Wood

• Do a layer for the mass fill in of base color
• Sample color from photo into Mixer
• Use Gouache Fine Bristle, 30px brush size
• Good trick: Set color variability to H:4, S:5, V:5 to put in grain.

Wood Annual Rings

• Copy of Wood layer
• Setup 3 working brushes by selecting the brush, changing its size and opacity, then using Menu > Brushes > Save Variant...

• Wood Fill in:
• Gouache: Fine Bristle
• Size: 20
• Opacity: 66
• Wood Blender
• Gouache: Fine Bristle
• Size: 20
• Opacity: 20
• Wood Detailer
• Gouache: Fine Bristle
• Size: 2
• Opacity: 90

• Zoom in to 200%
• Zoom is your best friend in this project...
• Use Wood sketch to rough out rings
• It's all about OBSERVATION
• What do you really see, rather than what you think you see.

Paper 1

• New layer for 'trace front paper' (sketches in pencil)
• Grab colors and add to palette
• Scroll palette to get more room
• New layer "Front Paper" behind "trace front paper"
• Block out with Gouache: Opaque Smooth
• Blend with Gouache: Wet Round

Cord

• Use pen tool to make a selection:

• Sample colors
• Use Gouache: Opaque Smooth and Wet Round

To Make A Two Color Gradient

1. Choose "Gradients" from the Window menu

2. Make sure the gradient type is set to "Two-Point" from the popup in the Gradient panel

3. In the Color panel, make sure the black circle is surrounding the larger color picker circle, then set the color to whatever you want

4. Then click on the small color picker circle to select it. It will get a black circle around it instead of the larger color picker circle.

5. Then set the color with the color wheel. It will become the second color for the gradient.

6. If you want to save the gradient, click on the menu button in the upper right corner of the Gradient panel and choose "Save Gradient..."

Creating a gradient with Multiple Colors

You can also create gradients with more than two colors.

1. From the menu button in the upper right corner of the Gradient panel choose "Edit Gradient..."

2. A color bar with the two colors of the current gradient at opposite ends will appear. To add a new color tab, you must click on the color bar (not just below it like in Adobe products). This adds a new color tab.

3. Select a color with the Color panel. Unlike most dialogs in Painter, this dialog allows you to use other panels (or at least the Color panel). That color becomes the color of the color tab in the Edit Gradient dialog.

4. You can choose the type of tweening between the color tabs by clicking on the small square above the color bar in the Edit Gradient dialog. A Color popup menu will appear with RGB. This means that the color between the two tabs will blend evenly.

5. Selecting "Hue Clockwise" interprets the two colors by using the rainbow of colors as hues that change as if they were moving through the Hue wheel in the Color panel in a clockwise manner. So blending from orange to blue goes from orange to yellow to green to turquoise to blue.

6. Selecting "Hue Counterclockwise" goes the opposite direction around the hue wheel in the Color panel, so going from orange to blue goes from orange to red to purple to blue.

A Really Bad UI

Even though you've edited the gradient in the Edit Gradient dialog, it won't appear in the Gradient panel. However, it isn't lost, it's waiting to be saved.

1. Click on the menu button in the upper right of the Gradients panel and choose Save Gradient.

2. Give the gradient a name and click OK

3. The gradient in now saved in the Gradients library and appears in the Gradient panel!

Paper 2

Back Paper

• Same technique on a new layer behind the Paper layer
• Toned with Menu > Effects > Adjust Color. Set to slightly different Hue

Writing on Paper

• Color adjusted to look warmer with Menu > Effects > Tonal Control... use Hue Shift

Cord and plug

• Cord 1 and Cord 2
• Use Pen Tool
• Click Reset button

• Turn off Stroke and Fill colors

• Carefully create an outline to match the edge of the object
• When finished, convert the outline to a selection

• Save the selection to the Channels window with Menu > Select > Save Selection...

• With the selection loaded, paint inside it.

Masks in Painter

You can save and load masks - preset selections with anti-aliased edges - in the Channels panel

These are great for isolating a curved area before filling them in with paint. Then you don't have to worry about keeping a smooth edge when you paint. Equivalent to a frisket mask in traditional painting, especially in Air Brush work.

Glazing Layer over Wood

If you look carefully at the wood in the background, or even take a color sample at the top and the bottom and compare them, you'll see that there's more light at the top than at the bottom. That's hard to paint when also dealing with the grain and such.

To fix the issue, I painted it as if it was evenly lit, but use a layer with a gradient to change the tone from top to bottom.

And set the overlay glaze composite method to Multiply with 30% Opacity:

Adding Dirty Details

A lot of verisimilitude can be gained from carefully selected details, like bits of dirt or scuff marks

Next time

More working in class