Hasta La Gadget!

Oct 29

David Hockney’s iPad drawings go big, 12 feet big

"Yosemite I, October 16th 2011," one panel in David Hockney's series "Bigger Yosemite."

(Credit: David Hockney)

There are iPad drawings you look at on a screen, and there are iPad drawings printed on sheets of 3×6-foot paper and mounted on a giant wall. One might call the latter a David Hockney-style iPad drawing.

Hang five such works together and you have “Bigger Yosemite,” a series of wonderfully vibrant drawings of Yosemite’s rocks, trees, and waterfalls that each measures 9 feet wide by 12 feet high. The piece now hangs in San Francisco’s De Young Museum as part of “David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition,” a comprehensive survey of more than 300 works made since 2002 by the influential British painter, stage designer, and photographer.

The exhibit, which runs through January 20 across two floors, highlights Hockney’s ability to engage with, and master, a wide variety of tools and media. It includes watercolors, charcoals, simple pencil drawings, and oil paintings, but also encompasses 17 works made on an iPad and then printed out on paper, and 147 other iPad and iPhone drawings that rotate on seven LED displays.