New Yorker Cover by iPhone 'Brushes' App Yet Another New Frontier for Publications

We used to mock the idea of painting by numbers.

But when an artist can paint a cover for one of the nation's premier magazines using a telephone handset, well, painting by numbers seems high tech. Even knowing the handset is a smartphone, and an iPhone at that, doesn't make the notion seem any less fantastic.

It also seems crass, but somehow the execution isn't. As explained in a New Yorker blog post, this week's cover was created by artist Jorge Columbo in an iPhone application called "Brushes."

I am surprised by the elegance, evocativeness, and artistry of the outcome.