Left: Richard Shulman works on one of many self-portraits.
Above: A portrait Shulman painted from a photograph of a member of Julia Kay's Portrait Party, an invitation-only artists' community on flickr.com
'With the slow economy, I found
I had a lot of time on my hands. I
bought an iPad in June 2010 and
was drawn to the art programs. I
found four or five really good pro-
fessional programs, and I started to
play around."
His wife, Trista, was pregnant at
the time and went to bed early, so
Shulman climbed in, too, but stayed
up until 2:30 or 3 a.m. drawing.
"I couldn't put the iPad down; it
was new media, it had just came
out," says the Birmingham artist.
Because of its portability, it went
everywhere with him. He took it
to coffee in the morning and drew;
he took it to court and drew. He
began painting on the iPad just two
months later.
"I was fascinated with faces, even
though I was never any good at
them," he says. He started doing
self-portraits and then wanted to
share his work He posted them
on Flickr, a popular photo shar-
ing website, with the apropos user
name iPad Junkie. On Flickr, he
stumbled into Julia Kay's Portrait
Party (JKPP, as it's affectionately
known by members).
www.redthreadmagazine.com
Based in San Francisco, Kay
set out to do 1,000 self-portraits
in three years. That's about one a
day. When she achieved her goal
in 2010, she threw a virtual party,
inviting other artists to join the fun
and paint one another from pho-
tographs, and then post their work
on her Flickr page. The group has
grown from 60 artists and 200 por-
traits to an international commu-
nity of nearly 700 artists in various
media — including iPhone, iPod
Touch and iPad — who have posted
more than 20,000 portraits.
Participation in JKPP connected
Shulman to the small cadre of other
iPad artists around the world. In
fall 2010, he made the leap and left
his wife at home with a newborn to
attend a meeting in New York of in-
ternational artists forming a group
called the International Association
of Mobile Digital Artists (IAMDA).
"I couldn't resist," he says. "About
150 artists from all over the world
showed up, and they were just as
interested as I was in programs,
brushes, styluses. It was the most
incredible experience of my life. I
came back even more passionate,
but I needed to really learn to paint.
"I spent thousands of hours
teaching myself the ins and outs of
programs. With traditional media,
it might take me 20 years to learn
to paint, but I taught myself in 11/2
years. You can erase, you don't have
to wait for the paint to dry, and
there's no mess."
At the second IAMDA conference
last year, he was one of the present-
ers, teaching others techniques he
had mastered on his own.
Shulman, 42 and a left-hander,
became so adept at the painting
programs that he pushed some be-
yond their original parameters. He
began contacting developers with
questions, and then became one of
a small group of mobile digital art-
ists who work with developers.
He since has done live painting
demonstrations for software corn-
panies and digital brush manufac-
turers, such as Nomad Brush and
Autodesk, at conferences like the
recent MacWorld/iWorld confer-
ence in San Francisco.
"It is a symbiotic relationship
between the end-users, the develop-
ers and the device manufacturers,"
says Chris Cheung, product line
manager for SketchBook/Digital
Art for Autodesk in Toronto. 'What
is really amazing is the emotional
connection users have with the
tools they use. When this chord is
struck, magic happens.
"We see so many different types
of work, intentions, styles and
techniques. Art truly is subjective,
but I can say this: When I see the
creations by artists like Richard,
I am constantly amazed. It is cool
to know he uses SketchBook, but
when I look at his work, I only see
his work, not the tool that created
it.
"I've also seen his work develop
over the last couple of years, and
seeing his creative journey is defi-
nitely inspiring," Cheung says. 'We
are constantly inspired and amazed
by the creative ways the tools are
used and by the incredible talent.
"Richard is one of those us-
ers who stands out because of his
personal story. I mean, the guy
is an attorney who runs a private
practice. How amazing is that, that
by day he specializes in trial law
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