Apps for Artists
Here is a list with links of all my favourite apps to use as an artist.
All of these apps are free in their basic versions. As soon as you want to store a lot of data, or you want extended features, you will need to pay a monthly plan.
Evernote
This is a little app that I love to use as a memory notepad. If I need to remember anything, I take a photo or write a note and put it into Evernote. You can also easily save websites you are researching, or clippings off web pages, or handwrite notes if you have a phone or tablet with a pen.
Evernote is a great place to put photos along with a written note along with it. Having the ability to write a note alongside the photo is much better than just having a photo sitting in your Camera folder, and when you look back on it you can’t remember why you took it.
The best part about Evernote is that you can search on anything and quickly find a note. If you have taken a photo of a written page, then the Evernote search will find a word on that page, even if it is just a photo of the handwriting or typing.
I find it harder to locate a photo I took in my Camera folder a while ago, as I have to scroll back through months of photos and look at every photo to find something. It’s much easier to search for a specific thing in Evernote, which finds it for me much faster.
Dropbox
This is a must for storing photos and files and making sure they are backed up all the time. I keep all my files in Dropbox, so I can use them on the computer on y desk and then access the same files from my phone or iPad when I am on the road. I never have to worry about them not being backed up, as they are stored safely in multiple places.
Apple iCloud has a similar way of storing photos and files and keeping them safe and shared between devices, but it doesn’t like talking to devices that are not Apple. So I prefer Dropbox, which talks very nicely to every device, regardless of who makes it.
Uncle Google is our friend whenever we want to know something, like which famous artist Painted the Mona Lisa, and what does the famous painting ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ look like.
OK it’s not really an app. But Google Images is a great resource for finding photos to paint from, when you search in the right way to avoid breaching copyright.
For more info on how to use Google to find photos you can safely paint from, without breaching copyright. Learn how to do this with this post.
Of course an even better tool is your camera (or smartphone), which you can use to take your very own photos.
Asana
If you are running around trying to keep a million things in your head for all the stuff you gotta do, it will send you crazy. The best way to release this stress is to write it all down. Get it all out of your head and you will feel a lot better.
The problem with writing things down on a To Do pad of paper or notebook, is that you have to take it with you everywhere. When you cross things off it turns into a mess and you need to rewrite tasks out again.
Asana is a To Do list that works beautifully in any browser, and there are phone apps available as well.
you can organise your tasks into projects, so that you focus on like tasks at the same time, which increases your efficiency.
For example, you might have projects called:
- Art to Paint
- Galleries to Visit for Inspiration
- Art Supplies to Buy
- Home Stuff to Do
- Business Stuff to Do
Last Pass
In this day and age of having dozens of passwords and PINs to remember, it is now getting impossible to remember them all.
You can store all these passwords in LastPass, and then unlock them with a single master password. It is the Last Password you’ll ever have to remember. Nobody else can get into your Lastpass if you keep your Master Password safe, so all your other passwords are kept safely locked away inside the vault there.
LastPass is available as an app or it will also work on your desktop in any browser, and it will feed your login details into the screen without you having to type them in.