My daughter Ludi’s drawing of me, created in Adobe Ideas on an iPad 2.

Today was “Parents get to watch dance class” day. In the afternoon my daughter Ludi and I went to see my oldest daughter, Jadzia. The “public” part of the class came at the end, so Ludi and I were waiting for a bit. During the downtime we played a few games on the iPad, and then she drew a picture of me using Adobe Ideas.

It’s amazing what sort of graphical tools are available for mobile devices now. For example, I love the Paper app. My kids don’t quite grasp all of its cool tools, but they do appreciate that their art lives in their own “books.”

We’ve come a long way from the tools I had when I was a kid! My art program of choice in the late 1980s / early 1990s was Neochrome, a program included with almost every Atari ST ever made. Talented folks could use Neochrome to make some cool images. I was not such a person, but that didn’t stop me from making my own creations.

Here are a few gems from me and my brother Justin:

S.A.F. was my made up grade-school club, “Space Academy Federation,” which I played at recess. I drew lots and lots of space ships and galactic maps on paper. This is perhaps the only one I tried to draw in NEOchrome.

One of my own Neochrome creations. The bottom half of the image is the Neochrome GUI.

A psychedelic ad for newspaper called the “Stamp Club Post,” which I created in Neochrome as a kid. I don’t design newspapers this way anymore. Maybe I should.

One of my brother Justin’s Neochrome creations. The bottom half of the image is the Neochrome GUI.