In the run-up to Juneteenth, which takes place on Sunday, Apple showcased an artist Friday who created a series of digital drawings with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.
The series, by Juan Mance, celebrates and chronicles Black figures throughout U.S. history, putting them in modern contexts.
Apple marks Juneteenth with artist’s iPad Pro illustrations of historical Black figures
Apple trained its spotlight on illustrator, comic creator and scholar Mance and her series, which she called “The Ancestors’ Juneteenth.” It shows historical Black figures in modern-day settings.
“Their activism challenged prevailing systems and policies that limited when and how Black people could move through the world,” Mance said.
Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the U.S. that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African American people.
Her analog-to-digital method
Mance’s method is to begin a drawing on paper before capturing the image using Adobe Scan on iPad Pro. Then she jumps into Procreate, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Fresco to refine and color the scanned image.
That process resembles comic book work, which involves scanning images in non-photo blue. Mance adds layers of color to her works using an Apple Pencil.
Before she began to rely on an iPad Pro, she used a light table and analog tools.
Working on a large scale
Mance said the combination of iPad Pro and Apple Pencil help her work on a large scale because she can zoom in on a small piece of a large canvas.
“iPad and Apple Pencil make it easy for me to draw, manipulate and add color and effects at the micro level,” she says. “So the closer people look, the more they will see.”
In her Juneteenth series, Mance drew Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman on the banks of the Combahee River. The series places historical figures in settings from today to “reflect on Black people’s journey from the 19th to the 21st century.” And it reflects on which historical figures might be friends and how they might converse.
Photo: Apple
In Mance’s words:
They were pioneers for whom freedom of movement was so much a part of their impact that they hold this iconic role in our minds. All of the marching Rosa Parks did, getting arrested, walking up the courthouse steps, so that we have less obstacles today than we did during her lifetime; and Harriet Tubman, walking from the South to the North at least 13 times to escort other Black people to freedom — both of these women deserve a respite. I thought that all they might want to do today is sit by the river, take a load off of their feet, and just let the water do the moving.
A teacher, ‘history detective’ and fan of iPad as artist’s tool
And Mance isn’t just an artist. She teaches African American literature at Mills College in Oakland, California. She also describes herself as a “history detective” who spends hours digging through archives to find the unknown from 19th-century Black experience.
Her goal with “The Ancestors’ Juneteenth,” a work of speculative fiction, was to humanize historical figures across different periods of time.
“My goal is to really humanize them,” Mance said. “These are esteemed people who I respect, but I also think we need to understand them and experience them as people who walked the earth the same way that we do. That creates a sense of intimacy with our history that I find really empowering and inspiring.”
And Mance, who has also taught illustration, said the iPad is having a major impact.
“iPad has put the production of art into the hands of everyone,” she said. “Voices and aesthetic visions are getting out there that would not have been able to reach a broad audience just 10 or 15 years ago.”
