Spanish architects Josemaria de Churtichaga and Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo have built themselves a rural retreat with wooden walls, projecting terraces, and a brilliant yellow door and chimney (+ slideshow).
Churtichaga + Quadra-Salcedo designed Four Seasons House for a gently sloping meadow approximately 100 kilometres north of Madrid, which had sat dormant since the architects purchased it 12 years earlier.
“After 12 years of contemplation, we decided to build a tiny house there, a refuge, a piece of landscape as a frame, a small inhabited threshold with two views, east and west,” they explained.
The architects developed the design around a yellow colour palette in response to the hues of flowers, leaves, bark and lichen that they’ve spotted in the landscape across the changing seasons.
“This is a humanised landscape of meadows, walls, ash, streams – a small-scale landscape, minimal, almost domestic, and where absolutely everything happens in yellow,” they said.
Part-buried in the hillside, the two-storey house was built from chunky wooden beams that slot around one another to create alternating corner joints.
The family living room sits at the centre of the upper-ground floor and opens out to terraces on two sides. The first cantilevers out to face distant mountains to the east, while the second projects westward towards a landscape of rocks and brambles.
Timber-lined bedrooms and study areas are located at the two ends and feature built-in desks and cupboards.
Wooden stairs lead down to the partially submerged lower floor, where an open-plan layout creates a space that can be used as a separate guesthouse.
Here’s a project description from Churtichaga + Quadra-Salcedo:
Four Seasons House
This is a humanised landscape of meadows, walls, ash, streams, a small-scale landscape, minimal, almost domestic, and where absolutely everything happens in yellow.
In spring poke all yellow flowers. In the summer, yellow cereal is yellow harvested in a yellow Castilian heat. Fall only comes here in yellow, millions of tiny ash leaves that die in a lingering and dry yellow. In winter, yellow insists in glowing flashes of yellow lichen on the gray trunks of ash trees. And here every machine is yellow, the signs are yellow, everywhere yellows…
We bought a meadow in this landscape 15 years ago, and after 12 years of yellow contemplation, we decided to build a tiny house there, a refuge, a piece of landscape as a frame, a small inhabited threshold with two views, east and west.
To the west, a nearby view of rocks, moss, brambles and ancient ash. And to the east, the distant dawn over the yellow mountains.
This double view and the thinking body finished to draw the house. Everything is small, everything is short, everything has a tiny scale. From outside, the view slides over the house.
The eye only stops at a yellow gate guarding the doorway, and a yellow chimney that warms it, the rest is invisible. And when sitting, stopping in the doorway, the house disappears and the world continues in yellow.
Location: Berrocal, Segovia, Castilla y León (España)
Architects: Josemaria de Churtichaga, Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo
Collaborator: Nathanael Lopez
Contractor: Pablo Campoverde
Area: 150 sqm
Site plan – click for larger image Upper floor plan – click for larger image Lower floor plan – click for larger image Long section – click for larger image Cross section one – click for larger image Cross section two – click for larger image
Apple’s tablet has moved beyond just being for media consumption and is fast becoming ripe for content creation. If you’re an illustrator, artist or graphic designer, you can now work effectively on the move – sketching, painting, prototyping, and annotating photos. Invest in a good quality stylus and try one of these amazing apps for creating art on the iPad …
Tayasui sketches joins the list of very capable drawing and painting iPad apps on offer
Tayasui Sketches is one of the most delightfully simple drawing and painting iPad apps that we’ve found. It features eight brushes along the left-hand side, ranging from pencil and charcoal to felt pen and watercolour brush, with a further two available in the pro version.
Each one exhibits its respective characteristics brilliantly, meaning it’s simple to pick a brush and start sketching. Although limited in terms of editing options, they’re a delight to use, and in the pro version you’re at least able to increase the size and shape as well as edit the blend mode.
ASKetch is a simple black & white procedural sketching program, created by Andrew Kern. Bringing the experience of charcoal drawing to your iPad, this app is brilliant for both beginners and advanced artists.
An easy-to-use tool, with ASKetch you can create everything from figure drawings and cartoons to abstract masterpieces.
Choose from 60 high-quality brushes with Inspire Pro
Paint, draw and sketch on your iPad with Inspire Pro. Suitable for artists of all skill levels, this app includes 60 high-quality brushes to choose from, divided into 6 sets: oil paint, airbrushes, basic shapes, graphite pencils, wax crayons and markers. And these can all be used as a wet or dry brush or eraser.
Developed by KiwiPixel, the team say its creation delivers ‘an amazing painting, drawing and sketching experience to your iPad.
While the strokes of a wet oil paint brush look beautiful on their own, the breathtaking blending effects of a dry brush will absolutely stun you’.
This cool app is like having a virtual art set inside your iPad
This cool app is like having a virtual art set inside your iPad. Having made it to number one paid iPad app in over 30 countries since it’s release, Art Set has all the tools an artist could possibly want, including chalks, charcoal, oil pastels, wax crayons, graphite pencils, coloured pencils and marker pens.
The multitouch pinch and zoom funtionality allows you to add fine detail with ease. You can also choose from different paper colours and textures, or import your own photos.
This digital art app for the iPad is currently free to download
Inkist benefits from a simple but stylish interface that’s been designed to be highly responsive and artist-friendly. The app is “free for a limited time” so hurry!
In the app, which is based on its Mac cousin, you build up layers of colour and flatten them down on the background rather than relying on multiple layers. Although it might not be to everyone’s taste, for many traditional artists, this will be real benefit.
Support for pressure-sensitive styluses is available natively, and Inkist has a range of simple, customisable brushes. Support for pressure-sensitive styluses is available natively (accessible through the ever- present tool palette) so you do have some more flexibility with your strokes, although with a standard stylus we found simple, quick taps were not always tremendously effective.
Layers has all the features you need to help you on your way to making a digital masterpiece
The developers behind Layers for iPad says it ‘packs in everything you need to be creative on the go. An art studio in your pocket’. And there’s no doubt it features lots of great tools to help you on your way to creating a masterpiece.
As the name suggests, layers comes, as standard, with the option to add up to five layers to your drawing. In addition to a paint brush and eraser, Layers also includes a smudge tool with adjustable texture, size, and pressure. The standard version completes complete with five brush options, with an upgrade to the pro version offering 15 brush varieties.
The app also incorporates an easy-to use colour picker and eyedropper, giving you access to a full range of colors.
From Wacom, the makers of the Bamboo Stylus, comes this great app that allows you sketch to your heart’s content and then organise your work into notebooks.
Bamboo Paper can also import photos, offers different types of paper and notebook colors. It also has a range of pen types for fine writing, highlighting and more.
With an uncluttered and simple to navigate UI, Bamboo Paper is great little sketching tool, perfect for concept work.
Express yourself in vector format wherever you go with Adobe Ideas
Adobe Ideas is a digital sketchbook that enables you to express yourself in vector format wherever you go. The app has a simple UI, designed for quickly sketching out ideas and concepts.
It offers a range of features, including simple vector-based drawing tools with separate drawing and photo layers as well as being able to sync to Adobe’s Creative Cloud. With this feature, you can also download Adobe Illustrator compatible files and work with them.
The latest update to the app allows you to choose from three new drawing tools, quickly fill entire sections of a design with color, duplicate or merge layers, and flip layers horizontally or vertically. An enhanced eyedropper tool also lets you easily compare and match colors in different parts of your artwork.
Draft can record and share all your early sketches instantly
Draft is not a tool for fine art. Featuring just one pen weight (meant to simulate that of a Sharpie) and just black, red and white colours, was developed as a ‘just draw and share the damn thing quickly’ tool.
The team behind it, developed it after getting tired of their original sketch, scan and email process. With the development of Draft, they and the rest of the world can draw a simple sketch and share it with colleagues instantly.
A great tool for brainstorming new ideas and early project development.
SketchBook Pro by Autodesk is one of the most popular iPad art apps with digital artists. A smaller screen version, SketchBook Mobile, is also available for the iPhone and iPod touch.
As you’d expect from Autodesk, SketchBook Pro has all the swagger of a pro-grade painting program, but with an experience designed for those looking to create art on the iPad. There’s a wide range of digital pencils, pens, markers, and airbrushes to choose from, all accessed via a simple but intuitive UI that lets you pin toolbars to the screen for easy access.
It’s flexible and fast too, enabling you to work with layers, transparency options, annotations, and advanced blend modes. With Dropbox integration plus the ability to import and export Photoshop-friendly files, it’s an ideal iPad art app for working on the move.
With a good stylus, a good digital artist can create a variety of art on the iPad, from a quick sketch to a more involved and detailed digital painting.
SketchBook Ink is a more recent release from the same team that brought you Sketchbook Pro. However, it’s by no means a replacement for it; instead, it’s a much simpler iPad art app, with a very minimalist interface.
Consquently, SketchBook Ink lacks some of Sketchbook Pro’s important features. For example, preset brushes aren’t editable apart from their size, and there are no layers (besides the option to add a photo as a background layer).
Sketchbook Ink’s big plus is its very high output resolution. You can export images to iTunes at up to 101.5 megapixels (8727 pixels x 11636 pixels) or your Photo app at up to 4096 pixels x 3072 pixels. Although exported files are flat PNGs, not editable vector files, the images are still very high quality.
However, it just seems too limited for us right now – especially the lack of layers – although we’ve no doubt extra features will be added if it develops a fan base with those looking to create art on the iPad.
If you’re looking for something to make quick sketches with, with the minimum of fuss, then Paper by Fiftythree is well worth checking out.
Its uncluttered interface – no menu bars or buttons here – strips back the sketching experience to the bare essentials and turns your iPad into a selection of virtual journals, with pages to thumb through for easy viewing.
Designed exclusively for landscape mode, this iPad art app is no good for creating polished pieces, but to get down quick sketch concepts when creating art on the iPad it’s definitely worth a look.
Procreate incorporates an unobtrusive UI with easy access sliders, which enable you to quickly adjust the size of your brush/opacity as you work. It saves time and lets you concentrate on what you’re painting rather than getting distracted by pop-up menus.
Like many of the other iPad art apps here, there’s an easy-to-use colour picker (with customisable swatches), layer options, a fast and responsive zoom, good smudging/blending options and great undo functionality.
Twelve pre-set brushes include advanced ‘paint loading’ and ‘wetness’ settings for a more realistic look. Plus there’s a built-in a brush editor for creating custom brushes, which enable you to define brush shape and grain. Procreate is a powerful app. In the right hands, it will let you create some truly stunning digital art on the iPad.
Like the PC and Mac versions, the ArtRage app for iPad art is overflowing with options. There’s a variety of canvas presets and paper options, plus a wide array of brushes, pencils, crayons, rollers, and pastels.
In its quest for realistic art on the iPad, you can paint directly onto the screen or apply a glob of paint with one tool and smear it around with another. ArtRage also features a dedicated watercolour brush option, which can produce some striking effects.
Once you’ve familiarised yourself with the interface, it’s easy to change brush sizes, bring up the colour picker, work with layers and blend/smudge different elements together.
Unfortunately, there’s some noticeable lag when moving and scaling your artwork. This takes the shine off what is an incredibly flexible painting program for creating iPad art.
While its interface isn’t as intuitive as some of the other iPad art apps here, ArtStudio for iPad rewards patient exploration of its features. And it’s jam-packed with them.
There are over 20 different brushes, various different canvas sizes and options that include layers, layer masks, filters and effects. ArtStudio also includes step-by-step drawing lessons/tutorials plus the handy ability to export your artwork to Photoshop for further fiddling.
Auryn Ink is a dedicated iPad art app for watercolour painting, and it has a limited set of options when compared to many of the meatier apps here.
That said, it has most of the basics covered for watery art on the iPad. You can pick different tip shapes for the brushes and specify different bristle effects. You can also adjust the texture of the canvas and the amount of water on your brush.
The end result of using this iPad art app is a realistic watercolour, with paint that fades as you paint with it, mimicking the effect of the paper soaking up the ink.
Legendary artist David Hockney has been spotted using the Brushes app when creating art on the iPad. It’s an oldie, but a goodie, designed specifically for Apple’s tablet.
Using a basic toolbar at the bottom of the screen, you can bring up a colour wheel/picker, work with layers and switch between various brushes. Best of all, perhaps, Brushes is fast and responsive to the touch so it’s easy to work quickly.
A useful feature of Brushes is the ability to record each brush stroke, enabling you to play back exactly how you created each piece of iPad art via the Brushes viewer.
Designed to be used with a stylus with a brush extension such as Nomad Brush Stylus, Zen Brush by PSofthouse enables you to make brush strokes on your iPad that mimic the feel of traditional Japanese calligraphy brushes.
It’s perfect for calligraphy then – but any artist who prefers brush painting should check it out too. Zen Brush is minimalistic when it comes to features, but what it does it does very well indeed.
At first glance, it’s difficult to see what Inspire Pro offers that its rivals don’t. But play around with it and you’ll soon discover that this is one of the more intuitive iPad art apps available.
Before you know it, adjusting the paint load and customising brushes (by rotating the bristle pattern) becomes second nature.
What we like most is the dynamic colour picker. Simply press and hold a colour you’ve already used and Inspire Pro will switch the current colour to the new selection. It’s UI design elements like this that make for a fluid and fast experience.
Create cool digital art with Sketch Club’s great toolset
Sketch Club has a great set of tools for creating beautiful digital art. The app has a unique set of flexible digital brushes (44 in total, but more can be made), pens, vector tools, old school pixel art, and fun procedural tools.
Sketch Club has an uncluttered user interface, with lots of settings to customize the app to your own unique preferences.
A particularly great feature of this app is the integrated online community. Here you can upload your sketches to let others rate and comment on your work, as well as enter daily challenges and fun weekly competitions.
The most remarkable collection of exclusive Happy New Year 2014 Wallpapers is shown here. These happy New Year images are great and able to furnish the home screen of your electronic devices with no trouble & effectively.
We are already in 2014 Let make some changes this year to the better changes compare to old-year. All of us like to good-bye the old year and welcome the New Year with warm hands. Along with the other celebrations, the unique images are also used for the intention of decorating the electronic machines with the New Year theme. It is the best and the easiest way to get the feeling of New Year while not going anywhere and for which you do not need to spend even a single penny. The Happy New Year pics if designed and produced stylishly and high definition in nature will give you a wonderful look. It aids you to forget your worries and make an encouragement emotion to get the job done which you are not successful in the preceding year. This is the major reason that the trend of getting the sole wallpapers which are New Year themed is going to be enhanced in every moment passing. Particularly these days, when the Happy New Year day is very near. In the similar context, I come up with the Nice, Cute & Creative New Year 2014 Wallpapers with the help of this roundup.
If you interested to download or buy any wallpaper here. Please click on link to original artist. Some of them are free to download but with need to reward some credit to art owner. And some of theme are come with little price. Thank you for your support, thank you for visiting and happy new year.
Invitation card can impress its recipients on many levels. The way the design and content presents itself shows how much the event meant to its organizers and how much effort they have put in. Take a moment, try recalling the most creative invitation card you’ve ever received and how much it has impressed you.
In today’s post, I’d like to present you creative and beautifully-designed invitation cards.
