The iPhone canvas, digital paint strokes

When an artist is hired for a project to create a painting what does that mean? Well typically, it means that someone (an artist/painter) uses some type of medium such as acrylic, oils, or watercolor on materials such as canvas, vellum, or paper to create their work of art. Well easily, as recently as last year, that's pretty much what it meant.

Welcome (again) to the world of convergence where the intersection of business, culture and technology are birthing new ideas and concepts and where the traditional relationship between products, services and consumer is drastically changing.

Brushes, an iPhone app created by Steven Sprang, was used by Jorge Colombo to paint the 42nd street scene (below) that will be featured on the June 1st cover of the New Yorker.

Mr Colombo and Mr Sprang are both benefiting from being creative and innovative thinkers. Mr. Colombo is making a new drawing each week for the New Yorker website and the buzz around the magazine cover that Mr. Colombo's new gig has stirred up, has boosted sales up to 40x for Mr. Sprang's app. 

What's so interesting is that prior to August of last year (when the app hit the market) an opportunity like this for Mr. Colombo didn't even exist. This is what happens when you merge art, technology and business in new and interesting ways.

See the creation of the artpiece in action.