Made In Chicago: iPad Painter Steve Connell
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Steve Connell is an artist. A painter. A unique painter.
"I haven't picked up an actual paintbrush in a couple years now."
WBBM: Do you miss it?
"Not really," he laughs.
Connell sketches places he likes in the city.
The sketches go on his iPad.
"There's my initial sketch. So I can put a sketch in there and I build on top of my sketch and little by little. I can apply the paint -- the virtual paint."
And he paints with his finger on the iPad.
"What I was getting from this method rivaled what I was doing on canvas. And I thought, 'Why am I getting paint all over my elbows when I can use my iPad?'
"And what's funny is I actually still use my finger. So I've come full circle in my art career. I'm a five-year-old again."
Connell is working on a series called "Chicago Night."
It's an intersection of neon, Edward Hopper's late-night urban isolation and Chicago history.
"What I found was that people were responding to these. Everybody has an affinity for the different locations. I'd get somebody -- like Dinkel's Bakery. Their grandmother used to take them there when they were kids.
"That was the side benefit -- that what was interesting to me aesthetically -- there was a personal attachment with people who were interested in my paintings."
"When I do this, it feels like I'm painting traditionally -- I'm getting so used to it. And sometimes I actually try to clean the paint off my finger. Then I think, no -- it's all virtual. It's all a virtual thing."
And when he's finished on the iPad, he sends the painting to his computer. It then gets enlarged and printed and then mounted on woodblocks or canvas.
