“In The Wind” by Jinjin Sun.
Drawing is fundamental to developing creative literacy. It is most people’s first connection to creativity, and every great painting, sculpture, film, or building began with a drawing. And today, more than ever, it’s essential for everyone to develop creative literacy. As artificial intelligence takes over more and more repetitive and mundane tasks, creativity is the unique human quality that sets each of us apart and helps us succeed.
Connecting brain and hand through drawing unlocks creative magic. To forge that connection, a digital generation needs a digital tool, which is why we’re developing a powerful and sophisticated drawing and painting application.
We gave a sneak peek of that application last fall under the codename Project Gemini. Now, as we’re approaching final release of the app later this year, we’ve named it: Adobe Fresco. Understanding how we arrived at that name will help you understand a lot about the app itself.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/3rydHqC9WtY
Video and artwork by Kyle Webster.
For those of you who have forgotten your art history, fresco (‘fresh’ in Italian) is a painting technique that has been used for centuries all over the world. The artist spreads a layer of plaster on a wall or ceiling, then – while the plaster is still wet – paints the image using a simple mixture of pigment and water. A chemical reaction binds the pigment to the still-wet plaster and the image becomes a part of the wall. Once the plaster is dry, the painter has to stop – the chemical magic is gone.
That last fact expresses something important about creativity. When inspiration strikes, you have to act before the plaster dries. We’re developing Adobe Fresco to empower spontaneous creativity. Because it’s built for the Apple iPad (with versions for other stylus- and touch-based devices to follow), you’ll be able to bring Fresco wherever you go. It frees drawing and painting from the desktop and lets you create everywhere, anytime.
The fresco technique also makes it clear how organic drawing and painting have always been. For generations, artists have distilled pigments from plants and minerals and created through the physical interaction of chalk, oils, and watercolors with paper, canvas, and plaster.
Adobe Fresco will replicate those organic interactions and expand on them. Adobe scientists have studied the chemistry of common real-world pigments like cobalt and ochre. They’ve looked at the physics of how watercolors are absorbed into thick, cotton-based paper. And they’ve examined the ways that a thick slash of oil paint dries to add dimension to a painting.
