he calls them.
The art-show got quite some media buzz in Italy, with Matthew being on the Newspaper and even TV.
So, you can’t come? Then go have a at look our gallery. 🙂 Thx, Matthew and everybody enjoy the show!
Under the highway

Under the highway, originally uploaded by Matthew Watkins.
“I was enjoying the sunrise and thinking what a cool place this was was and wishing that i didn’t have a suitcase full of dough. That was when i heard tires squealing and the roar of a big sedan”.
dorkboy paints webcomics on his iPod
Damian Willcox starts to do the right thing. (via @jlivingston)
Brushes vs. Layers vs. Inspire – reviewed through painting :)
I don’t believe much in which-tool-is-better-shootouts, but this hands-on review by ideo2004.彥 is a fantastic way to compare the apps not by their features, but by the style and quality they yield.
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