Arts Design

DISCOVER COOL ART, BOOKS & SOUNDS

Petros Vellis. Interactive Starry Night.

If you love Van Gogh, and want to go deep into his paintings and process, Touch Van Gogh is a new art discovery app that can take you there. Van Gogh, like many artists, worked out his ideas on canvas, experimenting, with trial and error, correcting, changing his mind along the way, painting, and painting over his painting, until he got what he wanted from it.

Photo: Petros Vellis. Interactive Starry Night.

Touch Van Gogh acts sort of as a forensics tool, turning you into an “art detective.” You select a Van Gogh masterpiece, then swipe away layers of the artist’s process, revealing each stage of his execution. You gain insight into his thinking and his technique.

Video: Courtesy of Van Gogh Museum.

Old layers of varnish are digitally whisked away and paintings are rubbed away to reveal other paintings underneath, disclosing how Van Gogh often reused his canvasses.

You can also see how Van Gogh’s paintings have been restored over the years, swiping away the added paint to get down to the originals.

Photo: Courtesy of The iOS Post. Soundcloud Native iPad app.

I have over 10,000 pieces of music on my phone, but I still get tired of listening to my main playlists and I yearn to discover new tunes. I’m lazy about it and don’t have time to search and listen. And, I’m not always enamoured by the Genius. SoundCloud offers a cool new music and audio discovery app that delivers fresh tracks from the world's largest community of musicians, bands, producers, and audio creators.

Image: Courtesy of iClarified.

SoundCloud is the world’s leading social sound platform, with over ten hours of music & audio posted every minute. The app lets you dive into that vast ocean of music, comedy, news, and creative sounds from wherever you are. You can search, discover, and follow a wide range of music & audio creators. You can listen to sets, or create your own, and share them with your followers. You can also listen to a stream of new tracks via WIFI.

Image: Courtesy of Free Technology for Teachers.

You can record your own sounds with just one touch, using the app, and share to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr. In fact, your sound recording can win top honors and great prizes in the upcoming MOST BEAUTIFUL SOUND IN THE WORLD COMPETITION, co-sponsored by SoundCloud, BeautifulNow, and The Sound Agency.

The Most Beautiful Sound in the World Competition opens for entries on October 28th, 2013. Stay tuned for details.

Photo: Courtesy of 1AM Mobile. “Make Moves”

When I was in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, I happened to walk past some street art that made me stop, back up, and stand there in awe. This happened four times in two days, each in different areas. I took photos but had no way of knowing anything about the art or the artist.

Photo: Courtesy of 1AM Mobile. Beautiful Street Art.

1AM Mobile is a community driven photo app that lets users discover, document, and share street art. Users can browse street art images that others have uploaded and they can use the app to get directions to the art “installation” site for an in-person viewing. The free app is available for iPhone and was created by First Amendment Gallery (1AM) in San Francisco.

Photo: Courtesy of 1AM Mobile. Main Page.

Users can also share, tag, follow, and/or comment. Since street art is dynamic, sometimes changing significantly over time, as people add to and subtract from it, and sometimes it is removed completly, all images are time stamped to establish their relative historical chronology.

Right now, you can share through Facebook, Twitter, Email, and SMS. More sharing features to come.

Photo: Julian Craitar.

If you want to discover works of art that you can purchase, the ArtFinder app connects you to a global marketplace of independent artists and galleries. You won’t need super-deep pockets in their world -- you won’t find, original Picassos or Renoirs. You will find original works from emerging and lesser known artists that you can well afford.

Photo: Julian Craitar.

ArtFinder collaborates with leading museums and galleries as well as pioneering arts spaces and publishers. It connects art lovers with artists all over the world. And it helps users to discover their own taste and style. It makes the process of shopping for art easier and more user-friendly.

Photo: Julian Craitar.

Based in the UK, ArtFinder trawls the world, and curates a lovely collection of options. They offer advice, if you’re not sure what to purchase. And, they even offers refunds if the painting you bought isn’t quite getting along with your living room decor.

Image: Courtesy of PR Web. BookScout Homepage.

Read any good books lately? Looking for your next read? BookScout is a book discovery app that can help you discover and share book recommendations. Search for a book by by author, title, or subject.

Image: Courtesy of MMCardona.

While BookScout is a progeny of Random House, the app includes books from many publishers’ catalogs, pulling from industry databases. It currently includes over three million titles. It presents information about each book, including descriptions, covers, and links to booksellers.

Image: Courtesy of AppShopper.

BookScout allows readers to create and organize their own digital bookshelves and explore friends’ bookshelves to learn what they are reading. And, the app encourages organic word-of-mouth recommendations as people can share what they’re currently reading with their Facebook friends, tag books they’d like to read, and keep track of books they’ve read.

Read about beautiful discoveries all this week, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact, including Discover New Books on Discovery, New Discoveries, New Scopes, and, Beautiful Food Discovery Apps.