I get a lot of press releases in my email, and quite honestly most of them get skimmed quickly, if at all, and then forgotten about. When one does capture my attention, it’s usually something related to one of my personal hobby horses, such as HDMI distribution or automation and control.

The press release/event invitation I got from a vendor named ArtRage to a San Francisco gallery opening that’s dedicated to art created on the iPad may seem pretty far out of my wheelhouse, but it got my attention for two reasons. First, it’s iPad related, and second, it struck me as pretty cool.

According to the release, ArtRage for iPad lets users become a mobile digital artist on their iPad, providing the experience of “painting” digitally on an iPad canvas with oil paints that smear and blend, and watercolors that flow together “to create soft, wet gradations,” just as they would on real-life media.

At a purchase price of $6.99 through the App Store, it’s not expensive either. I paid more than that for iPeng to manage iTunes on my music server through my iPad. So in the interest of journalism I’ve downloaded it and have messed around with it. I’m no artist, but it’s very different experience from most digital drawing programs.

Here’s the detail of the event they’re holding, in case you’re interested:

FUTURE/CANVAS 2 iPAD ART GALLERY OPENING
IN SAN FRANCISCO –
FEATURING ARTRAGE

MON, JUNE 6, 2011 (First Day of Apple WWDC)
8:00 PM – 12:00 AM
Gray Area Foundation For The Arts, The Warfield Building
998 Market Street, San Francisco, CA

The event features a presentation entitled “The Emerging Medium of iPad Art” with Live Artists Bo Paweena, Barbara Lietzow and David Newman Painting with ARTRAGE on the iPad & Showing Interchange with ArtRage 3 Studio Pro

If you do a Google search for the artists mentioned, you’ll find their online portfolios of work done on the iPad, many of which are quite remarkable. For more information, go to http://www.artrage.com