Warmups!

• Set tracking

• First one:
• Use New File, 1200px x 1200px 150ppi, white paper
• Set color to black
• Use Charcoal: Soft Vine Charcoal 20
• Second & Third one:
• Use New File, 1200px x 1500px 150ppi, gray paper
• Set color to something light and warm
• Use Pastels: Artist Pastel Chalk
• Switch at 30 seconds to a dark cool color

• One Five Minute

• Choose your poison!

Assignment 1

Due today, lets do some Crit

Gung Hei Fat Choi! 新年快樂

Found these images in a magazine at my favorite Dim Sum place, East Ocean Seafood.

Great examples of Figure and Ground, Foreground and Background, Positive and Negative shapes:

Assignment 2: Watercolor

Description

Wet-into-Wet Watercolor

Sample files

(no prefix) Watercolor & Real Watercolors

Painter has three kinds of watercolor in two basic categories. One kind, Digital Watercolor, works on the canvas or other non-specialized layers. The other two kinds both work only on a special Watercolor Layer, Real Watercolor and (no prefix) Watercolor:

• Works only on Watercolor Layers
• Great for soft-focused images
• Drippy and granular textures are nice
• Unlike real watercolor, you can erase!

Techniques

• Brush tracking is very important!
• Work light to dark
• Use brush opacity for lighter washes of the same color, or make the color lighter in the Color panel
• Uses Gel Composite Method in the Layers panel
• White = clear water
• (No prefix) Watercolor can pick up multiple colors from the Mixer Palette

Differences between (no prefix) Watercolor & Real Watercolor

While both brush categories work on special Watercolor layers, there are significant differences between the two, although I have yet to figure out a way to quantify the differences. Here's the two sets:

Real Watercolor

Watercolor

Steps

• Rose01.rif
  
• Delineate edges with pencil (Layer 1)
• Rose02.rif
  
• Note that watercolor brushes only work on watercolor layers
• Try Soft Camel, Wet Camel or Wash Camel (WC layer 1)
• Block in light tones (WC layer 2)
• Careful to leave white highlights - the key trick to any watercolor
• Block in darker tones (WC Layer 3)
• Glaze in shadows (WC Layer 4)
• Rose03.rif
  
• Block in dark background with runny and grainy brushes (WC layer 5 & 6)
• Glaze bottom background with orange tones (WC layer 7)
• Try an alternate form of delineating flower with Soft Charcoal Pencil 7 (Alternate Sketch layer)

Importing Brushes into Painter

Painter can use brushed developed by other people. You can find them online all over the place, but here's a good set of Watercolor Brushes called P11_Splashing Water (at Skip Allen Paints skipallenpaints.com, a great Painter site)

Download "Splashing Water: P11_Splashing Water.zip," unzip it, and put it into the Painter application directory: Corel Painter 12 > Brushes > P11_Splashing Water. They will show up in the brush category list under "Splashing Water"

Painter's Digital/Real Watercolor/Watercolor Brushes

I have no idea why there are two types. Digital is the original, Real is new to Painter 12. Here's a video on the differences between the three types (Watercolor, Digital Watercolor, and Real Watercolor)

Digital Watercolor Brushes

Source

Techniques

• Unlike Watercolor brushes, it works on any normal layer
• Doesn't work with multiple colors from the Mixer Palette
• White = clear water
• Work in layers
• Set up commonly used brushes in a separate palette of custom brushes like Fine Tip Water, Fine Mop Brush, Tapered diffused Water (remember to hold down the shift-key when dragging off the brushes)
  
• Use one end of the tablet pen for Fine Tip Water and the other for Finer Mop Brush

Variations

• Add some salt
• Drop all for paper texture
  
  

Watercolor Brushes

• Original Painter Watercolor brush
• Works on its own special layer

Real Watercolor Brushes

• New to Painter 12
• Has its own brush control panel
• Works on the special Watercolor layer, like regular Painter Watercolors
• Tends to go down darker than it "dries"
• A quick demo...
• Fractals: based on fancy math
• Anything with "Wash" dries much lighter
• Fringe leaves a darker edge, a real phenomenon in actual watercolors
• Flowmaps drip with gravity (change with Wind)

Auto Painting with Custom Strokes

Source: auto_painting-scripps_sunset.zip

Painter Wow Book, chapter 7, pp 270-272

Create an Underpainting

• Open example photo:
  
• Open Auto Painting Panels
  
• Set like this:
  
• Save the Color Scheme with the plus sign next to the Photo Enhance popup menu
• Save the under-painted image as "scripps_sunset_underpainting"

Record a Custom Stroke

• Make a new scratch document to throw away later
• Set brush to Pastel > Variable Oil Pastel, default size (16.4px) Size
• Practice a few times to get something like this:
  
• In the Auto Painting panel (part of the Underpainting/Resoration/Auto-Painting panel set) click on the "Record Stroke" menu from popup menu under the little triangle next to the Stroke popup menu
• Paint the stroke. You can try more than once until you get one you like, Painter will only record the last stroke you made (from stylus down to stylus up)
• When you've got one you like, choose Save Stroke from the same popup menu
• Save it as "My Stroke"

Make a Clone

To start the auto-painting, we'll create a clone to work from.

• With the Scripps Sunset Underpainting window in front, choose Menu > Quick Clone, or choose the Auto-Clone button in the lower right of the Underpainting panel:
  

Start Auto-Painting

• Turn off the Tracing with Control/Command-T
• Switch to the Auto-Painting panel:
  
• Choose a brush: Let's use the same Variable Oil Pastel
  • Variable Oil Pastel might include Color Variability. Open Menu > Window > Brush Control Panel --> General
  • Double-click on Color Variability if it's not fully visible
  • Set the HSV sliders each to a low value, ~ 25 or less
• IMPORTANT STEP: Set the brush's color to Clone Color:
  
• Set the Auto-Paint panel with custom brush stroke thusly:
  Stroke: My Stroke, Randomness: 95%, Pressure: 90%, Length: 50%, Rotation: 180°, Brush Size: 75%
• Make sure the brush is still set to Variable Oil Pastel!

Rough Version

• And, play it:
  10sec
  30sec
  1 Min
  2 Min
• Save as Scripps Sunset Rough.riff

Fine Version

Add smaller strokes for greater detail

• Set Auto-Painting to:
  
  Randomness: 30%, Pressure: 85%, Length: 35%, Rotation: 180°, Brush Size: 25%
• Run it:
  

Refine It

Work with brushes directly to add details

• Use Artist's Pastel Chalk to rough in details
• Use Sharp Pastel Pencil to finalize details
• Work with both Clone Color on and off

More Info

Great resource on Auto Painting from Corel: tutorials/premium_John_Derry.pdf

Try some Auto-Painting with Smart Brushes!

Painter's Pastels

It's always a good idea to restore the default variant's before you start (just like brush tracking):

Brush Category: Pastel
Brush Variant: Soft Pastel
Brush Size: 15px
Paper: Rough Charcoal Paper

• Use any of these Pastel Brush Category Variants to emulate pastels:
• Pastel
• Variety of shapes and hardnesses
• Chalk
• Almost identical to Pastel
• Oil Pastels
• A bit more buttery and less textured than Pastel and Chalk
• Works best on colored paper

Step by Step Blending and Feathering with Pastels

Set up a still-life with an object

1600 x 1200, 180ppi (ZIPPED RIFS)

1. Start with a sketch on colored paper
• Create new file: Menu > File > New
• 1600 x 1200, 180ppi
• Set paper color with the little Paper Color rectangle (like H:254°, S:23%, B:69%)
• Set paper texture from the toolbox to Sandy Pastel Paper texture
  
• Pick a color from the color palette (like warm yellow)
• Select Brush Category: Pastel, Brush Variant: Square X-Soft Pastel 10
• Roughly sculpt the shape of your object, choosing new colors as needed
2. (pumpkin01.rif)
   Block in color over the sketch
• Using the Square X-Soft Pastel, lay in more color
• Strokes should follow the direction of the form
• Use the Color wheel to pick colors, save them in the Color Sets panel
3. (pumpkin02.rif)
   Keep layering in color
4. (pumpkin03.rif)
   Build out other forms
5. (pumpkin04.rif)
   Add background on a new layer. You can erase later.
6. (pumpkin06.rif)
   Blend background. Add gradient layer to glaze.
7. (pumpkin07.rif)
   Alternate version with blending
8. (pumpkin08.rif)
   Alternate version with more color (after taking a break if we haven't already...)

A word about layers

Everybody loves layers, but layers in Painter don't act like layers in Photoshop

Because many brushes are dependent on the brush actions already in place, some brushes will not play nice on layers. A partial list of brushes that won't work on Layers:

• Most Blenders (demo smudge and pointed stump. Runny works OK for some reason)
• Some crayons
• Digital Watercolors (put some down and erase & see what happens)
• Impasto Gloopy, Impasto Palette Knife
• Most Markers
• Most Palette Knives
• Most Oil Pastels
• Here and there many others, often in the most unexpected places. Net net, be cautious when using layers

Pen & Ink

• Use the Fine Point variant of Pens
• Choose 100% black
• Use Smooth Ink pen for thick/thin lines
• Use Nervous Pen for a sense of spontaneous energy

Pen Variants

A Pen & Ink Drawing

2014things.zip
Croquil Pen 5

things_001.rif

things_002.rif

things_003.rif

Cloning, Tracing & Painting

(Chapter 3 pp 106-110) Steps:

1. Selecting and preparing the reference image
1. Open reference image
2. Use Lasso tool to create a selection near the outer edge of the image
3. Use the add and subtract lasso buttons to refine the selection
4. Feather the selection (Menu > Select > Feather...) around 20pixels
5. Invert the selection (Menu > Select > Invert Selection)
6. Press Backspace/Delete to create a soft vignette
   
2. Using Quick Clone and Tracing Paper
1. Set Preferences to not automatically switch to clone brushes when creating a Quick Clone (Menu > Painter(Mac)/Edit(Win) > Preferences > General... > Quick Clone Switch to Cloner Brushes)
2. Choose Menu > File > Quick Clone
   Note: make sure your reference image is the the currently active document
3. Save the Quick Clone (Menu > File > Save As...)
   Note: Keep the reference image open while working on the clone
   Also Note: If you want to quit and restore the clone reference, open the reference image and the clone image and with the clone image selected, choose Menu > File > Clone Source > and the reference image.
   
3. Drawing a Sketch
1. Choose 6B Pencil as your brush
2. Choose the Basic Paper paper texture from the Tools Palette
3. Choose black as your color
4. Make a new layer to sketch on (Menu > Layers > New Layer)
5. Sketch!
   
• Hints on how to sketch:
1. Use short disconnected lines
2. Get used to the keyboard controls for zooming, moving and rotating the image
• To Zoom In: Command(Mac)/Ctrl(Win) + "="
• To Zoom Out: Command(Mac)/Ctrl(Win) + "-"
• To Rotate: Option(Mac)/Alt(Win) + Spacebar
• To Move: Spacebar (Move cursor a little first to invoke)
3. Work on a clear layer, not the background
• This makes it easier to manipulate the sketch later on.
4. Cloning and Painting with Brushes
1. Select the background layer
2. Choose the Camel Oil Cloner brush
3. Paint!
   
• Hints on how to paint:
1. Study the subject first
2. Let brushstrokes follow the forms and shapes
3. Don't go for photo-realism, keep it loose
4. Change the brush size ("[" and "]" keys) to work with what you're rendering: Large brushes for large even areas, small brushes for small detailed areas
5. Restoring Details
1. Choose the Soft Cloner brush
2. Work with a small brush size
3. Paint in areas that need refinement of details
6. Painting with a new custom Oily Cloner Brush
1. Choose Smeary Bristle Spray from the Oil Brushes
2. Set the color in the Colors Window to "Clone Color" with the button in the lower right (just below the big color hue circle)
3. Choose "Save Variant..." from the popup menu in the Brush Selector palette
4. Name the brush "Smeary Cloner" (don't check "Save Current Colors")
5. Choose "Restore Default Variant" to preserve the original brush style
6. Choose "Smeary Cloner" from the Oil Brushes again
7. Paint!
• Suggestions:
1. Work with %30 opacity to build up details slowly
2. Use small brush strokes for small details
7. Adding Texture and Completing the Image
1. Choose Menu > Effects > Surface Control > Apply Surface Texture...
2. In the Apply Surface Texture dialog, choose:
• Appearance of Depth:
• Amount: around 20%
• Shine: 0%
• Note: If you completely mess up the settings, quit Painter and restart it while holding down the Shift key (this will restore all the defaults)
3. Use the Smeary Cloner brush to retouch unrealistic areas
4. Experiment with the Sketch layer's opacity to get a look you like for the final image