Corel Painter - 13 - Magazine, Art, Digital Painting, Drawing, Draw, 2d

Official Corel® Painter TM Magazine

Create digital art today! Official Magazine

Inspirational walkthroughs Creative guides to art skills Tools and options explained Quick start PDF on the CD

Issue thirteen

Artistic project

Paint like

Klimt

Make your own gilded masterpiece

Over

40

Pencil portraits

pages of tutorials

Cr ea ti ve brushes Discover which brush options will give you the perfect painting tool

Turn photos into a tonal drawing

8-page practical guide

Prime photos Edit your images and create the ultimate base for cloning

ac nd M PC a

Visit us online – www.paintermagazine.com

FREE CD

INSIDE

TEXTURES | STOCK PHOTOS | HUMAN REFERENCE FILES

Realistic water

Brush primer

The advice you need for painting and colouring waterscapes

The best options for getting the most from Crayons

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Draw horses Helpful techniques for drawing and shading believable horses

ISSUE THIRTEEN ISSN 1753-3155

£6.00 13

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Welcome This is THE magazine for anyone wanting to further their Corel Painter skills or learn how to become a better artist

Brush Controls: General

Get perfect brush tips with the powerful options in here

Pg 42 Paint like: Gustav Klimt Luxuriate in the golden glory that is Klimt

Pg 66 Drawing 101: Horses The tips and tricks you need to get perfect equestrian results

ISSUE THIRTEEN

Pg 56

If you are using photos in your artwork, a bit of time spent manipulating the start image will help you achieve far better results. With just a few adjustments, you can create the perfect base for whatever style of art you like. Is watercolour your thing? Reduce the brightness, apply some Blur and then get painting. Prefer oils? Boost the shadows, enrich the colours and slap on your digital paint. For more ideas on how to prime your photos, turn to our great feature on page 20. Klimt is a favourite artist for many, and this issue we show you how to re-create his style, including some ideas for embellishing the �inal image in order to achieve the sumptuous gold �inish of the original. See what’s involved on page 42. Other skills on the menu this issue include monochrome pencil art (page 30), painting water (page 52), drawing horses (page 66) and using the Brush Creator (page 38). Enjoy your painting!

Visit our website! If you find that the magazine isn’t enough to satisfy your Corel Painter appetite, you can always visit our website. Pop on over to www.paintermagazine.com and register as a user. Once this is out of the way, explore the pages and enjoy great content such as: • Downloadable resources • Online galleries to share your work • Special forum for meeting other Corel Painter users

Jo Cole, Editor in Chief [email protected]

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NEWS EVENTS RESOURCES LETTERS WEBSITES INFO FORUM

“The graphic novel has an ever-growing cast of characters and an everevolving universe of plot twists,” explains Webster

Webster is an illustrator living in North Carolina. His work has appeared internationally on book covers, in magazines, posters and packaging

There is a light

Dazzling new graphic novel showcases Corel Painter talent PORTFOLIO

Despite its sophistication, Light Children is Webster’s first graphic novel, in collaboration with Horner. A planned trilogy is expected to take several years to create

newly published graphic novel, from renowned illustrator Kyle T Webster (www. kyletwebster.com) and writer-creator Andy Horner, is already attracting many admirers. Light Children, the �irst part of a planned trilogy, is a haunting story that combines solid storytelling with stunning artwork created solely in Corel Painter. “No other application comes close, in my opinion, to replicating the feel of natural media,” says Webster. “The degree of control available for each tool is incredible.” The major undertaking is likely to consume several creative years, so Corel Painter is the ideal tool for Webster to lay down this widescreen epic. “I am comfortable with drawing and inking on paper, but with the added convenience of Undos, layers, multiple versions of

the same image and the lack of an actual physical mess, working digitally has become the only way for me to go.” More used to single-image editorial illustration, the creation of Light Children (www.lightchildren.com) has also set new challenges for Webster. “Not only must the art be a pleasure to view, but it must also transport the reader successfully into another world, help move the plot forward, remain consistent in terms of character likenesses and behaviours, and the list goes on.” As for the future, Webster is extremely optimistic and hopes that eventually a much wider audience than comic-book fans will see Light Children. “We have big plans, a �ilm adaptation for instance, and I know that Andy has some other stories in the works. For now, it is a thrill to get to work on something so fantastic.”

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ts info n ews eve n ts res our ces letters web site info n ews eve n RESOURCES

In short

Ecstatic about Etsy

Website for handmade creations offers opportunity to sell your Painter artwork f you have ever wanted to sell your Corel Painter creations without the fuss of setting up your own online shop, then Etsy (www.etsy.com) is for you. Founded in 2005, this online marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade is a hive for creative talent. As well as art, Etsy offers sellers a place to showcase just about anything from clothes and accessories, books, toys and home furnishings. Setting up your shop is free, although you’ll need a credit card for Etsy security reasons and ideally a PayPal account for receiving customers’ payments. Listing an item costs 20 cents per item and there’s a 3.5 per cent sales fee on any goods sold. For buyers and those looking for inspiration, Etsy is an Aladdin’s cave of wonderful creativity.

LEARNING

Broadcast your skills

Creative happenings from around the world

Print and publish your own work with Lulu

Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling items, including work created with Corel Painter

Lulu (www.lulu.com/uk) is a cost-effective way of professionally self-publishing your own artwork, calendars and books. With more than 4,000 new titles added each week, it’s also a great marketplace to sell your work. Lulu prints and dispatches each item as it’s ordered, and you collect 80 per cent of the creator revenue.

It’s in the post CONTEST

Watch and learn with Sclipo

Show your skills and win at MAiLmeART AiLmeART was created by Darren Di Lieto, the founder of the wonderful illustration portal LCSV4. This collaborative project involves drawn or painted submissions being sent on envelopes or packages through the post. Designed to ‘test your skills, make you some money and give you the chance to have a bit of fun and win prizes,’ MAiLmeART has so far received hundreds of submissions. “I needed to have something tangible from the artists and illustrators involved in order to be able to sell the product and make money for the artist,” explains Di Lieto, “and in the early months of 2008, MAiLmeART will be holding an exhibition.” Artists will receive 70 per cent of any sales as well as some great exposure. View submission details at www. mailmeart.com.

ne of the best ways to learn anything new is to watch others showing you how they work. Sclipo (www.sclipo.com) is a excellent free social utility that allows people to share skills and knowledge through video and webcam. “If you wanted to learn a language or Corel Painter, you had to �ind a teacher or school in your neighbourhood. Sclipo changed the rules of the learning game, by integrating an easy-to-use webcam teaching system,” enthuses Sclipo CEO Gregor Gimmy. The team also offer SclipoLive, a webcam-based system for live teaching and learning.

Grunge is good Grunge Textures offers users over 600 atmospheric textures for personal and non-profit projects, free of charge. High-resolution, well-worn textures include aircraft aluminium, asphalt, brick, concrete, graffiti, metal, paper, cardboard, wood and tombstones. This is a great site if you want to add some textures to your creations. Visit www.grungetextures.com.

Worldwide free stock photo search Woophy (www.woophy.com) is a funky photo-sharing website where members can put their photos on a world map. With around 30,000 cities so far covered, it’s a great way to explore the world without leaving cyberspace. With an excellent forum for sharing photos and tips, this is an online community well worth joining.

FEB

Sclipo is a video site that lets users post short instructional videos relating to a number of topics

With hundreds of wonderful submissions so far, MAiLmeART is planning a major group exhibition for early 2008

14 of OPM on sale! 28 Issue

Pay a trip to your local magazine shop and pick up the latest issue to hit the shelves. In addition to the usual inspirational tutorials, you’ll find a great feature on garden art and will be able to discover how to turn your own garden into a masterpiece.

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n ts res our ces eve s ew n o inf te bsi we s ter let ces our res ts n eve s n ew

s r e t t e L r u o

e Welcome to the part of the magazine where you can com and share your thoughts on anything you fancy!

Send your letters to... Official Corel Painter Magazine, Imagine Publishing, Richmond House, 33 Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, Dorset BH2 6EZ, UK If you’d prefer to contact us via email, send your message to opm@ imagine-publishing. co.uk

The power of panoramas

Like a lot of people, I have come to Corel Painter after time spent using traditional art materials. I never got to the stage of making my own canvases, so would have to rely on whatever was available in the shops. My daughter bought be a copy of Painter a couple of years ago and I started dabbling in different-shaped canvas sizes. One of my friends is a panoramic photographer and I decided to try the format in my paintings. Now it’s all I do! I �ind it liberating to be able to capture the whole of a landscape and make the

viewer feel as though they are in there. Sometimes I will curve the reference panoramic photo to suggest the bend of the Earth. It’s something I encourage everyone to try.

Reader’s tip

Share your Corel Painter wisdom…

Frank Michaels

Thanks for your letter and we completely agree with you. The panoramic format is a fantastic way of widening the scope of the viewer. As you said, it works well on landscapes but is also good for full-body portraits, sections of still lifes or just abstract shapes. It does mean investing in a large-format printer, though!

Squint and see I teach watercolour techniques as a hobby, and one problem that a lot of students encounter is being able to decide on tonal range. The best thing to do (at least it’s what I find easiest) is to squint when looking at what you are painting. The colours become simplified and it’s easier to find the shadows, mid-tones and highlights.

Audrey Taylor

In the abstract

Experiment with different formats. You’d be amazed at what using a different canvas size can achieve

Incredibly complex or photo-realistic images has never been my forte, so you can imagine that I have been drawn towards abstract art. I wanted to send you a couple of pieces that I have done. I’m particularly proud of the cloudscape, where I’ve relied on the texture and brushstrokes to hopefully stop it being an image of some random shapes!

Sean Church

Good to see you flying the abstract flag, Sean. It’s a style that a lot of people overlook, mainly because they aren’t too sure of where to start. I like that you have taken a ‘thing’ in your cloud image and then applied abstract principles on it. When you paint in the abstract, you

Featured gallery Our favourite reader’s gallery this month

John Boam

www.paintermagazine.co.uk/ user/taz Our beautiful cover this issue put us in the mood for some illustration. John’s gallery helped satisfy that need and we wanted to showcase the images with you. As you can see from these examples, John has a diverse portfolio, but with a very strong sense of colour. Even in the more ‘traditional’ paintings, he injects strong saturation to catch the eyes’ attention. Our favourite image is Ruby. After a couple of attempts, John settled on this striking creation (see right). Visit his gallery today!

Ruby First flight

The golden tree

© John Boam

© John Boam © John Boam

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Shun the shackles of realism and start to explore abstract. That’s exactly what Sean has done

are more free to explore colour and texture without worrying about making something recognisable. Are there any other abstract fans out there? We would love to see your work and can run a tutorial if anyone is interested.

I want issue two!

Is there ANY way I can beg, borrow or steal a copy of issue two? I have managed to get my hands on all the other back issues but that one eludes me! I have tried eBay, I keep checking out your shop to make sure I don’t miss it, but it’s always out of my reach. Can you help?

Noel Murphy

This is going to look like a complete setup, but we are working on archiving issues that have all sold out. It might be in place by the time this

Gone but not forgotten… soon you will be able to get your hands on sold-out issues!

issue is on sale, but if not, keep checking on the website blog as it will be announced there the instant we get it up.

Traditional skills

I’ve noticed that your Drawing 101 section seems to be popular with people and so I thought I’d let you know about a website I found. It’s called Art Graphica and has a decent supply of free lessons that show how to paint and draw. I only found the site myself a couple of weeks ago, but have already downloaded some of the tutorials and have tried my own interpretations of a couple of them.

www.paintermagazine.com

bsi te info we s ter let ces our res ts n eve s ew n o inf te bsi we s ces letter

Come and join our forum and website Make yourself known! www.paintermagazine.com Not only do we deliver inspirational and practical tutorials on your favourite program every month, we also have a dedicated Corel Painter website that you can visit to get your artistic �ix while you wait for the next issue. From here, you can join up for a free account and then create your own gallery for the world to see! You can explain the process or inspiration behind each of your images, and you can also comment on other members’ artwork, share your wisdom and take part in regular challenges. There’s also an area to download tutorial �iles from previous issues in case your CD has gone missing. If you feel like a bit of creative interaction, we also have a forum for you to come and leave your thoughts on the magazine, ask Corel Painter questions and also pass the time with other digital artists. So what are you waiting for? Visit www.paintermagazine.com today!

Sadie Appleby

Thanks for the heads up, Sadie. We went along to Art Graphica and were also impressed with the help on offer. If anyone else is interested, the address is www.artgraphica.net. As an aside, the site also sells some really nice journals. If anyone is feeling generous, I like the compact sketchbook!

ENTER T WEBSITHE CHALLE E NGE Don’t be shy

welcome – everyone’s www.pa to enter! Go to int co.uk/co ermagazine. mpetitio ns

Can’t get enough of painting? Pick up some new skills at this site

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Interview Jeremy Sutton

WEBSITE JOB TITLE CLIENTS

www.jeremysutton.com and www.paintercreativity.com Artist, author and educator Corel Corporation, Sir Richard Branson, Barry Bonds, Apple and Sony

An interview with…

Jeremy Sutton Among the impressive surroundings of London’s Tate Modern, Nick Spence meets Corel Painter Master and all-round nice guy, Jeremy Sutton resources, the new DVD-ROM covers reallife case studies from beginning to end, sharing along the way Sutton’s work�lows, organisational systems, creative processes, decision-making strategies, techniques and tools. You started working with computers way back in 1991. How has creating artwork changed digitally since then? The digital art tools I started off with back in ’91 were the following: a Macintosh IIfx with 128MB RAM, 40MHz speed, 160MB hard drive space, which seemed big at the time; a variety of painting programs that included SuperMac’s PixelPaint Pro, a very smooth painting program; ArtMixer, a French program that did wild and

Peggy Gyulai

Peggy Gyulai

Below and below-right Nick Spence sits for a quick portrait at the hand of Jeremy Sutton in London’s Tate Modern

pending the afternoon in the company of Jeremy Sutton, visiting London from his home in San Francisco to see family and friends, is a heart-warming experience on a chilly winter’s day. Although we’ve only just met, I’m welcomed as an old friend and soon become the subject of one his much-admired portraits. Sutton’s enthusiasm for life, art and Corel Painter is so contagious, you’ll quickly �ind yourself eager to start drawing and painting. Artist, author and educator, Jeremy has just produced a lavish tutorial DVD-ROM, How to Paint from Photographs Using Corel Painter X: Creative Techniques with Jeremy Sutton. Taking a different approach from previous training

wonderful things; TimeArts’ Oasis that John Derry helped create, and which had a great interface; Fractal Design Painter, and a Wacom 12 x 12-inch tablet. My average �inal �ile, often saved as PICT �ile, was typically about 600KB or 500 x 600 pixels. A complete project may have included �ive to 15 versions, adding up to a few megabytes. I backed up my images in duplicate onto CD-ROM. My prints were typically either Scitex Iris prints up to 24 inches on watercolour paper, or large Vutek billboard prints on vinyl, some four by six feet. Most of my early digital work was live portraiture, reminiscent of the thousands of pastel portraits I had made over the years. When I used photographs as reference, I painted them from sight, not using cloning. My prints were the �inished artwork; I didn’t work onto them with other media. I now use Corel Painter X with a variety of computers, still all Macs and mostly about ten times faster than my old IIfx, such as the MacBook Pro. I use a range of different Wacom tablets, from the Intuos3 6 x 8 to 12 x 19, and the Cintiq 12WX to 21UX. My work is a mixture of live portraits and photograph-based paintings, in which I use a variety of techniques including cloning, and collage portraits. My average �inal �ile, usually a TIFF �ile, is about 80MB, or 4,500 x 6,500 pixels. A complete project now includes 30 to 70 versions, occupying about two

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All original artwork by Jeremy Sutton

A portrait of Picasso from 1993. Drawing since a small child, Sutton had his first major one-man show in 1989 at the Gordon Biersch Restaurant in Palo Alto, California

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Interview Jeremy Sutton

Flamenco Jam is a 2007 mixed media on canvas creation, inspired by seeing professional Flamenco instructor Virginia Inglesias perform at the Thirsty Bear in San Francisco

Antonio Stradivarius is a 2007 pigment ink and acrylic on canvas mural. This striking, large format mural was custom-designed to suit the Stradivarius Suite at Chenery House, residence of Robert C Pritikin

An early portrait, Glyn, from 1991. Born in London in 1961, Sutton has lived and worked in San Francisco for many years, returning home regularly to visit family and friends

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San Francisco Heart is a tribute to the adopted city Sutton now calls home. “Every image, including the fireworks and the central heart, contained within this artwork is a scene from the city and is based on photographs I have taken over the last few years”

to three gigabytes. I back up in duplicate onto DVD-ROM. I output my work primarily on canvas, typically up to 40 x 60 inches, and work onto my canvases with a variety of traditional media. So, in summary, creating artwork has evolved technically to be faster, more powerful and versatile, and yet at the same time the creative process of painting remains much the same.

This striking painting is based on a photo Sutton took of professional Tango dancer Christy Coté and her partner Darren Lees, performing at Pachamama restaurant in San Francisco to the live music of Trio Garufa

player, to name but a few. The only thing typical is that every Corel Painter user I have come across can’t put their Wacom pens down once they start using Painter.

And how specifically has the Corel Painter software changed? The �irst time I saw Fractal Design Painter 1 at a Macworld Be-In event in January 1991, I wasn’t that impressed. I didn’t like the multiple circles that seemed to follow each brushstroke. At that time, PixelPaint Pro was much better. Now Painter is in a league of its own that far surpasses anything else I have seen. The level of control, the variety of brush looks and effects, the versatility, etc, is breath-taking.

Although you offer help, advice and inspiration via your DVDs and books, what’s the best bit of Corel Painter advice you’ve ever been given or read? The eloquent words of Walter Murch, legendary sound editor for �ilms such as Apocalypse Now, in his fascinating book In the Blink of an Eye (Silman-James Press): “You may not always succeed, but attempt to produce the greatest effect in the viewer’s mind by the least number of things on screen. Why? Because you want to do only what is necessary to engage the imagination of the audience. Suggestion is always more effective than exposition. Past a certain point, the more effort you put into wealth of detail, the more you encourage the audience to be come spectators rather than participants.”

You have taught workshops and given presentations throughout the world – is there a typical Corel Painter user? I have taught Painter to ages ranging from seven year-olds to people in their eighties, to professional photographers, artists, lawyers, doctors, policemen, retirees and a Major League baseball

Several famous subjects have sat for you when painting traditionally. Is it possible to do the same when working digitally? All the more so. My live portrait subjects, who have sat for me and been depicted using Painter, include Sir Richard Branson, Barry Bonds, Graham Nash, Clarence Clemons, the list goes on.

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Interview Jeremy Sutton

Sutton based this impressionistic scene on a visit to the Great Gatsby afternoon at Dunsmuir House in Oakland, organised by the Art Deco Society of California

“I love the huge time-saving capacity of the new workspace management system” You supply your own custom workspaces including your Corel Painter preferences and settings with your DVDs and books. Do you think everyone should customise their settings, and if so, why? There are no right and wrong ways to do these things, just ways that work more effectively and powerfully. My goal is to empower myself creatively, to make the tools ‘disappear’ so I can be totally focused in the painting process. My settings help me achieve this and have been found very useful by many other people. I always encourage everyone to try things out and adapt them to their own personal work�low and habits. The short answer to the question is yes, I think everyone can gain a more ergonomically ef�icient and creatively powerful way to work if they take the time to load my customised workspaces – which include my settings, extra brushes, art materials and short-cut palettes – or develop their own. As someone who knows Corel Painter inside out, what are your favourite tools and features? That’s like asking me to choose favourites between children! I like to challenge

myself by purposely using brushes I don’t usually use. Having said that, I love the Sargent brush, Den’s Oil Funky Chunky, Square Chalk, Sherron’s Blender Wood, modern art in a can, and Jeremy’s MishMash Scumble. I also love the huge time-saving capacity of the new workspace management system and the fun of seeing what the Kaleidoscope plugin layer reveals on any painting. Finally, as a Corel Painter Master, what would you like to see from the next version of Corel Painter? My wish list includes adding an explanation to the Liquid Ink and Watercolor error messages that helps people know how to proceed when they are told they can’t paint with a non-Liquid Ink or non-Watercolor brush on those layers; making the Digital Watercolor and Impasto appear in the layers list rather than act as mysterious virtual layers; the addition of a Drop Impasto command, similar to the Dry Digital Watercolor command that drops the Impasto texture into the background canvas and allows you to paint over it, and having the Option/Alt short cut be dedicated to the Dropper tool.

My one greatest wish for the next version would be for Corel to pick up the scripting and animation capability where it was left off many versions ago, and remains to this day, and develop it so it is truly integrated into the program and becomes a reliable and easy way for users around the world to record, play back, animate and share their complete painting processes, including those that make use of multiple clone sources.

A portrait of Albert Einstein by Sutton, who regularly offers training seminars in Painter from beginner to advanced

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Feature

Prep photos for painting

Prep photos

for pa in tin g Editing photos before cloning can reap rewards. David Cole shows you some techniques

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n the Seventies, a high-end hi-�i equipment manufacturer used the expression ‘Rubbish In, Rubbish Out’ to help sell its expensive equipment. The message was that the music coming out of a hi-�i system could only be as good as the signal �irst introduced into the system. This pretty much goes for photographic manipulation too; in general, bad photos make bad paintings. You can, of course, hope to salvage an unexciting photo in the painting process, but it is much easier and much more fun to start painting from a photograph that looks right and stimulates you. You don’t want the painting stage to feel like a chore. While what stimulates us visually is a matter of individual taste, there are a few ways in which photos created or retouched for painting differ, or should differ, from photos made to be seen primarily as photos. First, and in general, paintings do not have the same level of detail across the image that photos have. Painters use detail creatively so when we manipulate photos for painting, we need to get the best imitation of simpli�ication we can using Painter’s selective blurring and sharpening tools. This is important because in painting we also need simple areas where brushstrokes can breathe and be read clearly. This is why Painter X’s Smart Blur is a very useful development. Second, we ought to chew away at the composition until it’s right. Of course, photographers are just as concerned with composition as painters, but in photos for painting we need to use cropping in tandem with simpli�ication to get the base image settled. There is no excuse for poor composition in painting where the painter has control over what appears on the canvas. Thirdly, dynamic range. Paintings have a very wide range of tone and hue and this degree of subtlety is really only seen in HDR (higher dynamic range) photographs. HDR is often produced by combining three photos with different exposure ranges in a composite that looks quite painterly. Painter does not yet have native tools to do this, but you can approximate it using three differently exposed but otherwise identical photos as clone sources for a single painting. If you check out some HDR images, you’ll see what can be done. HDR really helps getting a photo ready for painting. Finally, colour. This is, of course, also related to dynamic range and hue intensity, but in colour cloning it is also about producing colour harmony in the photo to be painted. In Painter, this can be achieved by using two or three versions of the source photo as clone sources, each with a different but harmonious hue. These can then be brushed into the painting. Or you can use the Adjust Selected Color tool to play around with individual colours in your source photo to achieve a colour scheme you like. So this article is about selecting and editing photos for painting. It will suggest some preparatory steps that you are probably familiar with, but should also give you some ideas you not have tried before.

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Feature

Prep photos for painting

Getting the composition right Often, the problem lies within the framing of a photograph This photo of a duck is poorly framed. The duck is the subject, but it is lost in the picture and the dark waterfall overwhelms it. We need to decide on a better angle of view and the right, tighter crop. Luckily, the image has sufficient resolution that we can choose quite a tight crop if we wish.

Original Photo

Fixing the brightness and contrast Bring out detail in your shots The exposure is not bad on this photo but it is a little overdone and the colour is rather bleached. We also need to add some contrast to make it read better. Why not look at the original photo on this issue’s disc and then download it to try out the techniques covered for yourself?

01 Reducing the

brightness This

doesn’t require a vast reduction in brightness, enough to make the lighter tones more distinct. We don’t want to lose shadow detail.

02 Adding contrast

Contrast can add sparkle and punch to an image by making darks darker and lights lighter. Ideally, strong contrast should be concentrated in the centre of the image but we will add some contrast all over and if necessary, remove it selectively later.

Cropped Photo In this instance, we are going to crop the photograph just enough to make it clear that the duck is the subject, and to get it to fall on a third node (regarding the rule of thirds). To achieve this, we used the Crop tool from the Tools palette.

03 Dodging to lighten selectively

We need to lighten the duck’s head, around the eyes particularly, using the Dodge tool found in the Photo brush category. This should be done carefully at a very low setting.

Basic editing

Control the size and angle of your canvas to get te best composition

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Painter has many effects and tools that can be applied pretty easily to help photos before you start to clone them. Broadly, there are tools that change the anatomy and orientation of an image, ones that change the tonal values in an image, ones that change the image’s focus and ones that change various aspects of the photo’s colours. When preparing a photo, it’s wise to start with the big things – do I like the image? Is the subject too close? Not close enough? Does it need to be cropped? Is the horizon straight (if you want it straight)? Is the subject too central (remember the rule of thirds)? Do you need another tree to the right or some hills to the left to make the composition right? If you do, source them from another photo and paste them in before you start painting. We need to get comfortable with the basic image before we start painting. Take your time over this. The main tools for changing the physical dimensions and view angles are in the Menu bar’s Canvas and Effects drop-down menus. Under Canvas, check out Resize and Canvas Size, under Effects see Orientation and also the Crop tool in the Tools palette. Having got the basics of the photo the way we want it, the next thing to look at is whether it has the right tonal values. Are the highlights blown? Not bright enough? Are the shadow areas

too dark, to the point where they are losing detail? Or are they not dark enough? Is the overall arrangement of light and dark pleasing? Once you have made your assessment of which changes are needed, or if you just want to experiment, you can change darks and lights and the relationship between them in a number of ways. The easiest way is to change the values is with the Brightness/ Contrast function at Effects>Tonal Control>Brightness/Contrast. Brightness determines how bright an image is and Contrast adjusts the difference between light and dark values. We can adjust these parameters to taste and try out a number of different values. A rough rule of thumb is that we want to avoid wherever possible blown-out highlights – very light areas that are so bright, no detail remains in them, and also shadow areas that are so dark there is no detail in them. Broadly, blown highlights and solid black shadows that are like this in the original image cannot be salvaged, and we want to avoid blowing highlights and losing shadow detail when we adjust Brightness and Contrast. Changing the brightness and contrast will, of course, affect your colours. But we may also want to add colour intensity to the image to make it come alive – this is adding colour saturation. Or

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Enhance the colour Make your hues sing Are we happy with the colours, or are they too intense? Not intense enough? Do they fit the subject? In this case, increasing the contrast has already given the colours a push but we can add impact by increasing the colour saturation. We may also want to adjust individual colours.

01 Adding colour saturation

We can add additional colour saturation very easily. Go to Effects>Tonal Control>Adjust Colors and choose Color Saturation . We don’t want the colours to be garish but we do want a little more intensity.

Changing a specified 02 colour

We want to desaturate the sky reflections in the water a little. Select the water so only it is affected. Move the cursor over the second tool down on the left in the Tools palette and select the right-hand tool that looks like a key ring. Make a selection with this.

“We want to avoid blowing highlights and losing shadow detail when we adjust Brightness/Contrast” we may want to change the overall nature or hue of the colours, for example, to cool or warm our picture. Painter allows you to change all colours or just one colour, and in this article we will look at the one you will probably use most often – Adjust Colors. This can be found in Painter on the path Effects>Tonal Control>Adjust Colors. Finally, it is worth mentioning some of the developments in tools for photo preparation since Painter 9. Initially, Painter 9.5 introduced photo-painting palettes and then Painter X improved on that by added an Underpainting palette that includes colour schemes based on various media styles, such as Impressionist, classical, modern, watercolour, sketchbook and chalk drawing. If it suits your need, you can also choose a colour scheme that matches the colours of any open image. These are very valuable tools when preparing a photo to become a painting and are worth checking out.

03 Completing the saturation reduction It may look odd, but Painter X’s automated schemes are great

Now we go to Adjust Selected Colors at Effects>Tonal Control>Adjust Selected Colors. Move the cursor in the main picture on some sky’s blueish water reflection. The cursor becomes a dropper. Now click in the reflection area. In the Adjust Selected Colors box, change the value of S Extents to 139 per cent and lower the bottom Saturation control to -125 per cent. That’s it. Deselect the area and we’re ready to paint.

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Feature

Prep photos for painting

Using focus changes to set up a loose painting

Super softening We used the Super Softener tool to throw the azaleas into relief. We used two versions of the photo to paint – the (slightly sharpened) original and the super-softened one (setting: 50). With both versions open and the original version active, we brushed with the Straight Cloner, then used the softened version as the clone source for the background around the flowers.

Keep the flowers in focus

In this walkthrough, we will use the Glass Distortion effect at Effects>Focus>Glass Distortion to prepare a photo for some loose brushwork and a vigorous treatment. Painter has plenty of brushes to help simulate loose brushstrokes, but sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. Using Glass Distortion will make the process a little easier by getting the starting photo closer to a loose-brushed treatment.

01 Poppies

We duplicated our photo layer, set a Gel composite mode with a value of 52 per cent. Drop the layer and select Adjust Colors. Set Hue Shift to 0 per cent, Saturation to 11 per cent and Value to seven per cent.

Soften and blur the background

Original photo Put the two together for a stronger impact for your painting

Changing focus In photography, particularly in portraiture and sports, selective focus is used to isolate a subject and draw attention to it. Adjustments in depth of �ield can blur areas, such as the foreground and the background, of a photograph that the photographer feels are distracting viewers from the main subject. By keeping only the subject in focus – sometimes just the eyes in a portrait – and in full detail, the photographer ensures that the viewer is not distracted by what is happening beyond the subject. This selectivity operates in the same way in painting, except that painters can choose either to create the look of a blur, for example, with a large brush or a palette knife, or actually simplify the detail in an area but keep the boundaries and colours in that area distinct. Real in-camera simpli�ication – maintaining outlines but simplifying colours and contours – is impossible to achieve, but we can get a good distance towards it in photo-retouching using digital tools. Throughout its advancements, Corel Painter has recognised that this is an important feature, the process enhanced by its Selection tools and Blur effects. Simpli�ication of this sort is rather different to the effect of blurring. Painters may use it because they actually prefer to see their image broken up into a

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pattern of shapes with just a few points of detail and one focus of attention. There is just something satisfying to the eye about reduced detail. Simpli�ication can also help to create the illusion of distance. So, crudely, things that are closer to us are more distinct in that they have sharper outlines. Therefore objects that are miles away in the distance are softer. Blur can also be used to give the impression of speed in action photos, with motor racing for example. This can be achieved in oils with just a swipe of a palette knife and by photographers by handtracking a moving object. It is also straightforward to achieve this with digital tools like Painter where the single movement of a palette knife can be easily simulated. In Painter, the Focus tools are found at Effects>Focus. There are a range of blurring and sharpening tools. The purpose of Camera Motion Blur and Depth of Field are self-evident; Motion Blur simulates camera shake – moving your hand while taking a photo – and Depth of Field creates a blur similar to the distance from the plane of camera focus in photography. Sharpening Focus heightens contrast by intensifying highlights and shadows. This creates the illusion of greater sharpness. Softening Focus blurs the transition

Play with focus using Corel Painter’s dedicated tools and options

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04 More colour 02 Changing the paper texture

We want a paper to interact with Glass Distortion for a heavily textured treatment. Open the Papers palette in the Tools palette and choose Hot Press (this is a smooth paper for watercolour but it will not look like this at all in our treatment).

We want this to have intense colours so we need to add a little more colour saturation. Go to Effects>Tonal Control>Adjust Colors and increase Saturation to 11 per cent.

03 Applying Glass Distortion

Go to Glass Distortion and apply the following: Using to Paper, Softness to 35.9 per cent, Map to Refraction, Quality to Good, Amount to 1.44, Variance to 17.00 and Direction to 49 degrees.

ready 05 Nearly

Apply Glass Distortion again to Poppies B . Use the same settings as before, except change the Amount to 1.22. This will remove some of the waviness of the previous treatment and you are now ready to paint.

The Sharpening tool One of Painter’s hidden gems

“By keeping only the subject in focus, the photographer ensures the viewer isn’t distracted by what is happening behind”

We use sharpening subtly all the time to make an image more distinct. Here we use the Sharpening tool flat out to create an interesting variation of the contrast effect. The effect makes an image suitable for use as a clone source for a pen-drawing simulation. The settings in the Effects>Focus>Sharpen box are Gaussian, maximum for Amount, Highlight and Shadow, and Red, Green and Blue all checked. Load our start photo from the disc to try.

from one element to another in an image – and Super Soften just does more of it. It takes time but gives you full control over the result. Zoom Blur unsurprisingly creates the effect of zooming in with a zoom lens, basically making a tunnel of blur with an area of distinguishable image at the end. You will notice that a number of these effects offer you different types of effects creation – that is, effects based on Gaussian or Circular Aperture options – just experiment with these. Painter X has a �ine new simpli�ication tool. Smart Blur is quite successful in softening and generalising a subject while maintaining its boundaries. It gets closer to real simpli�ication than the other Blur tools and does not stray so far beyond the boundaries of the area you are trying to simplify as the other Painter blurring tools might. Finally, there is Glass Distortion, which is one of the most interesting focus effects and one used for the main worked-up photograph. It rather unpromisingly offers the effect of images seen through a range of glass between the image and the viewer – like a pebble bathroom window, for example. But in fact, this is a surprisingly useful tool to get a loose painting effect started, which we will explore in a moment.

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Altering the settings in a photograph can give the composition an entirely different effect

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Feature

Prep photos for painting

Portraits with impact Create a classical painting effect This photo is not a bad starting point for a painting simulation, but it will need some help. There needs to be more focus on the eyes and the background needs to be simplified so as not to distract attention away from the face. To achieve this, we will darken the area around the face, the side of the face not facing the light and also simplify the colours.

Original photo

01

Create a duplicate layer Open up

the start photo from this issue’s disc. Select All>Copy>Paste in Place. Make sure that Pick Up Underlying Color is checked (near the top of the Layers palette). Pick Up Underlying Color enables you to see the image below where you erase on the image above.

02 Apply a composite method

We need to intensify and slightly darken the overall image, so we now need to set the composite method to Gel . This is rather like the Multiply blending mode in Photoshop. However, the resulting image is too dark and we should reduce the Opacity of the layer down to 25 per cent, or thereabouts.

03 Lighten the face

Now we use the Eraser tool in the Tools palette set to an Opacity of 15 per cent to return to the lighter layer below and cover the right-hand of the face – the upper cheek and eye – and just a little round the left eye. Be gentle and brush evenly.

Create a mood

Create mood with the colour tools as well as Painter X’s Underpainting tool

In this section, we will look at how to choose and enhance the mood of a photograph for painting. There are, of course, all sorts of moods that re�lect different emotions – happiness, loneliness, anger, innocence, etc – but we will go for a portrait of a young man with the sort of quiet intensity and simpli�ied palette common in Seventeenth Century portraits – for example, see Rembrandt’s self-portraits. We will not be using primarily earth colours as he did though, we will allow ourselves a slightly larger range of colours, but we will try to get something of his sense of dramatic light and shade. Moods are about emotions and it is dif�icult to create an affecting image with a photo that is lifeless, banal or with very �lat lighting. As a starting point, there really needs to be a subject with which we sympathise and to which we respond. So the �irst point is that the photograph’s subject is important. It doesn’t have to be a portrait – look at some of Andrew Wyeth’s pictures of objects and scenes to see what a brooding quality the everyday can have – but it has to create an atmosphere.

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Once you have a photograph with a suitable subject, you can enhance the mood it creates. Obviously what we do to it depends on the emotion it invokes. The elements to consider are the composition, colour palette, the intensity of the hues and the values – how dark, how light and the sharpness of focus. At the risk of stating the obvious, bright saturated colours from a wide palette will usually be associated with spontaneity, or childhood and happy situations, while dark, mainly unsaturated colours from a limited palette are likely to invoke a sense of brooding, mystery or thoughtfulness. However, dark, warm colours could work well with a positive or romantic subject, and a vibrant colour palette can be associated with war and chaos. So there are no rules here! The trick is to make sure that the elements of the photo, and the painting derived from it, are consonant with its mood. That way, the emotion carried by the image will be consistent and congruous. In the following walkthrough, we will use the tools available up to Painter 9.5. However, we have to note here that within Painter X’s Underpainting feature, there is a very useful tool for photo preparation. Indeed, the �inal result of the photo preparation we will go through can be achieved easier and quicker using the Underpainting tools; the photo colours we will be aiming for can be approximated pretty closely simply by going for the Classical Color Scheme. Such is progress!

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this picture 04 Save

To reduce the two layers to one, use the Drop All Layers command from Layers. Save this as a TIFF and call it ‘Tim1’. Close the file and reopen it – the image now has only one layer.

05 Tint the image

Having opened Tim1, we duplicate its only layer using Select All>Copy>Paste in Place. Double-check that Pick Up Underlying Color is checked. Use the Fill tool from the Tools palette to fill the new layer with a warm, dark brown (R:94, G:60; B:30).

06 Reduce the brown

Next you will need to reduce the Opacity of the brown layer until you can see the face below. Now use the Eraser at 20 per cent to start removing the brown from over the face. Set the composite method to Multiply and the Opacity to 19 per cent.

07 Reduce brightness

We just need to reduce the brightness of the picture a little – this will give it a bit more atmosphere. First reduce the image to a single layer with the Drop All command. Then save it as a TIFF calling it ‘Tim2’. Close the file and reopen it. Reduce the brightness by a smidgen.

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08 Sharpening

Nearly there. We’ll include a little sharpening to add a little bite to the eyes in particular. You can also use a touch more contrast but be careful not to overdo it – don’t lighten the left side of the face too much. Save as ‘Tim3’.

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Primer Crayons

ERASERS

BRUSH CATEGORY

Use the Erasers to create highlights and open up areas back to the white paper or ground. The size of the brush and opacity will determine a soft vignette or a sharp line

Crayons

Get back to basics with your childhood friends… crayons!

PRIMER

h, crayons! Do you remember the days when you didn’t worry about what you were drawing or painting? You just grabbed your crayons and started colouring! Perhaps even writing on the walls as some young artists did; yes, the original graf�iti medium! We all fell in love at one time in our lives with the waxy, paper-covered sticks in their multitude of colours, now long put away for more sophisticated tools. Well, check out the Crayons in Corel Painter and be a kid again. There are more colours now than you could ever imagine, and the paper never needs to be peeled back. We have a few digital varieties to choose from today, not only thick or thin but with all the texture and transparency you could ever dream of in a crayon. In this month’s Primer, we’re going to wax lyrical (sorry!) about the Crayon tools and reintroduce you to our coloured companions from the past. You’ll rediscover that they are effective tools for sketching out ideas, that they’ll give you vibrant colours without endless tweaking, as well as yielding fantastic results with minimal effort. You’ll only be regressing in your mind – by revisiting crayons, you’ll be adding another skill to your artistic repertoire. So without further ado, switch on your computer, load up Painter, then go forth and rejoice in the artistic tools of your youth!

SOFT TONES Unlike the boxed version, these crayons are able to give you sweeping vistas of colour in just a few strokes. A large Waxy Crayon at a low opacity can create beautiful, soft tones

FINE OUTLINES Use the Pointed Crayon to create sharp, fluid lines. This variant can add nice accents to any image as a strong outline or the tiniest of details

Lightly does it

Mixing colours Choose and use them wisely

Treat the stylus as if it was a feather Colour-mixing with crayons is more transparent in Painter than the ones we used out of the box. You can achieve brilliant greens, oranges and violets simply by using the primary colours. But be careful, it’s so easy to make brown if you use too many colours, and quicker from brown to black than you can imagine.

When colouring in large areas, it’s best to use a large crayon and a low Opacity, perhaps 20 per cent, and press lightly. The colour builds fast and in order to achieve a light, washy look with the crayons, you’ve got to have a delicate touch. Work on multiple layers as you draw. This way, if you get carried away and get too dark, you can always toss a layer away and try again.

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Primer

Crayons Understand the different variants

BOLD SHAPES The Basic Crayons work nicely for all-round drawing. Let this be your steadfast companion in drawing fat, bold strokes. Adjusting the Grain will give you more textural variety in the edge of the stroke

No white crayons?

Basic Crayons

Med Dull Crayon

Basic Crayons 100 % Opacity

Med Dull Crayon 100% Opacity

Dull Crayon

Pointed Crayon

Dull Crayon 100% Opacity

Pointed Crayon 100% Opacity

Grainy Hard Crayon

Waxy Crayons

Grainy Hard Crayon 100% Opacity

Waxy Crayons 100% Opacity

Crayons

Corel Painter offers the choice of six different variants of Crayon brushes to choose from, each style yielding a different effect. For instance, the Pointed Crayon is good for thin, precise lines, whereas if you wanted to introduce some soft tones into your scene, then you would be best off using the Waxy Crayons. To supplement the Crayons, the Eraser can be used to introduce white areas or highlights.

Sketching

Erase and experiment

Simple but effective By the way, there are no white crayons! An easy way to get white into your crayon art is with the Erasers. Something we couldn’t do as kids! After your drawing is done, or even in the middle of it, use soft or sharp Erasers to add detail or soften clouds in the sky. You must erase directly onto the crayon layer, so make a copy if you’re not sure of what the outcome may be. Experiment; these are fun crayons after all!

Crayons are a great sketching tool. When you would like to doodle or don’t want the pressure of a big project, this medium can be the perfect choice. Just remember how much fun crayons were when we didn’t worry so much about the end result.

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Tutorial Pencil portraits

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Tutorial Pencil portraits

Pencil portraits In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a pencil drawing in Painter X that merges traditional techniques with digital tools Tutorial info Artist

Wen-Xi Chen Time needed

One to two hours Skill level

Intermediate On the CD

Start photo and final image

ainter tools are extremely versatile and make creating a pencil drawing simple and fun. We will show you how to create a pencil portrait using primarily the Pencil and Conte tools. These mimic the natural grain of graphite on paper, and once you have applied a paper surface texture to the whole thing, you can convey a sense of traditional pencil drawings. But we also have a few time-saving tricks up our sleeves… Artists have been divided over the question of to smudge or not to smudge for some time now. There are pencil artists out there who will swear by cross-hatching and would religiously refuse to smudge a single line; they create all their subtle tonal changes by tiny cross-hatchings with a sharp or a mechanical pencil. This achieves amazing accuracy but is time-consuming and takes lots of patience.

There are also others out there who smudge their lines to achieve smooth tonal shading, using tissue paper, blending stumps or cotton swabs. There isn’t a right or wrong way to create a pencil drawing, especially in an environment as versatile as in Painter. Blender tools are analogous to traditional blending tools, specially the Soft Blender Stump. The problem with this tool is that it causes loss of tonal values and loses pencil grain, thus making the area look �lat and too digital. There are, however, some good effective alternatives. This tutorial will lead you through all the things you need to do to create realistic pencil drawings, including building up tone through cross-hatching, smooth shading, creating highlights using the Eraser and a useful little short cut for those of you with perhaps not so much time on your hands.

Outline your intentions Roughly sketch out your subject, ready for transformation

Choose your 03 texture

01 Sketch

The first step is to start with a rough sketch of your subject. We used the grid and a sketching pencil to capture the basic proportions of our reference image onto the blank canvas of 2,835 by 3,543px at 300dpi (A4). You can trace the photo on the CD.

02 Details

Once you are happy with the rough sketch, start to draw in some more details; in the case of this portrait, the facial features. We did this part on a new layer so we could erase any reference lines on the layer below once we were happy with the placement of the features. Only a simple outline will suffice at this stage of the drawing, as tonal detailing will come at a later stage.

Clicking on the Paper Selector icon brings up a drop-down box full of paper textures. These textures show up when you start to draw and give the picture a really authentic feel. In Painter, brushes that react with paper texture have a grainy method. We used a basic paper texture.

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Tutorial Pencil portraits

A shady character Use cross-hatching and smooth shading to get the right tonal values

05 New layer 04 Drop layer

Once we were satisfied with the sketch (flip the image horizontally to check for mistakes in proportion) and had erased the reference lines, we dropped the layer with the details so that all our line sketches were on one layer.

We then created a new layer to work on for the following steps. Once you use a 2B pencil on this layer, change the Layer composite method to Default and not Gel, which is the setting Painter automatically sets a layer’s composite method to if you paint on it with a brush that uses the Buildup method.

06 Defining dark areas

The Conte tool was used to define the darker shadowed areas in the picture. In Painter, using Conte creates a lovely grain, especially on rough paper textures, and helps to really define shadows. Use sweepingly along dark edges to create a loose yet dramatic look.

08 Eyes 07 Basic cross-hatching

Cross-hatching is commonly used in pen art as well as pencil drawings. Tonal effects are created by layers of lines (hatching) at an angle to each other. We used a small (size 3.6) 2B Pencil for this. For the face, careful cross-hatching will allow you to create a realistic and accurate skin surface if you have the patience.

Eyes are the windows to the soul, and a favourite of many pencil-portrait artists to draw. For the eyes, we started cross-hatching using a small 2B Pencil. It is important to get the shape of the eyeball and surrounding muscle and skin correct in order to retain realism.

– highlights 09 Eyes

Next we picked out the highlights with the Eraser tool, just as you would with traditional media. The Pencil mainly defines the details of the iris, but more detail can be created using the Eraser. It was also used for the eyelashes and moisture effects.

10 Smooth blending

You may go on to do the whole picture with cross-hatching. Your traditional pencil artist, if the kind inclined to smudge, would use a blending stump, tissue paper or cotton swabs, etc, to create smooth shading. This sounds sacrilegious, but the same effect can be achieved when using the 2B Pencil like an airbrush; set the size of your pencil at a high value and press lightly on the tablet. It avoids looking digital by maintaining a grain and looks like smooth shading on paper.

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hard-edged Eraser tool is used to create highlights for the lips to give them a glossy, lifelike feel. We highlighted the top of the lips and the left edge where the light hits it. Also, highlighting the bottom lip at the centre gives it some plumpness.

12 More about shading skin

Since skin is such a big part of drawing portraits and pencils are such small tools, it may be tempting for some to just leave it blank. To help get the subtleties of skin, we desaturated our reference photo and turned down the brightness of it so the tonal values showed up clearly.

13 The choice is yours

We used a combination of smooth shading and cross-hatching to achieve the tonal values on the face. Smooth shading can be used as a base upon which cross-hatching can then be used to define more detail.

Basic shading techniques in use today are linearhatching, crosshatching, scumbling and soft shading. Scumbling involves the build-up of tonal value using small scribbles. This method tends to give a different texture to an image than the more conventional drawing techniques.

Pencil portraits

11

Highlights Same as the eyes, a

Tutorial

Shading techniques

Hair we go again… Let your wrist flow with the brushstrokes

14 Hair basics

Normally in traditional pencil art, unless you’re a whizz with an eraser, you wouldn’t draw hair in layers from dark to light as you might in paint. We used the Dull Conte at 50px to mark out the vague shape of the hair, and then at 11px to mark out more detailed sections.

Backgrounds

Long hair is subject to 15 gravity As is short hair… sometimes. In this case, the flow of your strokes should follow the flow of the hair. Start from the root to the tip and let your wrist movement guide you.

When drawing portraits in pencils (traditionally or digitally), it is a good idea to keep the background simple; a complex background is a big investment of time and we’ve lost track of all the drawings we have lying around with halffinished backgrounds. It can also make the picture look cluttered, as it draws attention away from the main subject. Leaving the background white, or with a faint wash of shading, is often much more effective and focuses the attention of the viewer.

Contourhatching

16 Hair highlights

One method is exclusion; the highlight is the natural paper colour as you simply leave that area empty. This is commonly used in traditional pencil drawing where achieving highlights is quite difficult every other way.

17 Think of the hair in sections

If you want to draw it strand by strand, you will be there forever. Using the Dull Conte at 30px, we drew in several strokes that followed the curve of hair and fans out from the ends of the sections of hair, but fades out at the middle of the sections.

Contour-hatching is similar to linearhatching but the lines follow the contour of the object you are depicting rather than being straight. It is sometimes easier to show a 3D structure using contour shading than with the other techniques.

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Tutorial Pencil portraits

Textures and textiles Use the Apply Surface Texture command to give the impression of paper

19 Flyaway hair

18

Detail We then used the Dull Conte (although many tools are

appropriate for this part) at a much smaller size of two pixels and did the same as in the previous step.

Traditional pencil artists pick out highlighted strands of flyaway hair using a hard-edged eraser or by scratching away at the paper. We used the Eraser at a very small size of about one to two pixels. Loose hair at the sides of the head was drawn with the Tapered Conte as the size of the tip is pressure sensitive.

20 Zoom out, flip horizontally

Hopefully by now, you’ve done this a few times and since the end is nigh, this is about the last time to check and overview the drawing.

Get your reference just right If you are taking your own reference photo to draw a pencil portrait from, look for interesting lighting such as from the sides or top and bottom. A straight frontal light can seem like a quick and easy option, but more tonal values, shadows and highlights should be achieved from the start, often making it more fun to draw.

21 Clothing

We wanted to keep the clothes simple and sketchy so we used the Dull Conte to block in some black, and again the Dull Conte, this time in white, to mark out the highlights in the folds of cloth.

22 Skin textures

We zoomed right in and with a white Conte set to very low opacity, drew some dots over the lighter areas of the skin to add texture and a dewy look.

Desaturate the reference photograph Creating a greyscale pencil drawing from a full technicolour reference photo can be daunting and difficult. One easy way around this is to simply turn your photo into greyscale as well! Simply go to Effects>Tonal Control>Adjust Colors and move the Saturation slider all the way to the left.

last of all… 24 And

23 Paper texture

So far, the parts of the drawing that have been drawn on should already show a paper texture, but the white, untouched areas do not. To apply a Surface Texture, go to Effects>Surface Control>Apply Surface Texture. You can view the texture in a preview window. We turned down the Amount slider to 20 per cent.

Since pencil drawings are normally more grey-looking that what we have got here, go to Effects>Tonal Control>Brightness and Contrast, then move the contrast slider to the left. There, – now it looks just like a real pencil drawing!

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2B pen cil

Con te

Pencil portraits

While you might obviosuly plump for the Pencil brush category when it comes to getting a pencil effect, there are other tools and techniques that you need to consider. Using a pencil brush alone won’t deliver good results! Incorporate blenders and Conte brushes and always use traditional mark-making for ultimate authenticity.

A bit about the tools available to you

Tutorial

Achieving the pencil effect

Basic Paper , Artists Rough Paper Cha rcoal Paper

The 2B Pencil can be used small for cross-hatching or sketching and used big for an airbrush-like effect. The Sketching Pencil is perfect for creating the initial line sketch. Any sort of Conte tool, such as Dull Conte or Tapered Conte, is great for really dramatic dark shadows at the beginning stages of the drawing, and also for hair.

CROSS-HATCHING Cross-hatching is the fail-safe mark within markmaking – it covers all evils, flaws and errors. You can count on it when you aren’t quite sure what mark to use. It can be very effective for furry or fluffy objects.

Thick handmade Paper The Pencils belong to the Dry Media Brushes family alongside others including Chalk, Pastels and Crayons. These work by depositing pigment on the surface of whatever it is you are drawing on, so it’s important to select the right surface texture. The Grain slider controls how much colour penetrates into the paper texture. Lower settings show more of the grain. If you are using the 2B pencil primarily, grain is not very important but for the surface texture to show through with Charcoal or Conte, set the Grain value to about 10-20 per cent.

TONAL RENDERING Tonal rendering is the epic means of creating subtle tones and shadows on flat or smooth surfaces. Use the pencil as above, but apply pressure for added depth and take the pressure off to lighten it. Always shade at the same speed.

DIRECTIONAL MARKS Directional shading is a very expressive type of markmaking, a representation of the way and length you feel the mark should be made. It is great for fur and vegetation, such as grassy tufts and tussocks.

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Tutorial Pencil portraits

Cloning method Painter’s Charcoal tools create a great alternative image Although a lot of what has come so far is to do with making marks and shading, you might feel as though it is above your sketching abilities. In which case, bring on the cloners! In this small walkthrough here, we show how the pencil and charcoal cloners can achieve a decent pencil effect, only you are free from the burden of having to be able to draw. Desaturate your photo and then build up the detail bit-by-bit. The biggest trap you can fall into is trying to get all the detail in the �irst sweep of the brush. Keep your movements light and don’t be afraid of having areas of white. Keep toggling with the Tracing Paper to see how it’s coming along – if the photo is always visible, your marks will look weaker than they are.

03 Draw along the edges

Outline the main features of the photo. This gives the final picture a more authentic pencil-drawn look, as well as giving the image definition early on.

01 Desaturate photo

At this stage, we want to make the photograph black and white. Go to Effects>Tonal Control>Adjust Color and turn Saturation down as far as it will go. The reference photo is now desaturated and ready for cloning!

02 Quick Clone

Now follow the path File>Quick Clone. A new window will open, at which point you should select the Pencil Sketch Cloner as your Cloner tool of choice.

04 Charcoal

For the face, we went over the darker areas lightly with a large Charcoal cloner; as long as you don’t press hard on your tablet, this tool picks up the tonal values from the photo while maintaining a convincing texture.

05 Hair

Whatever tool you use on the hair, do it in large chunks as to not give the game away! We used the Charcoal cloner again. This eliminates the fine detail contained in the original photo and is extremely quick. Follow the natural flow of hair or else the picture just doesn’t look convincing.

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Feature focus Brush Creator

Brush Creator If you’ve been shying away from this powerful Corel Painter tool, get ready for some creative fun!

FEATURE FOCUS

ainter comes with such a varied palette of default brushes that just about anyone could paint happily ever after with them, using only the General Brush Controls to tweak them as needed. But we’ve also been given a wonderful tool for creating an in�inite array of new and specialised brush variants. Creating your own variants can push your art to a new level, and because there’s an element of randomness about it, you also have some happy surprises in store for you, which may in turn inspire you to try new painting styles and techniques. Would you like a watercolour brush that paints drier edges, a softer background brush for oils, a crayon that looks greasier? They’re all in there, just waiting for you to discover them, give them a name and begin painting. The �irst time we open up the Brush Creator, it might be slightly intimidating with its sliders and rows of tabs and controls. We may click on a few of them, decide to wait until later, and back quietly away, but it’s an intuitive tool once you learn a few basics. So go ahead, open Painter and follow along with this walkthrough. We won’t end up with the same brush variants, but we’ll end up with some new variants worth saving, and we also reckon that afterwards, you will have the con�idence to pop it open at any time and create a new batch of variants to enhance your current painting style. What more could you ask from your favourite magazine!

SWEEPING STOKES A mixture of the Sargent brush and F-X Hairspray gave us the ideal shape for these bold and sweeping elements. The Hairspray variant is a good one to use when you want something that is softer at the edges.

The Transposer tab

Let’s transpose

A great place to begin

This is where the fun begins

To transpose can mean to change to the opposite position, but it also means to change into a different form or state. The Transposer does just that by taking two of your brush variants and combining them to create a new variant consisting of both their characteristics. We explore the Randomizer on these pages, but your results will be less random if you use the Transposer, and the more you use it, the better you will become at choosing variants to blend into new ones. Go to Window>Show Brush Creator or choose Ctrl/Cmd+B to open the Brush Creator and select the middle tab. You may choose variants that are closely related or vastly different as you begin exploring the possibilities.

So we’ve chosen a couple of brushes that we want to experiment with by combining their properties. For this one, we’re using two similar brushes, an Acrylic brush and a Gouache brush. Click on Transpose Current Selection (the gear icon) and select from the list of variants displayed between those two brushes and begin to make strokes in the preview window. With the most promising brush from those selected, continue to click on the gear icon and new lists will appear, and so the process goes as you hone in on the characteristics you want in this variant. If you would like to back up to a previous variant then it’s no problem, you can find it in your Brush Tracker.

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BACKGROUND BRUSH

Put Brush Creator to work Feature focus

The Leaky Pen variant isn’t normally one applied in great sweeps, but in this case we have utilised the Brush Creator to make the perfect tool for depth and texture. The Stroke Designer helped with this.

Let your magnolias blossom with the Brush Creator Here is a fun exercise: create a painting and include some of the brush variants you have created in Brush Creator. Lay aside preconceived notions about which brush categories work and which ones won’t. Be adventurous and try some of those brush variants you rarely open. Chances are, you’ll expand your thinking as well as your Brush Library.

painting 01 Magnolia

Brush Creator

For our first variant, we began with an unlikely choice, the Leaky Pen brush. Even if you use it a lot, you may have never thought of using it as a background brush. In Randomizer, we chose a variant we liked, then moved to Stroke Designer and added greater opacity and some depth.

strokes 02 Sweeping

MAGNOLIA PETALS The Sumi-e category has lots to offer floral painters and in this case we took the Thick Blossom variant as our starting point. A blast in the Randomizer and Stroke Designer created petal perfection.

For this one, we began in Randomizer with the Artists>Sargent Brush and randomised until it morphed into something less graphic and lent itself to sweeping strokes. We then took it into the Transposer and added F-X>Hair Spray to soften the edges, then added depth in the Stroke Designer.

03 Magnolia petals

To create a petal brush variant, we began with the Thick Blossom Sumi-e brush in Randomizer and took our best mutation to Stroke Designer and added depth, reducing the Plow to about half and increasing Smoothing to 25 per cent. The new brush variants worked well to paint these abstract magnolias.

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Using the Brush Creator to merge the properties of two different brushes can give interesting effects. Do you like the thickness of oil but want the transparency of watercolour? You can get just that in the Brush Creator!

Narrowing it down

A star is born!

Each selection makes it more personally yours

How to save your new variant

As you paint strokes in the preview window, zoom in or out with the slider at the bottom or change the size of your brush with the top slider, and when your window is full of strokes, just click the Clear button and you’ve got a new, white canvas. Move your Color Wheel over beside the Brush Creator because some brushes automatically paint as cloners, and for these, you will want to click off the Cloner option and choose a bright colour that will show the properties of your variants. The entire Brush Creator can be enlarged by pulling down with your cursor on the lower-right corner. This will allow for a longer variants list with each click of the gear icon.

You’re bound to discover new brush variants you would like to save, and that’s easy, too. Select Save Variant or Ctrl/Cmd+S, and a new window will open up where you will type in a name for this new brush. If the OK button greys out, you will have to shorten the brush name. Click OK and it will be saved in the first Brush Library, the one that’s at the top of the Brush Creator. Look in that library to see your brush. It will be at the bottom. To put it in alphabetical order, choose Window>Workspace>Customize Workspace>Brushes and click Done when you are finished. And now you’re all set either to begin painting or to spend some more time creating brushes.

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Feature focus Brush Creator

FEATURE FOCUS

Exploring the Randomizer The Randomizer tab is a favourite for many digital artists The Randomizer delivers everevolving brush variants in such a serendipitous manner, very wellsuited to those of us who rely upon the muse to inspire and guide us. The only problem here might be deciding how many variants to save.

01 Let’s get started

Select Ctrl/Cmd+B or go to Window>Show Brush Creator and when it opens, choose the Randomizer tab. As the name suggests, you are presented with random mutations of your chosen brush variant. You may be like a kid in a sweet shop and end up with dozens of exciting new variants. Keeping things orderly is a key to enjoying Painter, so take time to grasp the process of creating and saving your variants.

02 Choose a variant to randomise

Underneath the Randomizer tab, select a brush variant that you want to explore. Below the row of brushstroke grid cells is a slider where you can control the strength and range of the random variations. Set it between eight and ten; you can lower it once you begin liking the direction your mutations are going in.

Get in the habit of naming We’ve said it here a couple of times, but it can never be said too much. Whenever you save your newlycreated brush, always give it a recognisable and descriptive name. We find it best to pick something that explains the qualities of the brush, such as soft oils, watery pastels – anything that will jog your memory as to what the brush looks like when you stumble upon them months after you’ve created them!

03 Begin the process

For this example, we chose the Digital Watercolor Broad Water Brush. Our aim was to find a variant that was soft and flowing but with opacity and colour variations, and we slid the random variation strength control all the way to ten to see just how far we could go with this brush.

04 Fine-tuning

Here is another Randomization using the same Broad Water Brush, but it’s evolving closer to the transparent, backwash effect that we want, so we have changed the random variation strength to eight to narrow down the choices.

Stroke Designer

What’s behind tab #3?

Where it all comes together

Discovering more options

Depending upon your own workflow, you may begin this brush creation process in the Randomizer and go on to the Transposer, or do this in reverse order or utilise only one of those tabs. Whatever you feel comfortable with, you may want to do some further fine-tuning of your new variant, and for this, the Stroke Designer is the logical next stop. You may already be familiar with most of the controls because they’re in your General Brush Control palette where you tweak your brush variants on the fly, but the Stroke Designer gives us a room apart from our painting in which to work with new variants, so use the Preview window to really explore the results of your tweaking.

One helpful element to take note of here is that whatever brush variant you place in the top spot under the tabs, that same brush will appear as you move back and forth among the tabs, making it easy to create, refine and then finalise each of those sparkling new variants you create. A large brushstroke and the shape of a single touch of the brush are always displayed at the bottom of the Stroke Designer screen to help us envision how changes will affect the chosen variant, and will be displayed in either the current colour or the colour you saved with your variant. Options in the brush controls that are not available for your particular variant will be greyed out.

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We continued to choose variants to try by clicking on the Randomize Current Selection button (the cog icon). Notice that your choice from each list of variants determines the direction of the next set of variants. In this way, you are controlling the mutations.

06 A backup plan

If at some point you decide you’re not pleased with the direction the randomisations have taken, go to the Tracker and scroll back a few steps. Click on one and the randomisation can begin again, taking a new direction.

If you’re not a member of one of the larger digital art forums like Painter Talk or Paint Outside the Frame, you might not know that John Derry posts his own segment where he explains all the features of Corel Painter in detail and answers questions from forum members. Be sure to look out for his informative and interesting forum threads.

Brush Creator

05 Taking control

Feature focus

Brush Creator in greater detail

Is that your final answer? We DO want to give you that!

Short cuts

07 Name that variant

After playing about and exploring your options, you can use the Save Variant command to keep it for future use. This works in the same way as in the Transposer walkthrough. As always, descriptive names are best, otherwise you may be left later wondering what you had in mind when you created it. If you’re really pleased with your creation, why not send it to us – you never know, artists around the world could be using your brush in the future!

08 Restoring default

After the new variant is saved and appears in your Brush Library, you will want to restore the brush you began with to its original state as its properties have been altered. To do this, choose Restore Default Variant.

Greater versatility

Time to save

Who says we can’t mix oil with water?

Just one more step

In the Thin Wet Oil Wash variant, we were happy with the consistency of the paint it laid down, but we decided to play some more with the Color Expression set to Direction, and we increased the Color Variability in order to have a mingling of wet-looking colours with each stroke, changing with its direction. At this point, it’s looking more like a Digital Watercolor brush than an Oil brush, but that’s part of the beauty of Corel Painter’s brush variants. In traditional pigments, we could never combine oil and water media or substitute one for the other. In fact, you’ll notice in the screenshot that both the Digital Watercolor and Impasto controls are available.

If you’re using a mouse with a wheel, you can use this to zoom in and out of the preview window or use a keyboard short cut, Ctrl+0 (zero), to enlarge to screen size. Keep in mind that your mostused short cuts will simplify your painting workflow and leave you free to create. To find out more about Painter short cuts and learn how to customise them, look under the Help menu.

Now that our variant is refined just the way we want it, all that’s left is either to save the enhanced version as a new variant or decide to overwrite and declare this as the default variant by going to Set Default Variant. In doing so, you will lose its earlier variant that you saved. When you close the Brush Creator, all your workspace palettes will go back into their assigned places. Now you’re familiar with the awesome controls in Painter’s Brush Creator, personalise your brushes for your own use and even share them with your Painter friends; the more you use it, the more proficient you’ll become at creating brush variants. Go create something amazing!

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Tutorial Paint like Klimt

Paint like: Gustav Klimt

In this tutorial we will show you how to create a portrait in Klimt’s style, with the most characteristic features that are associated with his paintings Tutorial info Artist

Joanna Michalak Time needed

Four hours Skill level

Intermediate On the CD

Final image

ustav Klimt (1862–1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter, and a founding member and president of the Vienna Secession movement. While working mainly in the style of Art Nouveau himself, the group he headed welcomed painters of all different styles, from Realists to Naturalists. Born just outside of Vienna in Baumgarten, Klimt was from a large family of three sons and four daughters. All three sons showed early creative promise, but after an upbringing in which Klimt showed remarkable artistic talent and went on to �irst study then work as an architectural painter, his father and brother died when Klimt was 30 and so he had to take over the �inancial responsibilities for both their families. This era marked a change in his style, painting more personal work than following the rigid structure of commissions. This new direction was to shock as many as those who lauded it. Klimt seemed fascinated by women, both painting them and being with them – he fathered at least 14 children throughout his life. It was his overtly sexual depictions in his work for the University of Vienna’s Great Hall in 1894 that led to public outcry and eventually he ceased working on commissions

The light colours and smooth shading created with the help of Painter’s Blenders should re-create Klimt’s delicate strokes

Klimt’s paintings are famous and well-loved, partly because of the variety of fantastic and stylised patterns used

for the public. But far from fading into obscurity, Klimt �lourished under private commissions, and at around the turn of the century, he won widespread praise and respect from critics for his beautiful paintings that often utilised gold leaf. In the following tutorial, we will try to create a painting that would represent the most important features of Klimt’s

Our image was based on the beautiful Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, commissioned by her husband Ferdinand. Adele is the only model to have been painted twice by Klimt, as he depicted her in another portrait �ive years after the �irst. At the last count, the original Adele Bloch-Bauer I was the third most expensive painting ever to have been sold,

‘Golden Phase’ – ethereal but sensual beauty, stylised decorative patterns and the famous gold ornaments – using Painter IX (Pen tools and Blenders) and gold paint on a printed image. His models were made of soft, pastel colours, while ornaments are also one of the most distinguishing and recognisable features of his style.

bought for around $135 million by Ronald Lauder in 2006 to display in New York’s Neue Gallerie. Klimt required lengthy sittings in order to achieve his very deliberate painting style. Whereas it took him three years to complete this painting, we’re going to attempt to emulate it in a matter of hours, thanks to the majesty of Painter.

“The group Klimt headed welcomed painters of all different styles, from Realists to Naturalists” The gold ornaments are very characteristic for Klimt’s Golden Phase. Even if created with gold paint instead of gold leaf, it still can give artwork a real flavour of Klimt

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Tutorial Paint like Klimt

Setting up the sketch Begin with the figure

01 Sketch

This is our sketch based on the portrait. You can trace over the final image file on the disc or trace over a photo of a loved-one. We worked to dimensions of 30cm high by 24cm wide. At this point, it’s irrelevant what brush you use. However, we knew we wanted darker outlines so we have used dark brown – you can blend it easily with other colours of the picture.

02 Choosing background colour

Next you need to choose the colours and tones for your painting. We prefer to do it at the beginning, because often the colours are blended with the background. For this one, we chose a darker yellow since we know the final painting will include lots of gold. We started our colouring on a separate layer, with the line art underneath.

03 Making changes

As you see, we allowed ourselves to make a few changes to Adele’s face as we didn’t want it to be an exact copy of the portrait. Using your imagination and making your own choices is fine. It can make your work more fun and you can learn from the great masters and create something with your personal touch at the same time.

05 Skin shading 04 Choosing colours

It can be hard to pick up the skin colours when you want to re-create a certain painting, because there are always different reproductions. The ideal situation would be to paint it directly from the original, which is, of course, not always possible. We decided to use colours from a lighter reproduction with lively colours. Create this palette on a separate layer, so you don’t lose them later on. We have used a pale skin colour and some shading using the Fine Point Pen at 27% opacity.

Next we added a few brighter tones of yellow and blue to the skin. We chose the Fine Point Pen brush as our tool (Opacity set to 27 per cent). Even if it’s a Pen tool, you can imitate many different mediums when you use it either with different opacities, or else together with the Blenders.

Shading skin The bodies Klimt painted are ethereal and seem to be very soft and delicate, yet very sensual at the same time. We tried to re-create this feel by delicately crossscratching with the Fine Point Pen, while blending different skin tones that we chose. Then we softened the strokes a little bit with the Soft Blender Stump. It’s not exactly Klimt’s technique, but the effect is similar.

06 More shading and outlines

Here we worked some more on shading the skin and overpainting the dark outlines with violet (using the Fine Detail Airbrush), trying to make them more delicate yet still visible (soften the outlines with the Soft Blender Stump, Opacity set at 37 per cent). The violet added a nice greyish shade to the dark brown lines.

07 Rough strokes

Now to work more on the details of the eyes, nose and lips. Keep the painterly feeling by softening the rough strokes a little, with a soft Blender or soft brushstrokes (Opacity at 18 per cent).

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We started off with Adele’s original haircut, but then decided to make things more dynamic by adding some swirls and strands of hair here and there. To finish, we softened the edges with the Soft Blender Stump again and also used a bit of Blur (from the Photo brush category).

09

More colouring of the skin After

finishing the face, we moved on with colouring the skin, still using the same tools and methods as described in step seven and the side tips. Here, you can see what the rough strokes looked like before the delicate softening.

10 Geometrical patterns

For the dress, leave the more realistic shading and move to more abstract, imaginary parts of the portrait. The famous geometrical patterns are one of the most recognisable features in Klimt’s art. Here we tried to be true to the original. We still used the Fine Point Pen, but this time at a higher opacity.

One of the most difficult things is starting a painting. Staring at a white expanse of canvas can be very daunting, so you need to get some colour down quickly. One good way of doing this is to flood the entire area with a base colour, as we did here. Pick a colour that establishes the mid-tones and it will make your other colour choices easier.

Paint like Klimt

08 Hair

Tutorial

Banish the blank canvas

Absolutely abstract All hands to the dress

the patterns 11 Shading

Even if the colouring of the patterns is rather flat and not realistic (like the whole idea of her dress and the background), they still have got a painterly feel to them. We wanted to keep it, adding a bit of shading of brighter tones than the base colour (we reduced the opacity of our brush and softened the strokes with Grainy Water).

12 Hands

Adele in Klimt’s painting has beautiful hands in a great pose, so we decided to keep them as close to the original as possible. Klimt’s shading is very soft, almost invisible, but at the same time it defines shapes very well. We painted the hands using the same technique as for the rest of her skin.

14 The dress

13 Shading hands

However, we had to be more careful with the shading and used more of the Soft Blender. The same skin tones have been used, but with more light blue, yellow and orange on the fingers. The outlines were a bit more visible too.

The neckline has been done before, so we started working on the middle part of the abstract clothing. First we painted something like a background, using darker and more greenish tone of yellow. We did it on a separate layer under our sketch. When we were fond of the colour, we could draw the yellow, grey and brown patterns over the line art again.

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Tutorial Paint like Klimt

Entering the Golden Phase All eyes on you

details 16 Adding

15 More patterns

We allowed ourselves more freedom with the patterns this time. And again, they were painted with the Fine Point Pen (Opacity 43 per cent), without Blenders this time, because we wanted the painterly texture to be more visible and rough in contrast with the soft skin.

Here we added the details to the patterns, but still tried to keep them as irregular and rough as possible. You don’t have to be very precise while painting such objects, especially when you like to use a big canvas for your paintings. Otherwise, they would get lost after resizing the picture.

17 Adding more details

Take a look at the previous screenshot, and you can see that we also added a few darker and brighter random horizontal strokes. We did them on a separate layer again (Fine Point Pen with a lower opacity). Now the parts of them that ran over the patterns have been erased. Then we collapsed the layers – it simply creates less chaos and makes the file much smaller.

18 The sleeves

The sleeves have different patterns to the middle part of the dress, but the procedure of re-creating them was the same – first we painted the overall shapes and filled them with colours, leaving the sketch a little bit visible (Fine Point Pen, Opacity 43 per cent).

Photo Blur Photo Blur is mostly used by artists who are into photorealism, but you can use it if you want to make something look very soft without blending it or changing its shape. Hair is a good example of something it works well on. For our final image, we have used a little bit of Photo Blur on the edges of the woman’s hair and for single hairs as well.

golden elements 20 The

19 Working on details

Next we could add the details. All the time we tried to mix various shades of yellow, grey, brown and a bit of olive green in order to create an interesting diversity. The colouring of Klimt’s patterns might look flat compared to the realistic painting style, but the colours certainly aren’t.

In some places we also added a bit of brighter yellow. The main problem with re-creating Klimt’s painting style via digital mediums are the golden elements. Because we couldn’t make them really gold, we chose to mark some of the golden parts with a light yellow tone.

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nearly finished and we could work on the background. Again, we created a new layer under the collapsed layers with the figure and drew a sketch of the background patterns.

22

Sketching swirls We lowered the

opacity of our sketch layer and added a new one above it. Using the Fine Detail Airbrush, we drew the swirls on the left and right side of the woman. Then we added some over her head, too.

23 More swirls

Next, we changed the brush to the Fine Tip Pen (Opacity at 29 per cent) because of its flow and softer edges. The swirls were softened and smoothed. Then we removed the rough parts using the Eraser at a low opacity.

This tool doesn’t look like there would be much potential in it, but sometimes it’s the best way to paint something that looks like trouble. Here we used it to paint the background irregular patterns, which could have taken ages if we tried to do them by hand. But we also found the Sponge very helpful by painting more realistic works – you can use this brush to create a wonderful skin texture (on the right side of the image). Just lower the opacity and try it out with different colours and tones.

Paint like Klimt

21

Background At this stage, the lady was

Tutorial

The Sponge

Sponge 24 Using

It’s a perfect tool when you want to create a lot of undefined splatters. We painted the left border side of the picture brown and then added many yellow Sponge strokes. You’ll find that this is one of the easiest parts to do.

25 More background patterns

Next up were the yellow and red squares. Again, we used the Fine Point Pen at a higher Opacity of between 43 per cent and 57 per cent to define the figures. Later, we drew a few darker strokes (after lowering the opacity of our brush) in order to create an effect similar to the canvas texture on the real painting.

Now your Gustav is a must-have Keep going with the patterns

27 Jewellery

26 And even more patterns

The next two steps don’t need much of an explanation – we painted the grey and violet figures over her head, lots of little brown, orange, grey and yellow squares around and the oval elements in the middle. We used the Fine Tip Pen at a high opacity for the squares and the Fine Point Pen for the ovals. The swirls inside the bigger ones have been painted once then copied, since they’re very much alike.

The final addition was the jewellery. The bracelets were created the same way as the dress. We painted her necklace with the Fine Tip Pen, mostly by adding more and more short strokes of grey, very bright blue and a bit of the skin tones. As a final touch, you can also add a texture that will give it the look of a real canvas.

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Tutorial Paint like Klimt

Learn how to embellish printouts One of the most distinctive features, almost a trademark, of Klimt’s art are the golden elements. The value and use of gold was heavily in�luential within Byzantine imagery, which inspired him and was prominently featured in his paintings during his Golden Phase. Using the digital mediums, we are admittedly able to create an optical illusion of gold and silver, but it’s still not perfect. Still, we can improve our picture with traditional techniques and let the ‘golden Adele’ really shine. Klimt used gold and silver leaf for the decorative elements in his paintings, but we chose an easier way to add a bit of shine to our picture – gold paint. You can also use a pen, however, the paint’s layers resemble the leaf better. Finishing an image in this way is a really fun project. Invest in some �ine art paper for your inkjet printer and then you can experiment. The trick is to not go too overboard. In our example here, we have picked out small sections of image to cover. This picks up the light and produces different shimmer depending on where the viewer happens to be standing.

Using paint or gold pen This will really make your painting stand out

01 Making a print

We printed the finished picture on white watercolour paper with an ordinary inkjet printer. When the ink dried up, we could start painting. We used Maimeri Polycolor acrylic paint (rich gold), but you can use any that you fine. Go for a lighter gold if possible and acrylic does work best.

02 Painting the gold elements

Because our print format wasn’t very big, we had to pick rather small brushes and paint very carefully, which isn’t always easy to do since our paint was thick and dried very quickly, even when thinned with water! This kind of acrylic paint also becomes water-resistant when it’s dry, so you need to be careful and remember to clean the brushes quickly, or keep them in water all the time.

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showcase

CHRISTOPHER W PRICE TITLE WEBSITE JOB TITLE

Shadow www.studiochris.us Digital artist

Christopher, along with Painter Magazine regular Karen Bonaker, is involved in the excellent Digital Art Academy. This is an online school founded by Karen, whose mission is to deliver the very best in digital art training to students around the globe. Being an online school, students have access to course materials 24 hours a day and may work at their own pace. Classes begin on 18 February 2008. Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to learn from the best! See www.digitalartacademy.com for more.

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Art study How to paint still water

pa in t s till wa ter How to…

Introducing water into your landscape paintings will add life and sparkle to the final image. Here’s a roundup of the best techniques for painting calm water, ensuring tranquil results every time

What works and what doesn’t Sometimes we stop short of painting water because it presents its own set of challenges. We will discuss how to paint calm, quiet waters, sometimes motionless, at other times

Successful

softly rippling. You will see how to describe this seemingly clear liquid on a digital canvas and how to indicate its gentle movements, how to paint its edges and what colours to choose.

‘SNOW BLUE IN THIS SKY…

We usually think of using blue for water, but the blue we see in nature’s water is, of course, the blue reflected from the sky. This painting is of an overcast, snowy day, and there’s no blue in the sky so the colours seen in the water are shades of charcoal.

REFLECT ON THIS

Because we’re facing the snow bank on the far side of the water, you would expect more reflections there.

SEEN IT? USE IT!

It’s tempting to grab a blue hue and start painting that pool of water. Whatever colour you choose for the water should be one you pull from the surrounding scene. That way, the whole thing is cohesive and the pool looks as if it belongs in the painting.

CAREFUL BLEND

Here we used the Just Add Water blender. It’s very useful in painting water, but in this example we went way too far and blended out all the character. It’s opaque, boring and featureless.

Unsuccessful

ADD PRESENCE And how to describe the water’s edges? Shadows were applied to anchor objects to the piece.

COLOUR CONTROL

Calm water may be smooth, but a painting with great expanses of one hue without textures just doesn’t work. .

x

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CURRENT AFFAIRS

How to paint still water

Everyone is at least a little mesmerised by reflections in the water, and they add so much to our paintings. When painting a photograph, it’s easy to paint an existing reflection and just as easy to add them where there were none. Let’s get started!

Art study

Even if there are none, imagine deep, gentle currents in the water, and these will guide you in distorting your reflections. Paint with a broad brush and resist the urge to fiddle around with details.

Reflections

MIRROR SHIMMER

In this, the surface of the water acts as a mirror of the entire scene. Remember that it’s not a perfect mirror image; everything within it will be slightly softened, distorted or rounded as the water undulates beneath it. Take the water’s movement into account.

REFLECTION SELECTIONS Your reflections needn’t be scientifically verifiable. We’re more concerned with composition, so if your cloud needs to be larger to balance out a space, then make it larger. Not sure those trees would cast a reflection? It’s your painting. You decide.

Step-by-step Create realistic reflections by selecting areas of your photograph and applying them to the water, so that you get a true mirror image that you can then paint and distort as much or as little as you want

01

First, take a deep breath and step back from your image and consider where there might be reflections in the water or where they might enhance your composition. Choose the Lasso tool and loosely select an area of the painting. By selecting loosely, you’re leaving yourself room to decide later what to keep and what to brush away.

02

Now copy and paste, and it appears on its own layer ready to move into position. Choose Layer Adjuster and hover the cursor over your selection while right-clicking, then select Free Transform. Now to move it into the water; drag top to bottom and reverse the image. Hold down Ctrl/Cmd and you can rotate the selection by dragging on the handles.

03

Once it’s in position, right-click again and choose Commit Transform. Find a soft Eraser and begin removing the unwanted edges. Now drop the layer, and the selection is part of your canvas and ready to be painted. Repeat the process for other areas you want to convert to reflections and paint them all at once for a better flow.

Reflecting on puddles Puddles are great for a suggestion of water but mean you haven’t got to paint great expanses. The priciples are the same as any water – take colours from the sky and keep things soft. Use shadows at the edge to give a sense of weight. The puddles in the first image have formed in asphalt tire ruts and form the basis of an abstract image. We can see the sky reflected in the puddle closest to us, but the ones nearer the sun reflect only light. The leaves lying in the water and the ones reflected from overhead make a beautiful mosaic in the third puddle.

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Art study How to paint still water

Painting ripples

Even still water has the suggestion of movement and so ripples are an important skill to master. They aren’t complicated but there are fundamental rules. For the most part, our process of painting water digitally is the reverse of painting it traditionally. In a traditional painting, we would save the white areas and paint around them, but in digital painting we paint medium values first and then paint darks and lights over those. Step-by-step

01 The Airbrushes set to less than 50 per cent Opacity are a great way to begin painting water ripples, glazing layers as you go in sweeping horizontal strokes. Brushstrokes and textures can be added later. Using medium value hues, begin describing watery ripples, keeping them smooth; think of painting satin as you go.

02

03

Now you’ll begin to see the shapes forming into ripples where darker hues will add depth. Drop Airbrush Opacity to less than 30 per cent and begin defining those darker areas that will be the depths of your ripples, always keeping in mind the direction of your light source.

Time now to brush on the highlights, areas where the sunlight, moonlight or even harbour lights would touch the tops of the ripples with white. You may want to stop here or you might want to add bristle brushstrokes or some harder lines with the Pens or Pencils to indicate smaller ripples.

Painting water over rocks

For this, take a rock painting and then use transparent layers and the Gel composite method to introduce the water feel. In these examples, the water looks slightly green and grows more opaque where the water is deeper (you might choose blue or yellow ochre).

01

Patches of pale blue suggest the sky peeking through tree branches and add shimmer to the surface; exaggerated shadows between the stones add dimension and interest to our watery scene.

02

We can add more depth by painting floating flower petals, leaves or foam above the stones. Here, the white and blue pattern flicks on top of the water as an interesting element, as they define the water’s current, leading our attention into the painting.

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Let’s see what happens when water takes on vibrant colours not generally associated with water. We decided to paint a sunset reference photo with even more vivid colours. However realistic or abstract we go, the images in a sunset more or less become symbols, because of extreme lights and darks.

Where water meets the shore

Art study

Painting water at sunset

How to paint still water

It just takes a few straight, imperfect lines to suggest the water’s edge. If that edge is in shadow, then paint a dark line, but if it would catch sparkles of sunlight, make it white. For this edge, we used the F-X Fairy Dust brush, set to a very small size, and painted loosely on a separate layer.

Step-by-step

01 Abstract art

02 Fence

The fence adds interest, so we kept it in our painting. Because the sun’s rays are so concentrated, the fence becomes little more than a silhouette, so we don’t even have to worry about describing depth in the boards. We began painting in the rectangle that will be the sun’s rays across the water, starting with palest yellow near the horizon and going darker near the lower edge of the painting.

We began with an abstract of random brushstrokes, using various brushes from Acrylic Captured Bristle to Watercolor Wet Wash, preparing for the sun and its rays on the water. Take your time; even if you later paint most of it away, it remains the most painterly part. While we’re laying colours in the appropriate areas, we don’t want them completely segregated.

03 Sparkle

The rays of the setting sun would sparkle on the water, and we’ve brought out the FX Fairy Dust brush for this. Our brush size is very small, about five, and the Opacity is less than 50 per cent so it remains somewhat transparent. Choosing colours from the rest of the image, we brushed Fairy Dust in randomly horizontal strokes, painting onto an empty layer so that we could play with opacity and blending modes.

04 Final details

We liked the sparkle of the Fairy Dust so much that we added light touches of it to the sun, the fence and the horizon. This is where we decided to say our painting was finished, but you could take it further and bring in more touches of realism if you like. The vibrant colours work well with either style because they’re not really exaggerated.

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Primer General Brush Controls

BRUSH CONTROLS

LINE AIRBRUSH

The brush engine is Painter’s heart and soul, with settings in the Brush Controls palette

Another great variant, and we haven’t even got out of the Dab Types yet, but this one is a favourite, still using the Variable Oil Pastel. It gives a soft colour wash to hard edges where we want to lose the hardness. Let’s go check out more sliders!

General

PRIMER

ainter’s brushes makes the program what it is. In order to make full use of them, we ought to get acquainted with the Brush Controls palette. That’s where the answers to many of your questions about brush behaviour live. As we begin our exploration of the Brush Controls palette, we’ll focus in on the attributes of each tab separately, beginning with the General tab. In this walkthrough, we will attempt to help you digest and assimilate the wealth of information about Brush Controls we’ve been given in the Painter manual, in the Help feature, in books and online, through our own understanding of them. We won’t try to reinvent the wheel, just gain some basic understanding of how it turns. Brush Controls provide quick-as-awink access to brush settings without disrupting our work�low. Did you know there’s a boost slider that instantly enhances your brush speed? This is great to know when one of the more complex brush variants drags a bit. Did you know that with some brushes you can choose alternate colour sources like gradients and patterns? We knew you’d be interested. How about tweaking a variant so that it interacts with paper texture? We can do that, too. Banish your anxieties regarding tabs, sliders and pop-up menus, and get ready to do some exploring!

ONE BRUSH, MANY VARIANTS We did the entire painting using one brush, the Variable Oil Pastel 10, but with the adjustments in the General Brush Controls, the possibilities are nearly infinite. Save your work often, and when the time comes to experiment with a new variant, you can revert to the last saved state

Brush Controls at work

Painting with a pattern

Settings in the workspace

Choose to use your source as a background

We all arrange our workspaces differently, but you will most likely want to keep the Brush Controls palette showing all the time. Go to Window>Brush Controls>General, and when you click on General, all of the tabs in that palette will appear in your workspace. You may decide to leave them all there or keep only the ones you plan to use most often. Or you might want to leave only the General tab showing for now and add the others as we cover them in future issues. If the controls seem alien to you at first, this will pass, and soon you will know immediately and intuitively which of the sliders you need to create or tweak brush variants for the job at hand.

Here’s what can happen when you choose Pattern as your source. You won’t likely use it for anything as bold and vibrant as this, but it does open up another world of possibilities. This one began with a pattern we had painted and saved in the Pattern library, and then it was available as a source when we chose a Variable Oil Pastel brush. It might be the beginning of a painting background, or you could select areas of your painting and fill in with your own patterns. Pattern as Opacity paints with the pattern at a reduced opacity. The whole process is similar when you create your own gradients and use them as the source for brush variants.

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STATIC BRISTLE

General options

Primer

The Variable Oil Pastel brushes give a smooth paint stroke that, as the name implies, varies in opacity, but just changing the Dab Type to Static Bristle gave us an interesting loosegrained variant whose paint depth is continuous and deliciously rough so that it balances out our soft strokes

Discover what each setting does

General Brush Controls

01

02 03

05 06

ERASER HIGHLIGHTS The Eraser Dab Type with the Opacity set to six per cent or lower resulted in a useful variant for creating highlights throughout the painting. A handy rule of thumb is that when you think the painting is finished, go back and find areas that need more shadow or light

08 09 11

04

07

10

12 PALETTE KNIFE We’ve got lots of Palette Knives, but the challenge here is to create everything we need from one native variant, and the Palette Knife Dab Type option works beautifully with this one. If you’ve never painted with a traditional-media palette knife, that’s a painting style all on its own

01: Dab Type

Describes the shape of the brush tip

02: Stroke Type

One of four Stroke Types (if available) determines how media is applied to canvas, whether it’s a Single pixel, a Multi (multiple dabs around the line made), a Rake effect or a Hose picture from another document

03: Method

Painting with the Plug-in method Experiment with the controls available There are far too many choices residing behind the General Brush Controls tab for us to discover them all in one brief article, but here is a fun method you’ve just got to spend some time playing with if you haven’t already. Choose a brush that will allow you to select Plug-in as a Method in order to try out all those interesting options in the Subcategories list – 27 in all. Here, we chose the Dull Grainy Chalk 30 brush, created a new canvas, filled it with a gradient and began playing. Some of the Plug-in variants add colour, some remove it, some add texture, sharpen or darken, while others distort the media that has already been laid down.

07: Expression

Pressure and Velocity relate most closely to painting in traditional media

08: Direction

Try Artists’ Oils>Dry Clumpy, with Impasto set to Direction and notice how painterly your strokes become as you play with the Direction slider

09: Grain

Gives a brush the same characteristics as another one

Push the slider to the right for less grain and to the left if you desire more

04: Subcategory

10: Expression

Refines the Method chosen

05: Source

Only apply to some Dab Types, and specifies whether we choose colour from our primary or secondary colour swatches, a Pattern or a Gradient

06: Opacity

Sets the maximum opacity and determines if it paints translucently or opaquely

This control relates to the grain attributes of our variant

11: Direction

In traditional media, the support grain will affect the amount of media laid down in one direction. So does this slider

12: Boost

Not available for all brushes but when it is, drag to the right and see your brush gather speed

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Tutorial Create your first caricature

Create your first caricature Discover how you can adapt Corel Painter’s tools to the task of creating a simple, yet traditionalstyle caricature

Tutorial info Artist

Steven Samuel Time needed

30 minutes Skill level

Beginner On the CD

Original photo

his tutorial is a step-by-step approach to creating a digital caricature in Corel Painter. This simple process should take around 30 minutes, although with practise it can be done in around 15 minutes. Before we proceed, it is important to understand what a caricature is. Quite simply, it is an exaggerated likeness of someone’s face, with emphasis on all the victim’s redeeming features such

as ears, eyes, nose, face shape, etc. Be warned, caricature art is a powerful tool that has been used by political satirists – remember the Spitting Image television programme in the Eighties? So choose your victim very carefully, and just make sure that they have a sense of humour – there is a very �ine line between exaggeration and insult. Any photograph you use should show as much detail as possible. This allows you to have lots of visual hooks to work

on, and gives you the opportunity to do some serious caricature. When producing one for someone you know, have a think about what facial feature is their most prominent and then accentuate that in your portrait. Essentially, we are warping an existing image and training ourselves to spot the sorts of features that really lend themselves to exaggeration. Eyes and lips was the obvious choice here. Creating a caricature is a trial-and-error exercise, so don’t be afraid to experiment. But most

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Work on the photo

Open up the start photo from the disc. We cropped into the girl’s face but feel free to use the entire figure. Now we get straight to the fun bit! Click on Effects>Surface Control>Image Warp.

02 Why the long face?

You get three choices for the Image Warp. Pick Linear for this image. You also have a couple of choices when it comes to making the warp. For a free-form approach, click and drag out in the preview window. This will make the face warp. Use the slider to decide how strong to make the effect.

Create your first caricature

01 Start the edit

Tutorial

Warp speed anyone?

03 The final base

Stick with the Linear setting and work your way around the image. We’ve warped at the sides of the face and either side of the chin to accentuate it. We’ve also used it at a larger size on the forehead. You can also select an area and then go to Image Warp for more control.

focus 05 Circular

04 Tidy as you go

With the warped areas all set (you can go as mad as you like), it’s time to do some tidying. Pop down to Effects>Focus>Sharpen. This will allow you to sort out the edges and add a bit of definition to the eyes.

You have different types of focus to choose from. For this task, select Circular and then adjust the Amount to around 82 per cent. Set Highlight and Shadow to 100 per cent and then click OK.

Getting the best from Image Warp

06 Easy shading

So far we have been preparing the photos for painting. We have the basic shape sorted now, but there’s a handy trick we can employ to make the painting process easier. Go to Effects>Tonal Control>Posterize.

07 Apply Posterize

Once you have chosen the Posterize command, a window will open with a Preview window and an area to add a setting. For this image, pick a setting of eight and then click OK.

It could take you a while to get used to the Image Warp command. When you are starting out, stick with the Linear option. This allows you to move pixels around in quite a fluid way and is particularly good at elongating or squidging areas of your image.

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Tutorial Create your first caricature

Starting to clone Go from photo to fully fledged caricature

time 09 Clone

08 The results

When you run the Posterize effect, you simplify the image. As you can see here, the final result looks blotchy and the colours have been evened out. As a photo it is disastrous, but hopefully you can see how it has an illustrated feel already.

We can’t leave the image as it is, so let’s apply some paint. Start off by going to File>Clone. If you have room to place the image to be cloned next to the source image, then do so.

11 Clone variant

10 Erase the work

Making sure that you are working on the clone file, pick the Eraser tool and then erase your image. Honestly, we promise this will make sense in the end! Once it’s all gone, pick the Cloner tool from the toolbox.

Pop up to the Cloners’ variants menu and then pick the Bristle Brush Cloner. Set Size to 48.2, Opacity to 21 per cent, Resat to 48 per cent, Bleed to 26 per cent and Feature to 3.4.

Posterize effect The Effects menu is a useful place to visit before you start to clone a photo. The choices here allow you to tweak images and make creating a cloned piece of artwork much easier. The trick is to stop looking at the image as a photo. When we posterised the photo in this tutorial, it looked terrible, but once cloned it gave a great base for an artistic finish.

12 Start to clone

Begin by loosely brushing in the hair. Because you have the clone file next to the document you are cloning from, you can easily see the area the Cloner is picking up. The low opacity setting allows you to apply a good base.

13 More defined

As soon as you get to the more intricate areas such as the facial features, start to make the brush follow the contours of the face. If you just scribble the brush you will blur all detail, but trace the features for a more convincing effect.

14 Carry on until you’re happy

Here, we have covered the entire image using the Bristle Brush Cloner. You can see that it is still quite faint, but we will sort that in a minute. The key is to cover all the area and provide a base for the next application.

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Build some more

Cloners variants, this time selecting the Camel Oil Cloner. Set 21.5 as the Size, 37 per cent as the Opacity and 27 per cent as the Resat. Bleed needs to be 49 per cent and Feature is 2.2.

16 Define areas

The Camel Oil Cloner is quite a sharp brush and allows you to give the impression of carefully applied paint. In this case, use it to define the main facial features such as the eyes and lips. It’s also worth sharpening the edges a bit.

Create your first caricature

15

Camel Oil Cloner Go back to the

Tutorial

Layer the paint and then sharpen

17 Review the progress

Here you can see the final image against the clone source. We’ve used the Camel Oil Cloner all over, and added definition to the forehead and chin in addition to the facial areas mentioned in the previous step.

Deciding what to accentuate Work with a plan in mind While the best caricatures are loose in style, it pays to spend a bit of time looking at your subject before you start making marks. We’ve put together a quick guide to how we approached the starter file for this tutorial, pointing out the best areas to accentuate with the Image Warp tool.

FOREHEAD Our model has quite a large forehead and this can be accentuated for the good of the caricature! We used Image Warp to extend it upwards

EYES The model has nice big eyes, which we’ve emphasised. We could have made the actual eyes a lot larger (think of the cat in Shrek) but decided to stick with altering the eyebrows. By doing this, we have given the final image a lot of character

CHEEKS We haven’t done much to the actual cheeks, but have brought the area above the cheeks in a bit, which has given more attention to the area

LIPS The mouth is one of the first things to be accentuated in a caricature, and we used the Image Warp to drag the bottom lip down and therefore make it bigger

NECK CHIN To go with the large lips, we also dragged the chin down. Traditional caricatures tend to look a little pinched, meaning the forehead and chin need to be enlarged in order to make the eyes and lips look compressed

To finish the exaggerated feel, we also made the neck longer. This made the head look bigger and finished the comic expression

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Tutorial Storyboard results

Storyboard competition results The results are in! Issue six’s storyboard competition is now at an end, the results have been judged and we have a presentation of the winners here… Graham Purvis Script used: Lounge Singers, Kid

Prize won:

3RD PLACE

Wins Painter X can

Limited edition Corel Painter X paint can Graham’s entry impressed the judges with its depth and adaptation of the script. Even with no knowledge of the story line, the clear illustrations and notes for each meant anyone could follow it and still understand what was going on. Style-wise, it hit the nail on the head. Using red as the only colour gave a Sin City feel, and you could almost hear the slow jazz and pouring rain in the background. A great entry and deserved win.

Ian McCaughrean Script used: The trail of Five-Ton Mary

Prize won: Limited edition Corel Painter X paint can Graham Thomas, the man responsible for the scripts supplied for the competition, looked at this storyboard and was blown away by how it illustrated exactly what was in his mind. The characters Ian created brought the script to life, and he managed to tread the fine line between fantastical without entering into ludicrous. As a storyboard, the judges felt as though this one gave an instant flavour for the mood and style of the film. It dictates the colours, scale, type of characters and pace, which culminates in a useful product to take along to pitches. From an artistic point of view, the characters are sublime and the muted tones used to paint them work really well.

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Competition

2ND PLACE

Wins Painter X can

Corel storyboard competition results 63

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Tutorial Storyboard results

Winner: Leighton Johns Leighton Johns Script used: The Last of the Broken-Tokyo Ghost Hunters

Prize won: Wacom Cintiq 21UX Although it has become a competition standard to say how hard it was to decide upon a winner, in our case it really was. Each entry brought something valuable to the table but Leighton’s storyboard combined them with the most aplomb. Art-wise, it’s clearly successful. The storyboard is just beautiful to look at, and we liked all the little details such as the stylised arrows and elements coming out of the frame. In terms of what a storyboard is supposed to do, it was equally as successful. A director or camera operator can clearly see how to position shots and move around the action. It clearly shows the pace of the story in addition to setting the mood of the scenario. So a massive congratulations to Leighton. He is rightly crowned winner and we hope you enjoy your Cintiq!

Prize Wacom Cintiq 21UX

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Competition Corel storyboard competition results

1st place Wins Wacom Cintiq 21UX!

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Drawing 101 How to draw horses

How to…

draw horses Kick-start your unbridled passion with this tutorial designed to give your drawing skills a little extra horsepower here is a mysterious magnetism surrounding these equestrian mammals – even without any form of external encouragement, many people are completely enchanted by them. So why is it that horses evoke such passion? There is something wonderful about their faces: the liquid eye with the amazing rectangular pupils and supermodel eyelashes (with sickeningly perfect applications of eyeliner); the �loppy, hairy, wobbliness of the bottom

lip; the soft, inquisitive or invective curve of the ear; the whorls of hair as they converge under the forelock, and so forth. There are many reasons why people draw horses; historically, they represent power, strength and beauty. European Kings are often found astride a rearing, prancing stallion with �lowing mane and tail, and a feisty look in their eye to enhance the impression of power. They have been portrayed in every conceivable colour, style and canon with love and varying degrees of accuracy.

Proportions are proportions are proportions. This pony has the same proportions as a racehorse, and the ratio is the same for Shetland or Shire. With enthusiasm, dedication, practice and a little help from this guide, your advance along the road of the equine artist should be a little more turbo-charged. Or if you are just twiddling your thumbs for an hour or two, try this tutorial and join a thousand other keen drawers around the world who are probably drawing horses right now!

Drawing the head Examine the head as if you’ve never seen it before

SKETCH

Draw a slanting vertical line to show the space between the end of the nose and the bottom of the nearest ear. Divide this in half with a horizontal line that is half the size of the vertical line. A rough circle in the top half and two at the bottom represent both ends of the jaw.

REFINEMENT

Now you have the basic form of the head, focus on accurately recording the details of the features and the outline. Particularly challenging are the eyes, nostril folds and the shape of the ears. They must be accurate to convey the expression, feeling or thoughts on the horse’s mind.

POLISH

Firmly use an H pencil to shade in the darkest areas, notably the eye. Then, feature by feature, use a range of marks to convey the texture and direction of the hair: the tufty ears, the shadowing on bones and muscles. Quick and expressive directional marks will work well for the mane, giving it energy and life.

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Drawing 101

Drawing the body Define then refine

SKETCH

How to draw horses

To begin, draw a square. Divide this horizontally with a line that slants up to the horse’s bottom. A triangle, representing the neck, cuts off at the head and joins the top half of your square. The legs follow the two vertical lines that drop from the top. Block in the curvaceous body parts, checking the proportions and relationships carefully as you go.

REFINEMENT

Now double-check and confirm the correct outlines and shapes with a confident line. Trouble spots will be different for everyone. Take great care with the ins and outs of the foot and fetlock, and the positions of the ears, eyes and nostrils. Once these are in place, the rest of the image is a lot easier to make convincing.

POLISH

Tone, shadows, shading and the direction of your marks rely on close observation – is that shadow really that shape, or is the hair flowing in that direction for quick marks or the other for slow? Which curvy mark should you use to create the muscles or the pot belly? Bear all these in mind.

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Drawing 101 How to draw horses

Different poses To begin with, we are going to look at three different poses (we found two on www.morgue�ile.com, a website which is full of wonderful and weird free photographs to use as secondary source material). If you are lucky enough to have access to real horses, study them from life to practise your observational skills. However, these poses give you a chance to �ine-tune your drawing ideas and skills. Find an image that really appeals to you and enjoy tweaking it until it works.

SHADOW PLAY Shadows are really important for suggesting the bend of the legs

GESTURE MUSCLE Although covered by the mane, make lines to indicate neck muscles

PERSPECTIVE Don’t assume how the legs will look – take note of the back legs and their size

LYING DOWN

This is a challenging pose because of a slightly raised perspective. This means you must focus on the shapes, curves, tones and spaces between that make up the horse, distorting its normal proportions. At first sight, the head looks vastly oversized and the neck bulges awkwardly as it bends. Try to ignore the whole image; work on detail and this should prevent you making assumptions about proportions that may compromise the accuracy of your drawing. As with the first pose, begin by sketching out form and blocking out the shapes before refining your drawing with texture and tone.

GALLOPING ALONG Describe movement by leaving white areas, with less shading than more stationary body parts

GRAZING

Analyse the relationships between the legs, for instance, the hocks are slightly higher than the knees. Look at the curves of the body, muscles and joints. Start your drawing by blocking out the form with very simple shapes. Tweak them for accuracy and gradually add details like the mane, tail, fine bone structure and muscles. Polish with carefully graduated tones, using your pencil to work up texture with appropriate marks. We used an H pencil; cross-hatching in the direction of the form.

CANTERING

This pose is flowing, active and fun to draw with its flying mane and tail and you can clearly see the horse’s anatomy. The higher the angle of the legs, the faster the pace is – another tip to add to your repertoire. One thing to remember is that this is the sort of pose favoured by artists to promote the rider or the horse to give a sense of power, grace or strength and movement, so decide whether to include the rider or not! Once again, briefly describe the shapes of the horse in sketchy blocks and lines, and refine with textural marks and tonal variation.

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Drawing 101

Now have a go yourself!

How to draw horses

It’s time to work through the thinking and practical skills you will need to draw your horse. Take time to choose an image that is absolutely right. This image is quite romantic – only a horn away from unicorn, if you will. The horse, the pose and the material will all affect the image you create. We chose pencil crayons to give our image colour while maintaining the drawing technique we have been exploring, but watercolour or acrylic would be lovely too.

01 SKETCH

First roughly block in the shape, while keeping in mind the proportions. The dotted lines on this drawing denote the head length’s marker. Because of the angle of the horse, it appears slightly shorter at five rather than the aforementioned five and a half, so be careful when making assumptions on proportions.

02

HORSE PHOTOS ON THE DISC!

03 ANALYSE DEPTHS

REFINED OUTLINE

Really look hard at the image and work out the darkest sections. Draw these in, crosshatch them lightly to see the muscle and bone structure. Ensure steps three and four are done very lightly, to really get to know your image.

This step is once again about confirming the shapes of the parts and the outlines of the whole. Rub out any parts that you don’t need any more and focus on really asserting the outline. Begin to add details like the mane, tail and muscles so you feel completely confident to work on the shading.

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Drawing 101 How to draw horses

04

05

ANALYSE MID-TONES

Analyse in microscopic detail the areas that are definitely not highlights and not deep shadow, then experiment with your pencil to give these mid-tones texture and life. Experiment with the shape, strength and power of your marks. Remember, after a few practices, completely miss out the guidance of steps three and four.

DESCRIBE DEPTHS

Now you need to select the colours you are going to use. We have used black and grey for the majority, and then two others very delicately to give it a little extra life. This step deals with describing the depth of shadow you have analysed in step three. Use pressure to intensify the shading and a variety of marks to suggest three dimensions.

06

07

POLISH, VA-VA-VOOM AND X FACTOR! Always consider what can be done to give your work the X factor. We saw brown in the tail and a bit of blue on the face so we added a hint here and there, and even a suggestion of peach to evoke the sandy ground. That little something at the end is a risk if you think you have finished, but worth it for the reward.

DESCRIBE MID-TONES

Now for the fun bit! Use the grey pencil to describe the subtle shadows and dappling on the fur. The mane flies up and the power in the hind legs is accentuated with faded and dynamic greys.

Free reference photos Practise the skills shown here using the photos on our disc

SOURCE FILES ON THE CD!

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TITLE WEBSITE JOB TITLE CLIENTS

Stanley’s Pepper character is much-loved in the deviantART community; so much so, he is producing a book to showcase other artists’ interpretations of his heroine. Called The Pepper Project, the book will debut some exclusive Pepper creations by Stanley in addition to artwork from professional artists and fans. If you have your own take on Pepper, visit Stanley’s deviantART page and follow the link for the submission pack. It’s free to enter but all entries must be submitted by 1 March 2008.

Pepper Smile http://artgerm.deviantart.com and www.imaginaryfs.com Professional artist DC Comics, Electronic Arts and MTV

STANLEY LAU

Your

questions answered Faery folk I want to be able to paint a faery character without going down the usual cutesy route. Have you got any advice for me?

R��� B�����

On this issue’s panel… Cheryl Blanchard

Fresh from her gallery exhibition, Cheryl reveals some of her ways of tackling your problems. Forests, dusk colours and rain features.

Charlene Chua

An accomplished illustrator, Charlene took care of some interesting questions, including how to draw glass, work with gradients and produce shiny metal.

What you’ll find in this section Software Don’t get bogged down in a Corel Painter black hole – write to us and we’ll help you work harmoniously Fine art

When it comes to creating art, you often find little niggles that ruin your masterpiece. We sort them out

Illustration Make sure your illustrations are in top form by following our advice Send in your queries to… Official Painter Magazine Q&A, Imagine Publishing Ltd, Richmond House, 33 Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH2 6EZ. Alternatively you can email us at [email protected]

SHARE YOUR PROBLEMS!

Send in your questions for our experts to answer at [email protected]

The whole idea of faeries being cute is actually fairly recent. Faeries stem from the mythology of Western Europe, and feature particularly strongly in folk tales from Britain, Ireland and Scotland. Traditional faeries were more well-known for their mischievous, sometimes malicious habits. Many folktales feature faeries playing tricks and causing all kinds of grief for people who happened to cross their path, including theft, leading them astray and knotting the hair of sleepers into elflocks. It wasn’t until fairly recently that illustrators decided to romanticise the wee folk, depicting them as cute miniaturised people with angelic features. If you’d like to draw a faery that doesn’t look as cute as a button, just try mixing up the main faery features (usually an elfin face, pointed ears and iridescent wings) with anything that doesn’t look cute! You could try giving your faeries different dress styles (think punk or grunge) and lose the greens and soft pinks of typical faery clothes. Some artists like Susan McKivergan (www.cosmosue.net)) create fantastic digital paintings of faeries based on real-life models. For more inspiration, try hunting down these art books at the bookstore: The World of Faery and The Art of Faery, both from Paper Tiger, and Faeries by Brian Froud, arguably the most distinguished fairy artist alive.

Black and light I’d like to try my hand at some silhouette art, but at the moment I am having trouble getting anything good. Can you give a struggling artist a helping hand? N��� W������� A silhouette is an image consisting of an outline and usually a flat nondescript interior, often black. Though lacking in facial expressions, silhouettes were a popular means of portraiture before the camera was invented. Those who specialised in this art could cut a close likeness out of black paper in moments and at very little expense, thus its popularity. This term extends beyond the human portrait now to include just about any image with a light background and dark foreground or vice versa; landscapes, objects, a dark bird against the sky. They are still seen as effective, used everywhere from television advertisements (iPod and iTunes) to

films (oft-used in the opening titles for James Bond films). Here is a different approach to this technique, one that uses a light outline on a black background to create an unusual silhouette. Oil Pastels are good for this kind of effect, as they’re soft and illustrate the edge of light quite nicely.

Above Fairies don’t have to be demure, cute or childlike. You can draw fairies that don’t look cute by avoiding features such as rounded faces, large baby-like eyes and soft pastel colours

Left For an outline silhouette, start with a dark background and softly brush in the outline on a layer above the background. Paint some of the dark background back into the light to blend the edges. Add some colour and shape to the interior to add some interest

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Q&A

Tears from heaven

Art class

How on earth do I get the look of rain on windows without them looking randomly inserted? M��� N������ The look of rain on windows is not too difficult to create if you approach it with an open mind. When you look at rain droplets on a window, you’ll notice they reflect the colours around them. Usually the base colour of the drops will be lighter than the colours around them. So, if you’re painting a stormy grey scene, make the initial drops a lighter grey to create the illusion of space, to set them apart from the background. The surrounding colours can be added on top of the drop shapes to reflect and add volume. Really though, you don’t need much detail. A few specks of colour here and there will give the illusion of reflections.

Start by painting the shapes of the rain drops. Are they round and stationary or elongated and dripping down the window? Then add the bright highlights that reflect the nearby colours

Descending darkness I’m trying to capture the feeling of dusk but am having trouble choosing the correct colours. Can you advise me how to achieve the right swatches? M������ P�����

01 Experiment

Use your favourite medium and experiment with some colour. Often, the colours of dusk are cool and dark. You don’t need to always add black to create dark colours; try more saturated colours for a rich effect.

Initially this may sound unhelpful, but the colours of dusk are so varied. They differ depending on what time of year it is, and also what the atmospheric conditions are like. At times, dusk has something of a green tint if there is a storm on the horizon, or a pink hue from

02 Atmosphere

Layering colour adds dimension and depth to help create a thicker atmosphere. With whatever medium you use, work at some level of opacity from 30 per cent to 50 per cent to allow underlying colours to blend and show through.

a brilliant setting sun, sometimes even lavender bursts through. However, the best colours to use for depicting dusk may well be the blues. From a vibrant deep French Ultramarine to a soft blue grey, you should be able to find the perfect hues and values to set the twilight mood you desire.

03 Blue dusk

Here are some perfect blues to start you on your way. Keep in mind that each nightfall is different to the next, so the best way to choose your colour is to start by observing nature and then experiment.

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Q&A Art class

Photo opportunity

The final frontier Are there any tips lurking about for painting space helmets? I’m having trouble in particular with the glass visor. L��� H����� Unless tinted, glass in reality has no colour to speak of. When painting it, the main thing to remember is that it does have a colour – that of whatever it sits in front of. For a space helmet, the glass visor of the helmet allows the wearer’s face and possibly some of the background to be seen.

in 01 Roughing

Is there a particular type of photograph that is best for referencing when painting? M����� L���� It all depends on what you want to paint and what you hope to achieve. A sharply detailed photograph is a necessity if you want to include all the details in your painting. There is much to be done to a photo before it’s ready to be used either as a cloning source or simply as a reference point. When cloning, it can be helpful to increase the

contrast of a photo; when you clone, the value range will most certainly be reduced. Crop, contrast and colour-correct to enhance the photo before you begin to paint. Try capturing images out of focus or move the camera in order to create motion. At the end of the day, your choice of photo should be based on what your ultimate intent is, the style of painting you have in mind.

Set a background for your image and start by roughing in basic colours for your painting. In this case, the general outline for the helmet is loosely defined by some grey brushstrokes. The glass inherits the colour of the background and of the face.

in colour 02 Filling

Paint in lighter shades of grey and some highlights (white or whatever colour your light source is). We used the Gouache brushes and the Just Add Water brush for blending. Gently blend the colours, but don’t totally obscure the background colour.

A blurry scene lends itself to a soft mysterious image. A high-contrast image works well for a bold painting and cityscapes are always winners. A portrait with some background interest will aid in developing a balanced piece

03 Refine

When the general painting is complete, use small brushes to apply small, sharp highlights to suggest the reflective nature of the glass. Deepen the shadows where the glass meets the helmet. Dot some off-white highlights around to suggest the extra shine of the glass.

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Fruits of the forest

01 Foundation

Block the basic colours in to give a sense of space and proportion to the canvas. This will also give you the chance to get a feel for the scene and plan ahead for the details.

02 Movement

Try to paint with bold, swift brushstrokes to show movement and create some energy. With a simple painting, the brushstrokes become the vehicle that conveys the message.

fashion, this energy is more likely to translate to your finished piece. Work in layers, adding your smallest brushstrokes at the end. There’s a lot going on in a small area, but if you add details then this will create some defined areas of attraction, enriching your painting. Be careful not to overwork the painting, and also be mindful that you don’t blend the brushstrokes too much.

Art class

C�������� C����� Painting a woodland scene can be particularly challenging because it’s usually a very busy place. There are lots of leaves

and branches, not to mention all the foliage, with much more detail than other painterly depictions that you need to simply express the feeling of the woods. The best thing to do is to consider the abstract shapes of colour and block those in to start with. Try to paint the movement of the branches in a suggestive way, using loose, expressive brushstrokes. If they are painted quickly in a spirited

Q&A

I want to paint quite a simple woodland but am not sure how much detail to go into. Can you help?

03 Details

Keeping with the loose strokes, add in detail here and there. Don’t overdo it or smooth them out too much. View your painting at a distance to consider the overall effect.

Pastel problems I have a good friend who is a traditional-media artist who uses real pastels, and he has lots of pads of different coloured paper. I’ve tried different coloured backgrounds in Painter but can’t seem to get any good colours. Can you give me some colour values that will work well? K���� P������� You’ll find that some of the best background colours for pastel paintings are neutrals. If you happen to be using a photo reference, think about selecting a tone from the photograph to use as a background colour. Doing it this way will support and complement the image as you select the rest of your colours from the same image. Use a colour that is mid-range so that it can be used to complement both lighter and darker paint. This way, it also becomes an integral part of the painting and there is no need whatsoever to completely fill in the whole canvas.

A dark paper is good for night scenes – an indigo or a black works well. Tans and greys from warm to cool are the best selections for just about any pastel paintings

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Q&A Art class

Graphical gradients

I was wondering if it’s possible to make illustrations using gradients as the shading technique? J� E��������

Yes, it is possible. Before the advent of digital paint programs, gradients were popularly used in airbrush illustrations. Today, gradients are used in both vector and raster graphic programs to embellish, supplement or in some cases, construct the main artwork. There are different ways to work with gradients depending on what kind of look you are trying to achieve. The use of pure gradients to construct artwork usually results in flat, graphic-looking work. Illustrators like Leo Kundas (www.annaleo.com) use this to great effect to create Art Deco-style pieces. One trick is to use gradients to add colour to imported photos in Painter. By applying different coloured gradients on different layers and then tweaking the layer composite modes, you can turn drab photos into interesting collage dreamscapes.

In this image created for issue seven’s Feature Focus: Gradients , the butterflies and backgrou nd were colour-treated with various grad ients

The light fantastic I’ve got a idea for a painting in my head, but I’m �inding it hard to really get it out of my imagination and onto my digital canvas. What’s a good way to give the impression of lots of lights, the kind you’d expect to see in a street scene at night? L����� T����

01 Colour scheme

Choosing a colour scheme is a good place to start. City scenes and night scenes are generally cool. With the addition of warm-coloured lights, a nice contrast can develop in a painting.

You can create the impression of lots of lights by doing just that – painting an impression rather than exact, precise shapes. What happens is that light glows out from its source into the night, so try to simulate that in your painting. If you are accustomed to working on layers, you can build the lights gradually, painting the underlying street scene in first and then

02 Basic shapes

Which direction do the lights go? Are they bright or dim, warm or cool? Start by suggesting the shapes and placement of the lights – there’s no need for much detail, just block them in.

brightening the lights as a final touch. Make sure you keep a soft look for the lights and let the colour blend out into the surroundings to create a decent sense of depth. By using rich, deep colours in the background areas, this will help to make the lights stand out, simply by contrasting dark with bright. And there you have it! Now you should be able to bring your vision to life.

03 Sparks of interest

Finally add some bright highlights and accenting shapes to make the lights sparkle. You don’t need to do this everywhere. Some selectively placed brushstrokes will catch the viewer’s eye.

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For a bit of a throwback to the Seventies, how do I paint a realistic mirror ball? I realise each little mirror bit re�lects light differently.

B��� H���

S���� O�����

A simple band of grey can be made to look like polished silver by adding deep shadows contrasted with bright highlights. This creates the illusion of reflection

A real mirror ball is made up of hundreds of little square mirror bits. However, if you’re looking to create a mirror ball for a backdrop, you can make use of some of Painter’s effects to help you generate a good-looking prop. The idea is to create a circle with a texture that appears to make it seem shimmery. This you can do by making use of Weave fills and changing layer composite methods.

of your light source. Similarly, if you are using more than one coloured light source, a shiny metal will bounce back the respective colours at the angle at which the light hits the metal. Painter’s Blender brushes can help to soften the shadows slightly, while the Airbrush tool can be used to add tiny sparkles and accents.

a weave 01 Applying

Select Waves on the Beach from the Weaves palette. Use Edit Weave>Get Color Set and Put Color Set to change the colour of the weave pattern. Select the Paint Bucket tool with the fill set to Weave, and fill the canvas with the weave.

Glazed over

How do I achieve a transparent, glazing look with Artists’ Oils? I’ve tried, but the colours often look dull. M������ M����-E����

The trick here is to work in lower opacities. To start a painting, try working at 80 per cent Opacity and blocking in the major colour areas. Create multiple layers and build the colour a little at a

Art class

Time warp

How would I be able to get the impression of metal, silver jewellery for example?

Metal can be a tricky surface to paint. It can be expressed differently depending on its state. Highly polished metal tends to gleam and sparkle, whereas tarnished metal appears dull and rough. Likewise, metal jewellery will appear different depending on how it is used in the context of the picture. Shiny jewellery can adorn characters or elements to give them an air of elitism, while tarnished or matte-finish jewellery might help lend an air of menace to other characters. To help bring out polished metal, you can try painting it with heavy contrasts. A base shade of grey would establish the general silver colour. Emphasise the metallic aspect by alternating between dark shadows and very bright highlights to produce a chrome-like effect. If you are using a coloured light source, the light reflecting off the metal will match that

Q&A

Heavy metal

time. Be sure to check the Pick up underlying colors checkbox in the Layers palette so they will blend together somewhat. Work at 50 per cent on mid-layers. Finally on the top layers, paint with 20 per cent Opacity to blend any hard edges. Traditionally, light passes through layers of paint to bounce off a white canvas and back to the viewer’s eyes. The same effect can be achieved with semitransparent layering.

Warp 02 Quick

Use Effects>Surface Control>Quick Warp. Hit Sphere and adjust the settings to fit. Draw a circle, copy and paste the pattern onto a new layer, then discard the original layer. Rightclick the circle layer, choose Select Layer Transparency and create a new layer.

twinkle 03 Twinkle

Don’t be too concerned with smoothing all the brushstrokes out as you go. When you have multiple layers of transparent oils, the viewer’s eye will blend the colours together

Select Emerald Dawn from the Gradients palette and fill the selection with the Paint Bucket tool. Move the gradient layer below the weave. Change the weave’s layer mode to Screen. Create a new layer. Move it to the top. Use the Airbrush tool to spray on highlights.

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Reviews Wacom Cintiq 12WX

Wacom Cintiq 12WX From £829 | Once in a while, a product comes along that is instantly desirable. Wacom achieved it once with the Cintiq 21UX – can it be done again? espite Corel Painter being as close to real media as you can get (without being actual real media!). the one thing that leaves you in no doubt that you are tied to a computer is your input device. With its Cintiq 21UX, however, Wacom dazzled the art world with draw-on-screen technology. Put simply, you could draw and paint on a digital device as you would on paper or canvas. Since the Cintiq 21UX’s release, the company has been taking on the comments of users, resulting in the glory that is the Cintiq 12WX. This beauty is smaller, cheaper and more portable than its sibling so is it input heaven or is it just a pared down version of the original? The two screens share an almost identical technical pro�ile. The 21UX featured the same technology as the Intuos3, with a 1,600 x 1,200pixel screen and a wide 21.3-inch drawing area. The 24-bit tablet came with 1,024 pressure levels, 60-degree pen tilt support, ExpressKeys, Touch Strip and a lightweight, battery-free cordless Grip Pen. Its tools can be conveniently transferred across different Intuos tablets, including the new Cintiq 12WX. Wacom technology automatically recognises tools coming into contact with the tablet, keeping all settings intact. You just need to touch the tablet with your pen and go to System Preferences>Wacom where it will show up, ready for further setting. The new Cintiq 12WX goes a step further down the short Cintiq line of evolution, injecting the element of mobility. Unlike its heavier predecessor, this newcomer was created with portability in mind. It can safely be described as Wacom’s attempt to simulate a real-life sketchbook; one that is freely moved around a creative of�ice environment for sharing ideas and notes. Weighing just 2,000g and measuring

ExpressKeys

Touch Strip

Display area 10.3-inch wide x 6.4-inch high

Resolution 1,280 x 800

40.5 x 27cm, this 24-bit tablet has a 170-degree viewing angle, 1,280 x 800 screen and naturally carries the famous Intuos pressure and tilt sensitivity. It comes with an adjustable stand that can lay �lat on your lap or at an angle for ‘on the �ly’ sketching. When placed on your desktop, it can be rotated freely on a pivot to simulate the way you would move a paper sketchpad around while drawing. It has a neat Converter Unit that cleverly limits the number of cables to a single one, which makes for a refreshingly fast tablet connection. This unit houses USB, DVI video, pen cable connector, DVI/VGA switch and

On Screen Display controls such as colour calibration, contrast and brightness. The Cintiq 12WX carries the 21UX’s functionality, including ExpressKeys and Touch Strip. Designed to perform oft-used tasks, these features improve overall work�low and are well thought out. They reduce the need to turn to the keyboard, though a simple one would have complemented the 12WX beautifully. The tablet is easy to move from desk to lap, carry and rotate but the mobility issue can be misunderstood. Some users have mistakenly taken the word portable at face value, assuming that Wacom technology has now produced a laptop-like, battery-operated gadget.

Pressure and tilt sensitivity make for realistic pen, brush and Eraser strokes

Impasto Pen Wacom’s technology allows for tools to be used across different tablets. Each is automatically recognised as the tool touches the screen

Certain features benefit from being able to draw on the screen even more so in Painter. Simulation of a real-life process is perfectly demonstrated with the Impasto brush

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Specifications

The Eraser can be used by flipping the pen

Wacom Cintiq 12WX Price

£829

Website

www.wacom.com Operating systems

PC and Mac

Resolution

1,280 x 800 pixel Stand adjustable

PC requirements

Incline 0 degrees, 25 – 80 degrees

Mac requirements

405mm x 270mm x 17mm

Windows 2000, XP or Vista

Super-light pen, cordless and battery-free

Display area

261mm x 163mm

OS X 10.3.9 or higher, CD-ROM drive, powered USB port

Overall dimensions

Pen pressure

1,024 levels

Screen size

31.0 cm (12.1 inch) Tablet control Once you select the tablet, pen and application settings through System Preferences, you are ready to set ExpressKeys with oftused functions

Erase The Eraser is an essential part of the Wacom stylus. Artists should view it as an additional creative tool, not as a remover of badly applied strokes

effortlessly �its in a multi-monitor setup, so you might, for example, dedicate it to Painter work while leaving another screen to everything else. Experience, however, does indicate that one tablet soon takes over and becomes your primary tool. As you become more �luent with the stylus, you feel at ease using it for anything from email to image manipulation and word processing. Calibration is simple and straightforward, but can be a touch awkward. On occasion, the pen failed to activate the Mac Control Strip, even though calibration instructions were followed to the full. Although to be fair, this could have been a result of using a test machine or some weird combination of commands. Other than this small issue, though, the tablet performs �lawlessly. The screen is smooth and colours as accurate as you could ask for. The drawing space is wide, enabling long, �lowing, lifelike strokes. Of course, this also means that it syncs perfectly with widescreen monitors. The Cintiq’s greatest strength is, however, the ability to draw directly onto the screen. This feels natural and, coming from the Intuos, requires no adjustment or settling in period. This feature alone is addictive and is almost guaranteed to ensure the Cintiq becomes your primary tablet. We’d even say that it is enough to make you forget that it costs over £800!.

What we like

Easy to install and move around Accurate colours with superb real-life stroke simulation Addictive draw-onscreen technology

Another winner to embrace and add to the already superlative range of Wacom tablets

What we don’t like

we say

This is not the case. This tablet still needs to be connected to the computer. You can move it freely from desktop to lap, but should you wish to share a brilliant drawing moment with a colleague at the other end of the of�ice, you will need to connect the unit to his/her machine. Its neat size and dimensions mean it

Stroke The wide drawing area and the ability to draw on screen come together to create a more lifelike experience. The draw-on-screen effect in particular sharpens the senses and enables greater overall sensitivity. This is evident throughout, but even more so with fast drawing

Features

verdict

“The Wacom name itself has over the years become synonymous with digital creativity, and the company’s tablets burst with innovation and new technology”

Calibration could be better; occasional difficulty reaching Mac control strip LED lights top-left of tablet are too bright and could cause a distraction Needs a simple keyboard to make this a more independent, sketchbook-like unit

9.0

Ease of use

8.5

Quality of results

10

Value for money

9.0

Overall score

9.0 83

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Reviews Ultimate 2.0 Denisa

Ultimate 2.0 Denisa here really should be more resources like this in the world. The idea of having a collection of reference photos on one easy-to-use disc is such a simple yet good one, and we sincerely hope it heralds an outbreak of similar products. Although, it might be that Ballistic Publishing and 3D.SK herald the revolution between them, as this is the second disc born from their collaboration. The �irst was reviewed back in issue eleven, so what does this one offer? To put it simply, this is a photo disc of one model in various poses. Three hundred poses, in fact. You get facial shots (including close-ups of facial features) in addition to body shots, action poses and nude shots. For Corel Painter users, the disc means you have a decent bank of reference photos to use for cloning or drawing. In terms of perfecting your artistic skills, the photos available on the disc are the equivalent of going to a life-drawing class, except you get to revel in 16-megapixel quality and have the choice of using TIFF or RAW �iles. This allows you to zoom, crop, delete and do whatever you fancy to get the exact result you want.

Thankfully, it is extremely easy to browse and access the images – a substandard search system would have tarnished the whole experience. Simply load up the index.html �ile in your web browser and then you can access the different categories. Clicking one of these will display large thumbnails of the photos in that category, and you can either make a note of the reference number and get the image from the disc contents, or click on the thumbnail for it to open in a new browser window. This disc excites us a lot. The quality of the photos is exceptional and the high resolution gives you the freedom to make some edits without ending in a pixelated mess. But what excites us more is the clear thought that has gone into deciding what photos would help digital artists the most. Every part of the body is covered (and obviously uncovered in the nude shots!), which allows you to �ind something of use, whatever it is you are working on. We used the images for drawing practice (especially when it comes to the face) and have found it immensely useful. We have a sneaking suspicion you will too.

specs

$65.00 | We take a look at a disc that offers hundreds of stock photos for eager digital artists Ultimate 2.0 Denisa Company

Operating Systems

Price

Minimum requirements

Ballistic Publishing $65

PC and Mac Internet connection

Website

www. ballisticpublishing. com

Categories Browse through the photos using the special interface. Simply click on the category you want from the top

Practise textures

verdict

we say

Interested in painting figures or characters? Enjoy the photos focusing on clothes

What we like

Master the face The range of facial expressions means that you can perfect your facedrawing skills

Modelling Reference category These images are great for unusual compositions

What we don’t like

Consideration has It is just the one gone into this with the model, so bear that digital artist in mind in mind Extensive galleries Easy to browse

This is a vital resource for any digital artist keen to improve their skills

Features

9.0

Ease of use

10

Quality of results

10

Value for money

9.0

Overall score

9.5

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Reviews Books

Abstract and Colour Techniques in Painting £18.99 | Let your imagination run riot by experimenting with the abstract

It’s all covered The book moves through the different aspects of abstract art, diligently covering the skills, considerations and techniques

hen it comes to art styles, abstract is the one that provokes the most passionate outbursts. Some will defend it to the hilt, while others are quick to dismiss it as something a child could do. This book aims to better understand the abstract, and essentially show how to create it. The book’s author, Claire Harrigan, is a practising abstract artist and you bene�it from her obvious love of the genre. The book is packed with examples of her artwork and is an instant indication of the varied approach to this style. Abstract and Colour Techniques in Painting begins with a discussion as to what abstract means, along with what disciplines still need to be maintained for successful images. All the major players are discussed here – composition, colour, perspective and form – which sets the scene for the later chapters that look at speci�ic works. What we most enjoy about this section is the sense of possibility that abstract art suggests. For the most part, it’s still possible to recognise the objects or scenes being painted, so it becomes about interpreting them in a way that doesn’t rely on being able to draw or paint

perfectly. From that perspective, the book is intensely inspirational as there is a real sense of being able to have a go. We’ve mentioned the artwork displayed throughout the book, but what we didn’t say was how useful the captions are. In these, Harrigan gives a bit of background as to why she painted what she did, allowing you to see how some of the concepts being discussed actually work once painted. Essentially, this is one artist explaining why she loves the abstract style and displaying some of her work. There aren’t any walkthroughs to speak of and it isn’t loaded with speci�ic techniques, but the range of work printed and the enthusiasm displayed means that this book suddenly becomes one of the clearest explanations of abstract we have ever seen.

Learn from the artist The amount of images used in the book is very impressive, and covers a wide range of different scenarios and situations. This helps show how abstract can be adapted easily

Where to begin We liked the way the book dealt with what to do when you are thinking about starting a painting. It’s good to get some advice on how to ‘see’ in abstract

Author

Claire Harrigan Price

£18.99 Publisher

Batsford ISBN

978-0-7134-9055-8

Real-life examples There are some beautiful paintings used throughout the book, which help you instantly see how a colour theory can be applied to the painting itself

Building it up There aren’t any real walkthroughs in the book, but we did like the couple of examples that illustrated how the artist built up a picture when working outside

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Digital Fantasy Painting Workshop £17.95 | Take a trip through other creative worlds… Author

Martin McKenna Price

£17.95

Publisher

Ilex

ISBN

978-1-904705-37-6

t is incredibly easy to go horrendously wrong with fantasy art, and instead of producing an exciting glimpse of a new world that previously only existed in your mind, you can end up committing artistic clichés. But this book makes sure you stay on the right path and also bene�it from useful advice from some of the biggest names in fantasy art. A quick �lick through the pages will reveal a breathtaking array of different styles and disciplines. It’s basically a collection of case studies of how a particular artist created an image, giving a brief walkthrough from the start to �inish. All sorts of programs and styles are represented, including the stunning Corel Painter works of Todd Lockwood and Ryan Church. But whatever the program being used and whatever your favourite style, the amount of tips and expert advice makes this title pretty much essential for any fantasy fan.

Look and learn Each artist has a brief bio about how they have established themselves in fantasy art, before revealing how they created an image

All styles It’s nearly impossible to get bored in the book, as each page brings a different style of painting. This in itself is very inspiring and provides plenty of ideas

Where to start? One part of the book we particularly enjoyed was the pages about how artists begin a painting and where they get inspiration from

Photography FAQs: Lighting £14.95 | Shine the right kind of light on photos Author

Chris Weston Price

£14.95 Publisher

AVA Publishing ISBN

978-2-88479-101-4

hen it comes to painting, lighting is one of the absolute fundamentals. So it therefore follows that if you use Corel Painter to clone photos, you need to get the lighting correct on the source image. This book is excellent for helping you achieve this, with easy-todigest nuggets of information. Covering 50 topics, it is presented in a questionand-answer format, which makes it really easy to follow. It is divided into logical chapters (equipment, natural light, low light and so on) and is festooned with photos to illustrate the concepts. It also has its fair share of ‘problem’ images, making it easy to see what can go wrong and how to avoid it. The book is best for those who are just starting to think seriously about experimenting with lighting, and is very clear to follow without being patronising. Its small size also makes it perfect for popping in a bag when you go out to take your photos too!

Clear images and illustrations The example photos are perfect for getting a grip on a subject, and often feature the same image taken in different light situations

Understand the equipment Beginners will enjoy the chapter dedicated to lighting equipment, both in-camera and extra hardware. There are lots of technical illustrations to explain concepts

Nothing natural here The section on flash was very useful, as we have no doubt all killed a scene by flooding it with flash light. Thanks to this chapter, you can avoid this from now on!

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Index Your guide to the first 12 issues

ISSUE 5

ISSUE 6

Interview Bruce Dorn

Interview Daniel Conway

Interview Robert Chang

Feature Use photos to create art Discover how professional artists use photos in their artwork

Primers Brush category: Art Pens Effects menu: Esoteric

Feature Making Painter’s identity John Derry reveals how he created some of Painter’s best marketing campaigns

ISSUE 2

ISSUE 3

ISSUE 4

Interview Heather Michelle Bjoershol

Interview Philip Straub

Interview Chet Phillips

Feature Get to Know Corel Painter X Learn about the new features in this version

Feature Get started with Corel Painter brushes Learn the best variant for certain effects

Primers Brush category: Artists Effects menu: Surface Control

ISSUE 1

Primers Brush category: Acrylics Effects menu: Orientation Feature focus Layers Tutorials: Learn how to Quick Clone Just started using Painter? See how easy it is to create art with this command Chiaroscuro charcoal portrait Create dramatic charcoal images with this tutorial Paint like: Vincent Van Gogh Re-create the iconic Sunflowers painting Paint glowing skin Discover the secrets to capturing smooth skin Drawing 101 Perspective Understand the basic rules of perspective Q&A

Primers Brush category: Airbrush Effects menu: Tonal Control Feature focus Selecting colour Tutorials: Clone and glaze Apply glaze effects to a cloned photo Using the RealBristle brushes See how this new feature in Corel Painter X works Create your own gallery Join up on the magazine website Paint like: Edward Hopper Re-create the Nighthawks Drawing 101 Composition Make sure your paintings are always well-composed Q&A Reviews Fujifilm FinePix F31fd HP Photosmart Pro B9180

Reviews Olympus SP-510UZ Intuos3 A6 Wide Painter X

Books

Books

Output Mount images to MDF

Output Printing images to canvas

Readers’ Gallery Jennifer Miller shares her work

Feature focus Paper textures Tutorials Perfect portrait underpainting Use the traditional verdaccio painting technique Paint in low light Create a stunning dusk scene Paint like: Monet Re-create The Water-Lily Pond Colored Pencil still-life Use the Colored Pencils for this great scene Create natural history art Learn how Karen Carr creates grand-scale projects Drawing 101 Understand light and shade Get to grips with this fundamental skill Q&A Reviews Samsung GX-10 Epson Perfection V350 Photo Books Output Print to canvas Readers’ Gallery Rommel Bundalian shares his work

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Inde x Inde x

Primers Brush category: Artists’ Oils Effects menu: Focus Feature focus Selection tools Tutorials Paint a Victorian portrait Discover how Daniel Cox created his vintage image Sketch with pastels Have fun creating a loose pastel sketch Watercolour masterclass Get to grips with the Watercolor brushes Paint like: Paul Gauguin Emulate the colourful style of Gauguin Drawing 101 Facial proportions Learn to divide and draw faces Q&A Reviews Kodak EasyShare V803 Wacom Favo Comic Pack Books Output Fine-art inkjet paper reviewed Readers’ Gallery Anna Thielke shares her work

Feature focus Get the most from the magazine website Tutorials Paint like: Constable Turn a sketch into a classic masterpiece Illustrate with sketches and oils Use Corel Painter to make great illustrations Design a concept car Have fun and create your own vehicle Create, load and save brushes Get to grips with using brushes in Corel Painter Use free resources to create art Generate artwork without paying out a penny! Drawing 101 The skills of still life Valuable tips for drawing still life Q&A Reviews Pentax K10D Wacom Cintiq 21UX Books Output Create textured prints

Ind

Primers Brush category: Blenders Effects menu: Objects Feature focus Create with Patterns Tutorials Make digital mosaics Get creative with the Make Mosaic command Paint like: LS Lowry Re-create the timeless style of this popular artist Paint realistic fur A great technique for creating the impression of soft fur Create metallic textures Liven up sketches by applying gritty textures Drawing 101 Sketching hands Bring realism and life to your hand sketches Q&A Reviews Canon EOS 400D Pantone huey screen calibrator Design Source CDs Books Readers’ Gallery Tim Jessell shares his work

Readers’ Gallery Cheryl Blanchard shares her work

Readers’ Gallery Jeff Johnson shares his art

ISSUE 01

ISSUE 05

ISSUE 03

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ISSUE 8

ISSUE 9

Interview Maura Dutra

Interview Jeff Nentrup

Interview Rebecca Parker

Feature Paint dramatic seascapes The tools and techniques for painting the sea

Feature Painting portraits Artists share their tips for painting the perfect portrait

Primers Brush category: Calligraphy

Primers Brush category: Chalk

Feature focus Gradients

Feature focus Composite methods

Tutorials Using blending techniques Soften portraits by employing some blending know-how Paint like: Edgar Degas See how the Pastel brushes can produce a masterpiece Paint with pen and ink Use Painter’s brushes for a traditional ink drawing Paint the perfect sunset Simple techniques for golden skies

Tutorials Limited colour palettes Strip away colour for maximum impact Paint like: Edvard Munch Re-create the iconic Scream image Paint a futuristic cityscape Follow one artist as she creates a sci-fi landscape An introduction to airbrushing Learn about the Airbrush tools in Painter

ISSUE 7

Drawing 101 Life drawing How to approach this classic discipline Q&A Reviews Nikon D40X Zoom Kit Pantone eye-one display 2 Books

Art study How to paint trees Essential tips for capturing realistic trees Drawing 101 How to draw eyes The best way of drawing stunning eyes

ISSUE 11

ISSUE 12

Interview Andreas Rocha

Interview Cliff Cramp

Interview Eric Tranchefeux

Feature Creating from the colour wheel An introduction to how to use colour in your art

Feature Get creative with Clone Color See how the Clone tools can reap artistic rewards

Feature Capture the seasons Top tips for painting each season successfully

Feature The art of the self-portrait Different artists reveal how they paint their own portrait

Primer Brush category: Charcoal

Primers Brush category: Cloners

Primers Brush category: Colored Pencils

Feature focus Photo-editing tools

Feature focus Using the Scripts command

Primers Brush category: Conte Feature focus Using a Wacom tablet

Tutorials Impressionist landscapes Unleash the power of the Impressionist Cloner Create ice-cool images Turn winter colours into a painting Paint like: Henri Matisse Loosen up by getting in a Matisse mindset Create concept art See how one artist builds up a retro space scene Master the Sumi-e brushes Create delicate art with these

Tutorials Get started with landscapes Use the Image Hose in your artwork Create painted borders Set your artwork off with this border idea Relax your style Experiment by painting with loose brushstrokes Create fantasy adventures Capture the spirit of animated film with this tutorial

Art study How to paint hair Quick methods for realistic hair Drawing 101 How to capture motion Good advice for drawing dynamic images

Q&A

Output Order frames online Readers’ Gallery Dee Gordon shares her work

ISSUE 07

Reviews Olympus E-410 Backups4All Kata Panorama U Laptop Case

Inde x Inde x Inde x

Inde x

Q&A Reviews Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Casio EXILIM Zoom EX-Z1200

Books

Books

Output Turn your art into objects with the Bags of Love printing service

Readers’ Gallery Jan David shares her work

ISSUE 10

Art study How to paint clouds Top techniques for painting different types of clouds Drawing 101 Mark-making Improve your drawings by learning the best marks to use

Feature focus Using masking techniques Learn how to master the art of masking Tutorials Learn to paint skin tone Paint natural-looking skin tone from scratch Painting a still life Use photos as a basis for traditional still-life images Sketch like: Leonardo da Vinci Create your very own da Vinci sketch The principles of speed painting Follow one artist as he talks you through creating a speed painting

Reviews Wacom Bamboo Fun Olympus [mju:] 820

Art study How to paint fabric Great techniques for tackling different types of fabric Drawing 101 Sketch cats Techniques for drawing your feline friends

Books

Q&A

Output Turn images into wall art with Memories On Linen

Reviews Corel Painter Essentials 4 Ultimate Klara Medkova

Readers’ Gallery Ata Alishahi shares his work

Books

Q&A

Readers’ Gallery Sue Stevens shares her work

Output Using the MyPublisher service to create a photo book Readers’ Gallery Susi Lawson shares her work

ISSUE 08 ISSUE 07

Tutorials Create a Japanese woodprint Re-create this traditional style using Painter’s brushes Paint like: Tamara de Lempicka Capture the spirit of Art Deco and this influential artist Create realistic rays of sunlight Immerse yourself in a softly lit woodland scene Improve the background of photos Place subjects in better surroundings with this tutorial Art study How to paint realistic buildings Essential techniques for making buildings look 3D Drawing 101 Portrait composition Different ideas for composing your portrait art Q&A Reviews HP Photosmart C5280 How to Paint from Photographs using Corel Painter X Books Output Embellish artwork using traditional materials Readers’ Gallery Giovanna Gazzalo shares her work

ISSUE 11 ISSUE 10

Index

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Readers’ gallery issue thirteen

Gallery

Ayjey Odom intrigued us with her strong and arresting images. So we took it upon ourselves to find out more about her style, and get more of a feel for what inspires her to create the captivating work she does freedom to use a variety of mediums. After college I settled into a family life, and am just beginning to really start a career in art now, a few years later. What’s your favourite Painter tool? I use the Oils the most; I prefer the Wet Oily Artists’ brush, with a brush preference of medium daub. I alter the brushes a lot, and opacities and layers are my greatest assets.

or some, Corel Painter allows them to create traditional-looking artwork on their home computer. The subject matter might revolve around classic subjects such as nature, landscapes, portraits or still life. But the software is perfect for those looking to create illustrations and we decided to catch up with one artist who is doing just that. When did you start using Painter? I was only introduced to Painter by a friend early this year, and began using Corel Painter Essentials in June when I purchased a Wacom tablet after killing my wrist trying to paint digitally with a mouse. I was hooked instantly! What first drew you to the program? I was initially hesitant to use computerpainting programs because I was a traditionally trained painter and illustrator. I was barely able to save �iles or use the internet before 2004! However, I just wasn’t able to set up a full painting at home. Once I started, I learned fast – I surprised myself, and was thrilled with all the opportunities that became available to paint and make art using the computer. Had you been using traditional art materials before Painter? Yes, I have been drawing since I was little, my mother is a graphic designer and I attended art college in Savannah. I began as a Painting major, and switched quickly to Illustration where there was more

How would you describe your style? I feel I have a very painterly style; I do many portraits and consider myself a portrait artist. I sometimes push them to the caricature level, and I like to incorporate a message or a personality in each painting. I enjoy Painter for that reason; it allows me to get a very textured

of ‘Geek Art’, sci-�i, fantasy and books. I have a journal with nothing but ideas for paintings, and every day think of more. What’s your favourite piece of Painter work you’ve created? I feel like I fall in love with whatever painting I am currently working on. To an extent, it becomes my only painting, I tune out the others. As I paint them, I imagine the characters, or real people; I invent whole dramas and comedies for the �ictional characters I create! I hope those feelings and stories are conveyed through the brushstrokes. I have to say that whatever is most current is my favourite at that time. I love that friends and my children have a unique painting from me, a special memory made just for them.

“Once I started, I learned fast - I surprised myself, and was thrilled with the opportunities that became available” and daubed look. While I was somewhat sceptical of the two-hour speed painting I have read about, I was amazed at how quickly it �lowed, and �inished it after only two days. I also have a guilty pleasure: velvet paintings. Yes, I love the Old Masters like Modigliani, and the New Masters like Marta Dahlig and Jonny Duddle, but something about those deep rich colours on black velvet and those giant-eyed children and is very appealing! Is there a type of style or Painter medium you would like to try? I would actually love to get my hands on the full version of Painter X. I faithfully get each issue of Corel Painter Magazine, and have tried the trial; unfortunately, I installed the trial right before a minor computer meltdown. My computer was in the shop and by the time everything was sorted out, my trial period had ended! Who or what inspires you? Many things constantly inspire me. Above all, my children, other artists and music. I often get illustration ideas from conversations, and am a huge fan

What’s the most helpful piece of advice you’ve been given about Painter? I have to say I learn a lot by looking at other artists’ work, trying to �igure out how they did it, as well as trial and error. I am a big fan of the tutorials and step-by-steps from the magazine. After spending a month poring over the magazine and researching the artists, like Dahlig and others, I just practice. Again, the feedback from other artists on individual images is invaluable!

Share your art with other readers These pages of the magazine are given over to you, as a place for you to share your creations with readers all around the world and also to publicise your gallery on our website. If you have a gallery that you’re proud of, send an email to [email protected] publishing.co.uk.

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01

Title: Pinecone “A portrait of my daughter. My babies, good friends and heroes inspire me daily.”

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Gallery

Readers’ gallery issue thirteen

03

Title: Neil “This is a portrait of Neil Gaiman, the comic-book legend. I sometimes push my paintings to the caricature level.”

02

Title: Sunflower Girl “This was inspired by a Japanese print of my father’s; I painted it trying to remember what it looked like hanging in the living room growing up. When I had the chance to see it in person again, I was tickled by just how different my memory of it was different from the black-andwhite print of my Dad’s.”

04

Title: Ugandan Boy “A picture for a friend who works with the Global Support Mission in Nashville, TN, helping the people of Uganda.”

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05

Title: The Rabbit “Just a real fun and free picture, so much fun to paint and imagine this character’s life! Also, I wanted to attempt a different facial expression, as it seems most of my portraits are serious.”

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