Keith Haring drew on everything. He drew on walls and subway trains, t-shirts, record sleeves and stickers. He wanted you to draw on everything too. Among his final works was a gigantic mural undertaken with Chicago schoolchildren which has been preserved in pieces, most recently collected by Chicago Cultural Center.

What We’re Watching: Keith Haring’s The Message

It may not be possible to draw like Keith Haring but it’s easier to try thanks to a special collaboration between the Keith Haring Studio and Adobe to digitize his brushes:

Adobe is working to preserve and share the works of great artists, putting their tools in the hands of creators all around the world, and in this year’s edition to empower designers to create just like Keith did. We have digitised Keith Haring’s brushes and are giving them away for free in Adobe Fresco and Photoshop, and rolling out some new ways to share your art in places accessible to all. This was no easy feat – recreating Keith’s brush strokes, as they would have acted when he himself was making art, came with technical challenges – but we are proud of the end result and can’t wait to see what you are able to create.

 

Most of the tools Haring used to create art were very common, Adobe’s Kyle Webster points out, but factors like pressure and surface texture make a crucial difference. “We also digitised alcohol-based markers, like Keith used, where with lighter pressure you’ll get little deposits of the alcohol where it pushes the ink, the pigment, away a little bit. So you have these drops here and there where there’s a little bit of irregularity, especially around the edges of the stroke that you are drawing. And as for the brush marker, if you’ve used one for a little while you know it does tend to break apart when drawing a line.”

Adobe is also holding a contest to use the brushes from the Keith Haring collection to create a poster on “an issue that’s important to you.” Details are here.

The brushes are available for free in Adobe Fresco and Photoshop.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

1 COMMENT

  1. […] Keith Haring drew on everything. He drew on walls and subway trains, t-shirts, record sleeves and stickers. He wanted you to draw on everything too. Among his final works was a gigantic mural undertaken with Chicago schoolchildren which has been preserved in pieces, most recently collected by Chicago Cultural Center. What We’re Watching: Keith Haring’s The Message It may not be possible to draw like Keith Haring but it’s easier to try thanks to a special… Adobe unveils free Keith Haring brushes […]

Comments are closed.