corel painter - 03 - magazine, art, digital painting, drawing, draw, 2d

Issue three Visit us online w

ww

.paintermagazine.co.uk

Of cial Corel Painter TM M

agazine

Learn to paint digitally today!

Artistic advice and inspiration

Using the Surface ControlsWork the Artists brushes Your questions answered

Chet PhillipsMeet the man who is putting woodcut effects on the map

Low light serenityCapture the calm mood of a sunrise with this special tutorial

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Official Magazine

Learn to paint digitally today!

Artistic advice and inspiration

Using the Surface ControlsWork the Artists brushes Your questions answered

Official MagazineOfficial Magazine

portraitsPaint perfect

Free CD inside

portraitsUse traditional art techniques to build up realistic colour in your paintings

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ISSUE THREE 6.00ISSN 1753-3155

9 7 7 1 7 5 3 3 1 5 0 0 0

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PHOTOS | PAPER TEXTURES | FONTS

Light subjectsThe fundamental rules for drawing with light and shadow

Coloured pencilLoad the Colored Pencil brushes and create a still life masterpiece

Botanical artKaren Carr reveals how she creates her detailed artwork

Paint like

Learn how to re-create a classic Impressionist painting

Paper factoryChoose and customise paper texture to improve your work

PC and M

ac

QUICK START GUIDE TO USING COREL PAINTER ON THE DISC!

Create this image! See page 20

OPM_03-CoverJOfinal.indd 1 2/4/07 14:26:32

Imagine PublishingImagine Publishing

5Jo Cole [email protected]

WelcomeAs we all know, Corel Painter is closely linked with traditional art techniques, and we decided to make this the focus of our cover this issue. Jeff Johnson used the traditional verdaccio method

to turn a rough sketch into the glorious piece of art you see on the cover. By slowly building up layers of colour, its possible to achieve beautiful portraits with realistic skin tones. See exactly how it works by turning to page 20.

Weve also turned towards the light a bit this issue, including a tutorial on capturing a low light scene on page 30. If youd like to ind out the technicalities behind how light and shade works in art, turn to page 66 for our Drawing 101 guide. And speaking of light, our Paint Like tutorial this issue looks at Claude Monet. Pay a visit to page 38 and discover how to re-create the beautiful soft lighting of this master.

You can also enjoy guides to emulating a coloured pencil sketch and learn how Karen Carr produces her intricate paintings. Ooo, and dont forget to enter our Readers Challenge on page 97!

Happy painting!

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

ISSUE THREE

Visit our website!If you find that the magazine isnt enough to satisfy your Corel Painter appetite, you can always visit our website. Pop on over to www.paintermagazine.co.uk 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

Paint in low light

Pg 30Capture the serenity and drama of a sunrise with our special tutorial

Paper textures

Pg 46Discover how to

load, use and create paper textures

Paint like:Claude Monet

Pg 38

Emulate the style of this Impressionist master

005_OPM03_Welcome.indd 3 4/4/07 16:48:32

Regulars in every issue

Pg 34

08 Subscriptions Sign up to subscribe to the

magazine and save yourself up to 40%!

10 Letters Share your art and Corel Painter

comments with other readers of the magazine!

28 Artwork pages Luxuriate in unadulterated Corel

Painter creativity with the art pages dotted around the mag

76 Art Class A hotbed of solutions to

creative queries, as well as speci c software questions

94 Readers Gallery Rommel Bundalian is a familiar

face on our website discover more about him here

Reviews

6

97 Readers Challenge Load up the supplied

images and enter our regular challenge

98 On the disc All the content found

nestled on this issues special CD-ROM

84 Samsung GX-10 Read our review and discover

whether this prosumer camera is the perfect model to charge up and get creative with

86 Epson Perfection V350 Photo Scanners are often overlooked

when it comes to creative products, but they can be a powerful tool. See how this model fares

88 Books Three more fantastic titles that

will inspire you and expand your working knowledge of traditional art techniques

90 Breathing Color If you have a decent inkjet printer at

home, think about purchasing the papers from Breathing Color. From photo to canvas paper, its all good!

WIN!YOUR WORK

PRINTED TO CANVAS

Pg 97

Karen Carr

Regulars

P20 PAINT PERFECT PORTRAITS

INCORPORATE TRADITIONAL SHADING TECHNIQUES TO BUILD UP REALISTIC SKIN TONE IN YOUR ART

P99 GET STARTED WITH DIGITAL PAINTING FREE CD-ROM PACKED WITH ESSENTIAL RESOURCES FOR CREATING DIGITAL ART

ON T

HE F

RONT

COV

ER

Learn how Karen uses Corel Painter for mammoth-sized natural history projects

Paint in low light pg 30

If you have a decent inkjet printer at home, think about purchasing the papers from Breathing Color. From photo to canvas paper, its all good!

Interview and tutorialPg 58

Luxuriate in unadulterated Corel

special CD-ROM Pg 97

Courtesy of Audubon Institute/copyright by Karen Carr

Artwork supplied by Rommel Bundalian

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Coloured pencilpg 50

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66 Light and shadeWe take a look at how light and shade can help you de ne form and texture in your work, and also discover how to get realistic shadows in your drawing and painting

20 Paint perfect portraits Traditional techniques for

achieving realistic tones

30 Paint in low light Capture the serenity and

calmness of early morning with this handy guide

38 Paint like: Monet Experience how Monet applied

his brush strokes and create your own Impressionist art

50 Coloured pencil still life Work with the Colored Pencils

for excellent textured results

58 Natural history art See how Karen Carr used Corel

Painter to produce a mural of epic proportions

PrimersGet up and running36 Effects: Surface Control Apply texture, light and other

special effects to images with this exible group of commands

64 Brushes: Artists Load these brushes up and use

them to get the look of famous artists in an instant!

Feature focusGet to know your tools46 Paper textures Discover how to load, use and

create paper textures and improve your art

Traditional artistic techniques

Drawing 101

20 Paint perfect portraitsWe explore the verdaccio technique for applying base shades to portraits as a way of achieving exquisite results

Produce professional artCreate the cover

Paint perfect portraitspg 20

www.painter magazine.co.uk

Visit ourwebsite now!

tutorialsCreate inspirational art

66 Light and shadeWe take a look at how light and shade can help you de ne form and texture in your work, and also discover how to get realistic shadows in your drawing and painting

Traditional artistic techniquesTraditional artistic techniques

Drawing 101

Interview: Chet Phillips pg 12

006-7_OPM03_Contents.indd 7 4/4/07 17:31:44

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news even ts resources even ts resources even ts letters website letters website letters info news even ts resources resources resources even ts resources even ts

Is cloning a cop-out?Im new to Corel Painter, but I have some friends who have been using it for quite a while. One of them was over the other night and asked how I was getting on with the program and I showed them a couple of pieces that I had created to get their opinion. To begin with it was favourable complementing the colours I had used and the brush work, but then I mentioned I had used the Quick Clone to do them. Well, it was like there was a bad smell in the room my friends face wrinkled up and I had to listen to a ten-minute lecture on how that

our Letterswasnt real painting and how I should get out of that habit. Obviously I am going to ignore my friend and do what I want, but I thought Id write in as I wondered what you and other readers thought about the subject. Am I making a creative faux pas?

Tom Fisher

Youre not making a faux pas. Theres always one tool in a program that some users sneer at with Photoshop its the fi lters but if you fi nd them useful then it matters not a jot what other people think. The Quick Clone is a brilliant tool for people who have just started

using the program because it means you can concentrate purely on the brush strokes. We think its one of the best ways of getting used to what they all do and is a lot more creative than making a few squiggles on a blank canvas! But like Tom, were interested to hear what you all think. Is the Quick Clone a lazy way of painting or is it a valuable learning tool? Let us know what you think or post your opinions on the magazines forum www.paintermagazine.co.uk/forum.

Creative communityWhere is the Work in progress section on the forum? You mentioned it in the Letters page of issue two but I cant seem to ind it anywhere. Ive sketched out a scene and I cant decide whether to make

Welcome to the part of the magazine where you can come

and share your thoughts on anything you fancy!

Featured GalleryOur favourite readers gallery this month

Ken LaPlantewww.paintermagazine.co.uk/user/KenLaPlante

Ken is a relative newcomer to the magazine website, but his expressive and colourful creations have

impressed us. A Corel Painter user for a few years, Ken says that he has worked hard to melt together my understanding of traditional media such as oils and acrylics to the digital media. See more of Kens work on the magazine website, or visit his online home at www.kenlaplante.com. You can also see his traditional paintings here.

Our favourite readers gallery this month

Ken is a relative newcomer to the magazine website,

impressed us. A Corel Painter user for a few years, Ken says that he has worked hard to melt together my understanding

acrylics to the digital media. See more of Kens work on the magazine website,

. You can also see his

Readers ChallengeProblems with your emails

There had been a slight problem with the Readers Challenge email address given out all the way back in issue one. Unfortunately the [email protected] address seems to have some serious gremlins in it, so please send any entries to opm@imagine-publishing,co.uk with Readers Challenge in the subject heading. And if you have tried to use the other address, please send your entry again to the new address otherwise we will never see it!

Ken LaPlantewww.paintermagazine.co.uk/user/KenLaPlante

impressed us. A Corel Painter user for a few years, Ken says that he has worked hard to melt together my understanding of traditional media such as oils and acrylics to the digital media. See more of Kens work on the magazine website, or visit his online home at kenlaplante.cotraditional paintings here. traditional paintings here. traditional paintings here.

Garden Fireworks Canvas

Pathway

Of cial Corel Painter Magazine, Imagine Publishing, Richmond House, 33 Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, Dorset BH2 6EZ, UK

If youd prefer to contact us via email, send your message to [email protected]

Send your letters to...

Tom is an advocate for the Quick Clone tool and we

also think it has its place in the creative arsenal. What

do others think?

Trees Update 8001

010-11_OPM03 letters.indd 10 4/4/07 17:56:05

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The latest from our forum and website

resources resources resources letters website letters website letters info news even ts resources letters website letters website letters info

it daytime or night time and would like some feedback.

Samuel Walter

Youll fi nd the section in the Feedback area. Just go along, upload your image and then wait for the comments. If other readers have missed it, we can move it to the main area. Then as it grows, we can divide it into styles of art.

Stick with traditionI must say I have been enjoying your magazine (bought the irst issue today). Its taken me a while to get into Corel Painter and I was toying with the idea of buying the new version and then saw your magazine. My hunt for books hasnt really led to much, so your magazine will give me a nice regular dose of inspiration and

help! I had one question, though, I notice in the irst issue that you touched upon traditional art methods and I wondered if you were going to do this each issue? Ive always wanted to learn more about art theory.

Ray Petersen

We certainly are, Ray. The Drawing 101 section is a regular feature of the magazine and will look at an art technique or drawing practice. This issue we look at using light and shade in your artwork and next issue well show how to sketch faces and work with anatomical proportion. In addition to this section, you can also enjoy tutorials that incorporate traditional art techniques into a Corel Painter workfl ow. This can be anything from an art style, such as the Chiaroscuro technique in issue one, through to a shading technique such as the one used in our cover tutorial.

Cottage Dreams

Corel Painter is all about incorporating traditional art methods and looks, so we will do exactly the same!

www.paintermagazine.co.uk

By the time this magazine hits the shelves we will have posted details of our second challenge, and the winner of the irst challenge will have been announced. But we have had so many excellent entries that we thought it worthwhile having a look at some more. First up is Kathy Pilgrims beautiful lower study, with some fabulous use of background texture. Then we have Dave McKeagues entry, which displays a clever use of brushwork that emulates traditional painting. Finally theres Lynne Mitchells exquisite blossom painting that is packed with texture, yet still manages to remain soft and delicate. Will any of these be crowned the winner? Or will someone else pip them to the post? Check back next issue to see the results and if you werent successful this time around, or youd like to enter for the irst time, visit the website for the latest challenge.

Website challengeSome of the best so far

Corel Painter is all about incorporating traditional art methods and looks, so we will do exactly the same!

one used in our cover tutorial.

Cottage Dreams

Dont be shy everyones welcome to enter! Go to www.paintermagazine.co.uk/competitions

ENTER THE FORUM CHALLENGE

010-11_OPM03 letters.indd 11 4/4/07 17:56:44

Interview Chet Phillips

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nyone who has been using Corel Painter for a while will no doubt have seen some of Chets work in the promotional

material. His recognisable style leaps out from the traditional paint effects and proves how versatile the program can be. His life as a freelance illustrator started in the early Eighties, and has seen him produce work for a variety of clients, from advertising agencies through to book publishers and massive corporations.

With his humorous characters or evocative scenes, Chets work shows that illustration can be a rewarding art style to pursue

Chet Phillips

Like a lot of Corel Painter artists, Chet is trained in traditional media and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing. He moved over to digital in 1992 and uses Corel Painter to create what he calls his digital scratchboard. Since then he has become instrumental in the Corel Painter community, appearing in many books where he shares his expertise and wonderful vision.

We caught up with Chet to discover more about his methods of working and to see some of his best creations.

What is your proudest creative moment so far?There are lots of projects that have given me a high level of satisfaction over the years. They qualify as the perfect storm, if you will, of high proile exposure, a great creative director and the chance to use my best visual strengths. Beyond the day-to-day creative challenges however, I would qualify my proudest moment as taking that blindfolded step off of the traditional creative cliff into the digital realm 15 years ago.

How do you start a digital painting? Do you have a typical work ow process or does it differ according to the particular piece you are doing?My process of creating an image always starts with paper and pen. I work on a large sketchpad with a ball point pen, composing small thumbnails and listing important concepts or themes as a irst step. I enlarge these thumbnails by

scanning and printing them out. From there I add details and compositional elements with pencil and overlay tissue. Sometimes one level is required. Other times the process continues through several iterations. The inal sketch is then scanned in to begin work on the inished digital ile.

Did you move from traditional painting to digital painting? Do you think it helps to have an understanding of how traditional media works?My college schooling was under my belt

material. His recognisable style leaps out from the traditional paint effects and proves how versatile the program can be. His life as a freelance illustrator started


Chet PhillipsAn interview with

material. His recognisable style leaps out from the traditional paint effects and


Chet Phillips

WEBSITE www.chetart.comJOB TITLE Freelance illustratorCLIENTS American Airlines, JC Penney, Warner Brothers, The New York Times

Musical Penguins One of four penguin scenes used by a book store chain for advertising and in-store signage during the holidays

Earth TikiGuardian of the Earth within its celestial path and responsible for the growth of all living things

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Trojan Bird A twist on the ancient tale of deception. This promo piece was created in a fashion that softened the edges of my traditionally crisp and hard edged digital scratchboard

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I would qualify my proudest moment as taking that blindfolded step off the creative cliff and into the digital realm


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well before digital painting became the norm in the creative community. I received a BFA degree in Painting and Drawing in 1979 with a heavy inclination towards all forms of printmaking. The idea of working on a master plate or block and manipulating it to form a family of prints was a highly satisfying process for me. That fascination made my work more conducive to the world of digital media. I feel fortunate that I was able to begin my study of art with the basic concepts of design, an intensive study of art history and the use of traditional tools on canvas.

What inspires you?Studying the techniques of the masters. Travel. Imaginative iction and ilm. Suring the web and inding an ininite number of energetic creatives through sites such as Drawn! (www.drawn.ca)

Why did you start using Corel Painter and when did you start?Two friends were using the very

irst Macs for package design in their respective companies. During a trip to MacWorld San Francisco in 1991, they discovered a new natural media program and picked up a brochure for me. It was this crazy computer program packaged in a paint can. I had played around with a computer graphics system in the Eighties that took up the space of your average work cubicle and found it frustrating and unsatisfying. So when I irst saw Corel Painter in action with its clean and simple palettes, the variety of brushes and textures and the addition of a pressure sensitive pen, I was hooked! I plunked down an obscene amount of money for a Mac IIci system and started to play with the irst version of Corel Painter, hoping that somehow my clients would be willing to hire me and accept digital iles in a world that was still irmly rooted in traditional media. I was fortunate to have a couple of high tech clients that were very open to trying out this different approach of accepting artwork. Others

One of Chets latest products is the Monkey Decider. This is a set of eight quality cards where you let the monkey do the talking for how you feel. Pick the one that sums up your sentiment and display it to the world in a special stand (or use one of the smaller, hand-held cards). Ace!

[ABOVE] Monster Cake October calendar page created for a company

celebrating its 35th year in business. The theme

of the calendar was birthday cake

Buy them from www.chetart.com

[OPPOSITE PAGE] Vespa Ride This landscape piece utilised two additional layers of line workthat were softened with pastel work to help give a more atmospheric distance with the background



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demanded that I supply a print out of the artwork so it could be drum scanned by the printer like my traditional art. Fortunately in a short amount of time, companies and printers were up to speed with all the technology that allowed for a seamless interaction.

What are your absolute favourite Corel Painter tools?The focus of my style is obviously the use of the Scratchboard Pen variant, so thats always up front irst. Unlike the days of

using traditional scraperboard, I enjoy integrating a lot of pastel and airbrush layers into the digital version with a variety of textures.

What is your favourite piece of Corel Painter work that you have created and why?You may as well ask a mother which of her children ranks as her favourite. Ive created a lot of images with Corel Painter over the last 15 years or so. A handful have hit the mark, but none ranks as

the pinnacle of satisfaction in my mind. Honestly, my favourite piece is always the one that Im working on.

Is there a style of art that you would like to try?I really like the look of limited colour screen prints. I hope to experiment with this look in future projects and incorporate it into merchandise.

What Corel Painter artists do you admire the most?First and foremost I truly appreciate folks such as John Derry, Cher Threinen-Pendarvis, Karen Sperling and Jeremy Sutton. They represent the admirable dual positions of both artist and Corel Painter evangelist/teacher. Theyve given so much of themselves from the very beginning of Corel Painter to solidify it as a serious tool for artists. Others that continue to amaze me with their vision and talent include people like Hiroshi Yoshii, Don Seegmiller,

[ABOVE] Cosmos A surreal play on an area of the landscape acting as a backdrop for an alternate, celestial environment

When I first saw Corel Painter in action with its clean and simple

palettes I was hooked!


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The Pirate This pirate is a re-work of a version done for a newspaper

article on the resurgence of all things pirate after the release of the first Pirates Of The Caribbean movie. Originally, the

article title was placed within the treasure map area

Jumping Through Hoops Created for a client thank you

card enclosure



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Ryan Church and Robert Chang, just to name a few.

Can you tell us what your creative goals for the future are?Having one or both of our tabby cats win a Daytime Emmy Award. Also, to ind new ways to express myself through my artwork that both satisies me and entertains those that stumble upon it. In conjunction with my commercial and personal work for galleries I want to continue exploring self-motivated projects such as my Cafepress online merchandise shop www.cafepress.com/chetstore.

Both Corel Painter and the internet have been unbelievably powerful tools that have allowed me to reach the largest audience ever imaginable with my particular foolishness. And as always no electrons are harmed in the process.

Monkey magicI did a handful of screen shots during the creation of The Good, The Bad and The Monkey. The black line work layer was converted to Gel in the Layers palette. Free form cloud shapes were drawn with the Lasso tool and the selections were feathered before painting colours in with the Artist Pastel Chalk brush. The face and body were painted with both the Artist Pastel Chalk brush and the Scratchboard tool using various colours. The Star Maze weave was applied on the green shirt area with opacity pulled down to approximately ten per cent.

How did Chet create it?

01 02

03 04


Tutorial Perfect portrait underpainting

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eople paint other people. A lot. They always have, and I rather suspect they always will. People are very hard to paint,

truth be told. They make things dificult by being so different from one another, and every one of them is a very complex bunch of shapes, colours and textures. Undaunted, painters have persevered and have developed many techniques to help them paint folks with a fair degree of accuracy. A common hurdle has been handling a very tricky substance everyone has in common, namely skin.

Skin wrapped around bone, muscle, fat, veins, arteries and the like is remarkably rich in textures, contours and colour variation, which can make the job of someone trying to paint it faithfully a tough one. It is also translucent, meaning that light penetrates into the skin before it bounces back to our eye, which creates

Explore the indirect verdaccio painting technique, utilising subtle glazes of colour over an underpainting to create flesh tones

Perfect portrait underpaintingPerfect portrait underpaintingPerfect portrait underpaintingPerfect portrait

Painter master

Time needed

Skill level

On the CD

Jeff Johnson

3 hours

Expert

Sketch and progress shots

Tutorial info


optical effects that have challenged countless artists throughout history to reproduce. The Renaissance spawned an oil technique for creating just those kinds of very realistic effects. It is called verdaccio (the root being verde, or green), and it is still in use today.

Verdaccio is a form of indirect painting, which is generally a way of resolving the values of a painting irst by painting a detailed monochrome underpainting, and then glazing a number of thin layers of colour over areas of the same value. It is a very powerful technique for rendering complex or highly detailed works, and realism in general. You may have already discovered that trying to balance all of the formal elements of a painting at once gets exponentially harder as the complexity of the picture increases. The job is much easier if you can break the process down into manageable steps. For instance,

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020-027_OPM_02-Portrait.indd 20 4/4/07 10:45:05

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TutorialPerfect portrait underpainting


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Preparing your palette for actionPick out your coloursPick out your colours

01 Mixing a palette The general technique for creating a verdaccio underpainting is pretty simple. Create a palette of cool greens by mixing green with varying amounts of black and white, then make an underpainting using those colours to create a monochrome version of your work. I made a scale of greys using only black and white and added small amounts of green to each to create a nice range of 10 values.

02 Lighten the drawing Before I started painting in the greens, I decided to make my job a bit easier by lightening my drawing (on the disc). First I chose Effects>Adjust Colors>Values and raised the value to 76%. Then I opened a temporary Lighten layer and, using my Digital Airbrush, picked a mid-grey and lightened any dark marks. Now it will be easier to paint in my darks.


colour harmonies have such a profound effect on a painting that they can make dealing with value at the same time a challenge. If you could only limit the hues to a range of greys from black to white, for instance, creating even a very complex scene would be a fairly straightforward process. Then all thats left would be to mix up value scales of the various hues required and map them onto their corresponding value areas of the black

and white underpainting. Hey, we could even make the job easier by thinning out the paint so you can put it on in multiple layers with much more control. Well, there is just such a process, and it is called grisaille, and it is the other major method of indirect painting to come out of the Renaissance. It is perhaps the most widely used form of indirect painting, and is deinitely a nice tool to have in your locker, but it doesnt solve the problem of skins translucency as neatly as its cousin, verdaccio.

Verdaccio has the same merits as grisaille in terms of allowing the artist to focus the initial stages of a painting on value alone. Its principle virtue is in

an advantage it proffers concerning skin tones by using a scale of cool grey/greens for the monochrome underpainting. Several thin glazes of various mixtures of orange and red are applied over top and because the thin glazes are ultimately translucent, light gets down to the green layer. When it bounces back, the compliments and near-compliments optically mix, vibrating off of one another, creating rich and convincing skin tones

that have a life and depth that is hard to match with any other technique. Start doing a little research into the subject and you will ind large numbers of artists who have found this approach to lead to satisfying results. Probably the most famous painting created using this technique was Leonardo Da Vincis masterpiece the Mona Lisa, renowned to a great extent for its luminous skin tones. Many painters employed and still do today mixtures of verdaccio, grisaille, and direct painting (painting without any underpainting) techniques in the same work.

Doing a verdaccio digitally is pretty much like doing one in oils. I will start

The Renaissance artists, such as our friend Leonardo da Vinci, used the verdaccio technique in the Mona Lisa

with a rough drawing of the model and, working in a single layer over top of it, create a monochromatic underpainting of a greenish hue. This will take some time, and it should! The better the underpainting faithfully represents form, value, and nuance, the easier the task. Then a number of nearly transparent glazes of colour will be applied that modify our lovely green ladys skin tones into what I hope are very convincing natural ones.

Light penetrates into the skin before it bounces back to our eye, which creates optical effects that have challenged countless artists throughout history to reproduce


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Your face is your friendAny references you can find of subjects similarly lit and posed are useful. I make use of a (plastic) skull I have. Most often I reference my own mug. Properly lit, my face can tell me quite a bit about any other face I may want to paint. There are so many nuances that are suggested by a mere glance at my face (or any otherface for that matter) that I always have a mirror propped up and my face appropriately lit. There was a nice photo reference for this project, but the light was slightly wrong for my needs, so I improvised.

07 Painting in value number 3 Cruising right along. This is a bit like drawing with a traditional brush, and every bit as easy to rework once all the values are in place. No need to get too fussy yet. I fully expected to take more time making the underpainting than the rest of the project combined, and I was right.

03 Painting in the darkest value I opened up a Default layer to paint on. I do this in order to be able to make any corrections without affecting my drawing. Choose the Soft Grainy Brush from the Artists Oils brush menu. Using the largest brush possible to paint in the various details, apply the darkest value of grey. Lets call this grey value number 10.

04 Painting in values number 9 and 8 You will notice that I chose to go from dark to light. Apart from being the way I was taught to render, it seems easier. I have imagined a light source above and in front of our sitter and a bit to her left. My darkest shadows (about the value of her eyelashes) will therefore be opposite the light. I also painted the lighter tone into the hair in places.

08 Painting in value number 2 It started to get a bit tricky imagining the light at this point. My photo reference is too washed out to be of use in searching out values on the light side of her face. What to do? Find someone to sit under similar light. I wasnt going anywhere for a while, so I volunteered.

Your face is

05 Painting in values number 7 and 6 Now I progressed down the scale, still using the Soft Grainy oil brush. I had to rely a bit on experience, as my photo reference did not have the light I wanted in my painting.

06 Painting in values number 5 and 4 Painting rapidly, I blocked in the next values throughout the painting where I surmised they would go. Remember those excruciatingly dull black and white renderings of spheres and such you had to endure in drawing class? Turns out that practice is very useful in visualising how light creates shadow on even a form as subtle as a face.

09 Painting in value number 1 The last value and it is already becoming clearer how this will look when nished. Theres lots of blending and such to do, but this is best left until after all the values are blocked in, at least to my thinking. It is easier to judge how and where to blend when you can see the structure.

Define your light sourceStart building up the underpaintingStart building up the underpainting


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Mount your tabletI struggled for quite some time with wrist, back and neck issues due to my sloppy, in-the-lap handling of my tablet. For those using a mouse to paint, bless you. For those with a graphics tablet, consider doing what I have done. I mounted a small flat piece of thin wood directly to the outer edge of my computer table at a 45% angle, centred. I then used double-stick mounting tape and placed my tablet on it. That was several months ago, and it has made a world of difference. Having a stable platform has greatly improved my accuracy and speed as well.

Whip out the Blending StumpBringing back the detailBringing back the detail

10 Blending the values together I started in with a Soft Blender Stump enlarged to about 50, and began to blend together the different values. I tried to resist zooming in on any details at this point, just get the big shapes right. Blending is drawing, and its easiest to start big and work towards small.

11 Blending some of the details Now I reduced the size of my Blending Stump to 16 and got some of the details worked out. If I noticed that a shadow seemed to de ne a form poorly, this was a chance to x that. I zoomed in and out a number of times.

12 Painting back some detail Some of the features were softened a bit too much, so I painted them back, most especially some details around the eyes. Then I began blending again, working towards smoothing out every transition and giving every surface/plane its appropriate value. Be patient this can take some time!

13 Honing in on the nuances Now things were taking shape. Consulting the reference photo helped me with some structural issues. I worked back and forth with the stump and my brush until the details started to look good. The whole rest of the painting is based on the level of detail in the underpainting, so it pays to be patient without getting caught up in detail that doesnt improve the overall illusion of three dimensions.

14 Getting a background value painted in Now that I had the features going in the right direction, I decided it was time to put a background value in. It was getting a bit distracting to have her with such a bright backdrop. I selected the white space using the Magic Wand and lled the area with the cooler middle-value green on my Mixer. Then, using a large Digital Airbrush, I painted back to the gure where there were still voids.

15 Time to ip Flipping the canvas (Effects> Orientation >Flip Horizontal) is a great way to pick up any problems such as unintentional asymmetry. Even a very practised painter can be led into structural errors through something akin to fatigue. This incredibly simple trick gives you fresh eyes in a snap. Here I am solving some of just those kind of problems.


Glazing and edgesEvery mark you make on a canvas has an edge, and learning to control edges is a very necessary part of a painters skill set. The idea of glazing suggests a nice, easily controllable way to sharpen or soften edges. Practice varying the opacity of the layers you paint on, paying special attention to how easy it is to finesse edges to be just that bit more soft (or sharp for that matter). Use a very soft large eraser to pull back any unwanted marks. Soon you will be on top of one of the more difficult things to manage in painting.

Glazing and


25


Speed up your colour applicationWhy drag your stylus all the way over to the Colors palette each time you want a colour? I paint dabs of my colours on an out-of-the-way place on the canvas. With my styluss bottom button set for the Eyedropper tool, I can reach over quickly and get the colour I want. Often I only need to reach over an inch and grab a bit of colour from somewhere near on the painting. I hate reaching for the keyboard or the toolbox for a tool change, and the Eyedropper tool is by far my most used tool outside of the paintbrushes.

Glaze in to her eyesBringing the picture to life

18 Mixing a palette for glazing The basic method of glazing a verdaccio underpainting is to mix a range of esh tones that you can map onto areas of similar values. I did this, making a range of 10 values. I add two warmer tones for areas I want slightly warmer, and two grey/greens for some variation in the midtones.

19 First layer of glaze I opened up a Default layer and set it to 30% Opacity. With my Digital Airbrush set to 12%, I mapped in colours as described in the last step. I set the opacity of the airbrush very low so I could get a feel for how this might progress.

Bringing the picture to life

16 Details, details Another round of painting back some of the details. With so many changes going on around the gure, it is necessary to continue to rede ne rhythmic points of interest. There is a little bit of music in balancing out a picture. Create a little space for details, place them rhythmically throughout the picture, and you can avoid overburdening your paintings with stuff that drowns out the melody.

17 A nished verdaccio underpainting I place it side by side with my original sketch for comparison. Many verdaccio painters go for incredible detail and many handle this stage looser than what you see here. I have a level of detail and nish I am happy with. There are still things minor and not so minor to x, but the process ahead makes those changes easy.

20 Lesser of two evils I soon saw that I was going to have to paint back details too often or else be more careful. Both bad options. I decided to paint some of the details on a layer separate from my glazes and above them.

Speed up

21 Glazing layer 2 Here is a shot of the next glaze going onto a separate layer. I want the same exibility someone working in oils has, namely the ability to wipe off or otherwise tinker with a layer and not destroy the layer underneath. Advantage computer, as there is no dry time in the virtual studio!


26

Know when to take your time and when not toIt takes an enormous amount of practice to train yourself to work from the broadest issues of basic form and composition down to the final details. Most folks simply cant resist lingering over a promising passage and quickly lose sight of the overall impact of the whole image. The first stages of a painting or drawing should, on the whole, be done fairly quickly, focusing on the basic dynamics. Detail should be built up over the whole canvas at once and over time. If you have developed a good technique, even the juiciest details will have been worked out in-process.

22 Glazing layer 3 Using the same airbrush on a new layer, I glazed the next coat. Things were starting to shape up quickly. The whole approach was very easy to manipulate as no layer made huge changes, and the underlying method is tried and true. I was purposely leaving some of the green to show through in selected places a bit. I even started painting in some greenish re ected light on her shoulder before I realised I could just lightly erase the two layers beneath.

On the final furlongAdding a touch of warmthAdding a touch of warmth

23 Glazing layer 4 As my values got closer to my target, I paid more attention to shaping the eyes, lips, nose and other features. I wasnt covering up the green completely on this layer notice how it still shows through in some areas.

24 Building back a little personality I opened up another Default layer of 30% Opacity. Using a 20% Digital Airbrush of varying sizes, I added more de nition to many of the features. Often a little redrawing helps in various stages, in order to maintain a rhythm of points of interest.

25 I see the nish line After tinting the whites of the eyes and fussing around the lips, I did some direct painting on some areas that needed adjustment. Then I opened up a fresh low opacity Default layer and painted one more round of values with my trusty low opacity Digital Airbrush.

26 One more time This time I painted in a very light layer of my warmer midtone and even a bit of the red to selected areas. Then I closed that layer and made a few minor corrections before the nal cleanup of the initial glazing phase.

27 Final details and corrections Working on a Default layer set to 40% Opacity and using a very soft version of the Digital Airbrush, I did the last few adjustments that popped out when I took a close look. I really took my time on this stage, doing minor stuff to the chest, shoulders and around the face.


Know when


31 Hairdo Using the Eyedropper tool to pick local colour, I painted in more convincing forms to the hair on her right side with a large Digital Airbrush set to roughly 40% Opacity. I added a few bluish highlights to the left side and nished by softening throughout with various sizes of the Soft Blender Stump.

27


Zoom way in for the nishWhen I am satisfied that I have got all I can into and out of an image, I still have work to do. I paint fairly loosely, partly because it fits my temperament and partly because I prefer slightly looser renderings. Combine that with the realities of painting digitally and there can be some leftover curiosities that have to be attended to. I zoom in at 200% to smoke out and alter those unwanted marks. I go over every square inch of my work before I completely finish.A portrait to be proud of

The finishing touches

30 Adding detail to the dress Next I opened yet another Default layer reduced to 30% Opacity. With a Digital Airbrush set to 30% and varied in size to t my needs, I painted in some details that helped suggest both the underlying form and some surface qualities of the velvety fabric of her dress. I gradually increased the opacity of the airbrush as I worked towards the nal detail.

The finishing touches

28 Done with the gure (for now!) And there it is, all the glazes I want to apply (for now). Time to paint in some clothes and a background, after which there will likely be some integrating needed. At this point I consulted my original drawing to check my progress

29 Adding colour to the dress and wall I chose the colour of my lava lamp (unplugged) for the dress and wall. Inspiration comes from all directions. I opened up a Default layer set to 100%. With my Digital Airbrush set to around 30% Opacity and of varying sizes, I worked in the colour. I nd it easier to paint over the edges a bit, and then erase to the edge later. I created a shadow for her head with a slightly deeper and less saturated value of the same hue. I tried to leave some hint of the green.

32 Placing a little light on her cheek There should be a little bit more light on her left cheek. First I opened a Default layer set to about 60% Opacity. Then, using a size 90 Digital Airbrush set to about 30% Opacity, I painted in a little of the number four value skin tone (because it is receding in space it wont get a lighter value than that). Then I simply erased what I didnt want. This gave me a chance to modify the edges.

Zoom way in

33 Adding a warm tone to selected areas I opened up a Default layer and set it to 10% Opacity, selected a warm pinkish orange and using a size 78 Digital Airbrush, I made light passes over the highlighted areas around the cheeks, nose, forehead and chest. Finally, I hinted at a plane change on our wall with a nearly horizontal highlight of the lightest blue on her dress to add some interest to that area.


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028-29_OPM_03_Spread.indd 28 4/4/07 09:23:05

028-29_OPM_03_Spread.indd 29 4/4/07 09:23:20

Tutorial Paint in low light

30

030-034_OPM_03-light.indd 30 3/4/07 14:36:58

ainting a full colour scene with a sunrise, sunset, or even a spotlight can be incredibly tricky. What colours to use,

what to highlight, what to shade, where to begin? If you are just starting to tackle dificult lighting, hopefully this tutorial will get you started in the right direction. Or, if you have tried it before and are unhappy with the results, you may learn some new tricks.

Low lighting can be both very dramatic and visually appealing. Essentially

Capturing a natural low light situation can reap many rewards when it comes to impact. Heres a guide to getting it right

Paint in low lightCapturing a natural low light situation can reap many rewards when it comes to impact. Heres a guide to getting it right

Paint in low lightPaint in low light

Painter master

Time needed

Skill level

Jennifer Miller

2-3 hours

Intermediate

Tutorial info

31

TutorialPaint in low

light

01 Start with an idea An optional but bene cial step; decide on mood/tone for the overall piece and consider your palette. Colour thumbnails work best for this. I usually use a new layer to block out my general idea. Use whatever tool you are comfortable sketching with (or download this one from our website).

02 Base colour and roughing in I usually shrink the sketch to a thumbnail so I can reference without it obstructing too much when painting. Lay down a purple base colour on the canvas (use the Fill Bucket for this). Rough in a few horizon lines with the Oil Pastels for reference.

03 Start to paint Use the Chunky Oil Pastel tool to start working in some yellow and pink tones. These are the base light colours that will receive more detail later. I set the eraser end of my stylus to blend by using it to select Blenders>Grainy Water. I often switch back and forth between painting and blending.

Give yourself a good starting baseGet the mood rightGet the mood right

it can be the difference between an aesthetically boring painting and one that manages to catch your viewers eye and pull them in. There are countless applications for applying low and/or directional lighting to a piece.

Make no mistake, a single tutorial cant replace years of practice and good artistic basics, but Ill go over some of the key elements that make lighting work in a painting. Learn why saturation and colour are so important to pulling off vibrant, beautiful lighting and why

using white can often make a painting lifeless and dull.

Even though in this tutorial Ill be demonstrating these techniques using a sunrise/landscape painting, the basic ideas expressed here can be applied to any painting with low or strong directional lighting. If you like to paint skyscapes and scenery (or want to learn), then its an added bonus!

If you are new to working with light and shade, it may be worth visiting the Drawing 101 section on page 66 irst.

030-034_OPM_03-light.indd 31 3/4/07 14:37:47

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The colour of lightScientifically, light is comprised of the full spectrum of visible/invisible wavelengths. At sunrise/sunset however, the sun is closer to the horizon and light travels through more atmosphere to reach our eye. This is what causes brilliant colours. I tend to pull colours from my mind, but for those with less sky experience, your best reference is the real thing! Observe the colours you see in a real sunset, take a few art supplies and make some colour studies or even a few photos. You will notice that nature creates strong complimentary colours yellow/amber highlights with some deep blue/purple shadows.

Slow process of painting and blendingBuilding up the clouds

04 Establishing a light source I usually just use the Basic paper and tone it down by setting the papers scale to 30% and the contrast to 20%. I set my Oil Pastel to about 60% Opacity and 80% Grain, and using a large brush start roughing in the lights and darks. Its vital to work out your light source! See side tips for some useful thoughts on how to choose colours.

Building up the clouds

05 Rendering the clouds I continue roughing in the scene with large brushes, blending along the way. I always work in terms of distance the sky is farthest from the viewer, then the distant hills, then the foreground. I dont use layers for this but feel free to do so. Work in the different colours of the sky in this case its violets, pinks and yellows.

06 Working the details gradually Its time to start re ning detail. Hide the thumbnail layer for now. I work details gradually over the entire area, which helps to keep any one area from being overworked and keeps the painting consistent. In this case, its applying light areas to suggest light on clouds.

07 Using the Eyedropper for colour Because you are working on the entire image, you will keep changing colours. Use the Eyedropper tool to pull colours from the existing painting to keep them uniform. This helps give the impression of light re ecting on the clouds and makes for a more realistic nish.

08 Re ning the clouds With consecutively smaller brush sizes, build up the cloud detail. Its impossible to tell you where to place every brush stroke, so refer to the nished image for a good idea. Areas of highest contrast (such as where light strikes the undersides) have the sharpest details. If you like a soft, dreamy look, you can stop here, but were going to apply more detail.

09 Finishing the clouds I could continue to re ne the clouds inde nitely, but it would be easy to overdo it. There is more atmosphere and haze between the viewer and distant clouds, so those are softer and less detailed. It may be tempting to rush through this stage, but a hasty background can ruin an entire painting. These clouds took me many hours.

10 Studying how the light falls When painting strong directional lighting, its tempting to highlight everything, but this will kill the effect of having the directional light. You must carefully consider the shape and form of everything in your painting to learn where the light would strike. Study them to gure out what shape the clouds must be to catch the light as they do.


030-034_OPM_03-light.indd 32 3/4/07 14:38:08

33

TutorialPaint in low

light

11 Starting the foreground The hills in the background only need a subtle touch up, otherwise Im leaving them simple for depth. Dont add a highlight to them, as most of the light would be striking the side facing away from us. Using a large brush, start placing some of the sky light in the foreground.

12 Painting the rocks Work the details gradually over the entire rocky area, starting with large brushes. Decide which rocks are tallest, as these will shade other rocks. Even though the rocks are probably grey, our light sources are yellow (sunrise) and purple/blue (ambient twilight). The ambient light is dimmer than the sunrise, so try to be subtle with your highlights.

13 Its all about form I refer back to my thumbnail occasionally to see where I want the trees to go, and use that as I paint the rocks. I want someplace for my trees to hold on. As with the clouds, paying attention to the shape of the rocks will help you light them properly. Flatter rocks tend to re ect more light upward. Rounded rocks often tend to catch the light on their far-face.

14 Using saturation when highlighting Convincing lighting is not only about brightness, but saturation as well. Note that the most saturated areas are not the highlight itself, but the transition area between light and shadow. This is something you can observe in almost any strong lighting. Look at your hand under a strong light and observe where the colour is the most saturated.

One of the easiest ways to botch lighting and/or make your lighting look plastic and fake is to use colour improperly. Its easy to abuse black and white. Even though it may seem logical when painting something in colour, shading your painting with these two is where many artists run into trouble. If you are struggling with this, take a few photographs with different light sources and use the Eyedropper tool to explore some of the colours. Though this can be insightful, nothing beats actual observation and practice. A good exercise is to do a quick painting of an object, and use black and white to shade and highlight, then paint the same thing not using any black and white. You might be surprised with the dramatic difference! When painting with light, especially strong coloured light such as a sunset or sunrise, always consider the colour of your light source as well as the ambient colours being reflected from other objects.

Dont hide in the shadowsThe advantage of colour over black and white

ABOVE: Consider this version of the clouds using white to highlight/black to shade. While not a bad piece of art, its fairly dull and lifeless. The trees especially look plastic and dull, and everything has a much colder feel.

030-034_OPM_03-light.indd 33 3/4/07 14:38:29

34

Some help in choosing coloursA last word about choosing your colours sometimes Corel Painter can help you! When selecting a colour for something the tree trunks for example its hard to know exactly what colour to use. If you select a nice brown that you think should work, it usually looks out of place. Try using the colour you picked to lightly draw a scribble onto your existing image. If you have a light touch, the scribble should be somewhere in between the colour you chose and your background colour. Use the Eyedropper tool to select this colour usually it is the best choice!

Branching out from your usual lightingIncorporate other elements

15 Starting the trees Make a new layer for the trees. That way if you goof them itll be far easier to x without marring the background youve spent hours on! Draw in the basic shapes with a darker colour, still working with the same palette.

Incorporate other elements

16 Detailing the twigs At this point the trees are just silhouettes (the rocks nearly would have been too, but smooth rock is a bit more re ective than bark). Using smaller brushes, start to add the smaller branches. Use a lighter colour to help the appearance of the twigs catching the light.

17 Lighting the trees Time to add some highlights to these trees! At this angle, the sun would only strike part of the trunks. Remember that trees are (basically) cylindrical, so the light will strike just the top of the bark as you wrap around the tree. Also add a bit of a shadow on each tree trunk.

18 Bringing it together Getting the trees to blend with the rocky area can be tricky. A good trick is to draw the roots in among the rocks, and darken the areas of the rocks that would be in shadow from the trees. You could also add a few twiggy things in there, growing among the rocks, as well as some tiny buds to the trees.

19 Some nal details This is where I go over the piece, add any last details I can think of or want to add, and x any obvious errors I see. Sometimes it helps to ip the image to get a fresh look. Here, Ive added a few more signs of spring and a bird in the tree for balance. Just small things because much more and itll start looking overworked!

20 Tweaking the nal image Finally, I use the Tonal Control tools, mostly Brightness/Contrast, to tweak the image just a bit to pop. High contrast will always pull the eye, but if overdone the image will look too harsh and can be displeasing. It takes a little ne-tuning to get it to where you like.


Some help

030-034_OPM_03-light.indd 34 3/4/07 14:38:45

36

f all the options found under the Effects menu, the Surface Control group is perhaps the most helpful. With these, you can control the

paper, colour or light on your artwork, and achieve everything from extra realism through to surreal effects.

There are 12 options in the Surface Control group; the most important being Apply Lighting and Apply Surface Texture. Well take a quick look at these below, as well as the Color Overlay and Express Texture options, but heres a quick overview of the other effects. The Screen effect takes luminance, paper texture and three colours set by you to give an image a three-colour screen. Dye Concentration improves exposure in a photo by adjusting the intensity of a colour. Image Warp lets you manipulate an image and to apply a warp to an entire canvas, the Quick Warp effect is for you.

The Woodcut effect lets you emulate the look of woodcut or linoleum block prints, by simplifying an image and adding thick black edges. The Distress effect applies your selected paper or pattern onto an image as the basis for the look. Use the Serigraphy effect to give photos a silk-screened or woodblock look. The effect reduced colours to get its look, and each colour reduction is saved out to a layer, so you can tweak the effect. And inally we come to the Sketch effect. This turns an image into a black-and-white pencil sketch.

Well look at all the effects mentioned here in future issues, but for now, lets examine the main options in the Surface Control menu.

Good lighting is essential for an artist and the Adjust Lighting effect allows you to apply a certain lighting effect to your image. Upon opening the effect, youll be presented with some preset options for light setups. You will also see a preview of your image and can use the light indicator to set where the light direction comes from. The sliders let you adjust how the light works, and you can also change the light and ambient light colours. After youve adjusted a light source, you can save it for future use or create new lighting libraries.

Let there be light!Adjust LightingAdjust Lighting

The ultimate in realismApply Surface TextureApply Surface Texture

You can use the Apply Surface Texture effect to add a 3D texture to the surface of your image. This can be used to make the image look as though it was painted on a certain surface, or it can be used to enhance the brush strokes. You can apply surface texture using either a paper texture, image luminance, original luminance or 3D brush strokes. You have a series of sliders to control how the texture looks, such as its depth or how much texture is applied to the image. Its even possible to control the direction of the lighting as well as the colouring of the lighting.

Primer Surface control

Extra optionIn addition to applying light effects from the Effects menu, you can also apply surface lighting from the Canvas menu. When done this way, you are presented with a sphere that you use to set your light position. You can adjust the appearance of depth as well as set a new light colour. This option helps to bring out brush strokes of impasto or thick oil paintings.

Extra option

OTHER EFFECTSAll of the Surface Control effects are found under the Effects menu. To bring one into play, simply select it from the menu.

PRIMER

Tweak and manipulate your images with the help of these effects

EFFECTS MENUSurface Control

SELECT THE PAPERSUsually when you bring the Apply Surface Texture effect into play, it is to make your artwork appear as if it has been painted on a certain surface. Before you use the effect, you need to select a paper texture from the toolbox.

SELECT THE PAPERS

036-37_OPM03_effects.indd 36 3/4/07 14:50:07

The ultimate in realismApply Surface Texture

37

Primer

Surface control

Add a colour or texture overlayA new veneerA new veneer

and apply texture in one fell swoopIncrease contrastIncrease contrast

An interesting effect is the Color Overlay one. With this you can add colour, texture or both to an image. The dialog window gives you four options for how to apply the overlay. The first is Uniform Color, which applies a flat tint to the image. The Paper option applies colour using your selected paper texture as a model. Image Luminance will take the brightness in the image and use this to determine where to apply the colour. Light areas will receive more. Original Luminance uses the luminance in the clone source to determine where the colour should be applied. Again, more is applied in the light areas.

To quickly achieve an interesting effect on your image, the Express Texture option is hard to beat. Once selected, this turns an image into a high-contrast greyscale version of itself. You can then decide how the effect is applied. This can be according to the current paper texture, image luminance, or original luminance. You also have sliders to set how the final effect should look, such as Gray Threshold, which sets where the threshold is between pure white and pure black; Grain to set how much the paper texture affects the surface; and Contrast to set levels of black and white.

ADDING DEPTHUse these sliders to alter how the texture interacts with your image. The Softness slider is also useful for controlling the texture.

ADDING DEPTHUse these sliders to alter how the texture interacts with your image. The Softness slider is also useful for controlling the texture.

SET THE LIGHTTo enhance brush strokes, use the Light Controls to determine how the light shines on the texture. Again, you can see the result in the Preview square.

PREVIEW Use this square here to get an idea of how the surface texture will look when applied. To move around the image, simply click and drag your mouse in the square.

Primer

Surface control

Sometimes too much choice can be more painful than not enough, and you may find yourself feeling bamboozled by the amount of choice available in the Surface Control menu. Fear not, for we have put together a visual guide to how each effect affects the same image.

See what they all doSurface Control effects in full

Apply Lighting

Apply Screen

Apply Surface Texture

Color Overlay

Dye Concentration

Express Texture

Image Warp

Quick Warp

Woodcut

Distress

Serigraphy

Sketch

PREVIEW Use this square here to get an idea

036-37_OPM03_effects.indd 37 3/4/07 14:51:23

Tutorial Paint like Monet

38

Claude MonetPaint like: Paint like:

038-044_OPM_03_Monet.indd 38 4/4/07 18:40:56

mpressionism is probably the most popular period in art history. The name of the movement itself is attributed to Claude Monets

1872 painting Impression Sunrise. It is hard to believe that at the time of Impressionisms birth, the movement was seen as revolutionary. The Impressionists treatment of colour and light was unlike anything previously seen. To a world consumed with religious scenes they brought day-to-day subjects, and to meticulously executed paintings they injected a personal vision. Never before has a group of artists given such prominence to everyday life, turning the spotlight on everyday people and scenes.

These artists brought a new kind of realism to the world of art. Instead of the photographic, highly detailed approach of the time, they concentrated on lightness. Instead of meticulous planning, they pioneered the element of spontaneity.

They also introduced innovation with their technique. Unlike the lawlessly smooth norm of the time, they used short strokes of paint that relected and captured the essence of the subject rather than its details.

The piece we are working on here is titled The Water-Lily Pond. It features a scene from Claude Monets own garden, without doubt one of the artists favourite subjects. Monet painted many paintings of the waterlilies in this garden over a 20-year period, turning them into an Impressionist icon. Although the original masterpiece will be constantly referred to as we progress, our target is not an exact copy but an exercise in Monets artistic vision and painting style.

This work is interesting to view close up as it reveals the actual work process of the artist. Some of the piece is made of relatively lat impasto strokes. Other strokes look like a rough brush dragged across the canvas. A great part of the painting looks like it is made of a multitude of brief dabs on the canvas. We will split the canvas into several areas. Starting with the bridge and moving on to the light-green long plants just under it, well explore the purple and lilac areas, light and dark pink, lilac and yellow dabs on the water, thick impasto strokes top

Painter master

Time needed

Skill level

On the CD

Hannah Gal

3 hours

Intermediate

Starting sketch

Tutorial info

39

The Water-Lily Pond is one of Claude Monets most famous paintings and gives an Impressionist record of his beloved garden

Claude Monet

038-044_OPM_03_Monet.indd 39 4/4/07 18:41:18

40

Work close to homeJust as Monet used his garden for inspiration, you could turn your own garden into your Impressionist muse. Try applying his strokes to photos of your back yard and see what happens.

Building up your bridgeStart from the baseStart from the base

01 Open the drawing Open the provided black-and-white drawing from the disc. The scene is mainly made of plants over and around the water and the only well-de ned object is the bridge.

02 Paint layer You can open up a copy of the original painting, or consult a book for reference. Open a new layer and name it Paint Layer. This is where our paint will be applied.


Work close

right and top left of the image, dark green and brown strokes throughout.

We will start by covering the entire painting in green wash, colouring the bridge and slowly build up paint layers with oil brushes. As you work, it is important to see the detail in close-up. A recommended site is that of The National Gallery. You can zoom in on any part of the painting and easily move across it. The great magniication level means you can clearly see the direction and nature of the strokes as well as paint thickness (www.nationalgallery.org.uk).

We will apply clean paint at increasing opacity and at later stages, concentrate on oils and impasto. We will work with blends where one paint stroke blends with another resulting in a mixed colour stroke, and put the sponges to use. We will

use ready-made, single colours but will also sample and mix multiple colours. The Color Mixer and Brush Creator will be at the centre of our screen throughout and we will test colours and brushes on their handy pads.

The strokes themselves are varied in length, pressure, thickness, style and direction. We will put to use the graphics tablets stylus to simulate the stroke style and give it the distinctive Monet look. This is a time-consuming task as the piece is made of a great number of brush strokes. It is the subtle variation between strokes that gives the piece its own individual style. Besides using textured brushes we will add a 3D effect to the painted piece. For that we will turn to Surface Texture tool and its brilliant Image Luminance setting.

For most of the work process, the Opacity and Grain Expression is set to None in the Brush Creator. This is not set in stone, though. Feel free to experiment with any of the other settings and see the effect.

Visit the National Gallery website (www.

nationalgallery.org.uk) for a close-up look at the original painting

Make full use of your Colors palette as you progress. It is a useful tool that can be modified and referred to at all stages. Take advantage of the information it displays and settings it offers.

038-044_OPM_03_Monet.indd 40 4/4/07 18:41:38

41

TutorialPaint like M

onet

Darker/lighter shadeThroughout the painting there are tiny strokes and dabs. These are lighter over a dark area as in the purple green trees above centre of the bridge, and darker over a light area as in trees to the left, above the bridge.

To apply slightly lighter or darker shade to an area, use the Eyedropper to sample it, open the Colors palette and move the slider on the right up for lighter and down for dark.

03 Digital Airbrush Go to Window>Brush Selector to display the Brush Selector menu. Alternatively, go to the same location to open Brush Creator. Go to Airbrushes>Digital Airbrush>Cover>Soft Cover. You only need 2-3% Opacity. Choose any dark green colour from the Colors palette and roughly cover the canvas.

04 The bridge Set Brush Size to 30-35 and Expression to None. Pick a lilac/purple shade and with a low 1-2% Opacity, start covering the bridge at the top part of the image. This is all very loose at this stage and is drawn as a guide. Observe the original as you apply paint to the entire image.

Time for some real colourMake the bridge stand outMake the bridge stand out

05 Artists Oils In the Brush Selector or Brush Creator, select Artists Oils>Dry Bristle. Many of the oil brushes would be suitable for this step so choose any one that you like. Work at a high Opacity and a 20-30 size brush to apply paint over the rather faint Airbrush layer underneath.

06 Colour Set Brush Size to 20-25 and Opacity to 20%. Choose a dark green shade and observe the original while applying paint to the dark green areas. When you have done that, move on to a different colour like light green, purple/lilac or pink and repeat the process.

07 Bridge 2 It is time to apply proper thick paint to the piece. Open Brush Creator>Artists Oils and set Oily Bristle brush to size 16-20 and Opacity to 60-80%. Viscosity should be set to 0%. We had both a zoomed in part of the original as well as a full size image open, next to our own canvas for observation.

Darker/

08 Bridge 3 Set Grain to 9-14% and while referring to the original continue to apply paint to the bridge. At this stage we are applying what looks like blocks of colour but these will all be blended later on.

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Really start to layer the paintSponge on some textureSponge on some texture

10 Step back Keep the same brush to concentrate on different areas of the image around the water. Adjust Opacity and brush size as you progress. Cover the canvas with paint using long and medium strokes as in the original. Use the Mixer for ready-made shades or to design your own.

09 Bridge work Cover all or some of the bridge and move to the top-left corner of the image. Using the same Oily Bristle brush, paint the dark green plants applying long strokes of paint from top to bottom.

11 Sponge In the Brush Creator select Sponges>Sponge. Under Impasto set Draw To to Color and Depth and Method to Uniform. With Depth of 140-150% and Spacing at 90%, set Smoothing and Plow to 100%, In the General controls, set Dab to Captured, Stroke Type to Single, Method to Cover and Subcategory to Grainy Hard Cover. Use the pad to test your sponge

13 Sponge 2With Grain of between 25% to 35%, apply very long strokes to the bridge. We are trying to re-create the rough effect of the original. Another way to create it would be using Pastel or Chalks. Apply as many strokes as needed while zoomed in to 60-100% to see the effect. You may wish to alter Spacing level as you progress.


12 Pinks Keep Expression set to None at this stage and move to plants covering the water below the bridge. The strokes are horizontal and short. The water area is made of a great number of these strokes and there is no short cut to applying them. You need to select your colour and apply many strokes all over before moving on to a different shade and repeating.

Make the most of directionBrush strokes

This piece is made of a huge number of brush strokes. These are of different length, thickness and direction. To paint in the artists style we need to apply a great number of strokes, one after the other. The stylus needs to be lifted off the canvas after each stroke in what is a time-consuming process. The strokes at the very top-left corner of the painting are longer and move from top to bottom. Strokes of long plants under the bridge are thinner whereas the strokes over the water are short with medium dabs from left to right.

These strokes also vary in colour with some strokes being made of blended shades where one blends into another. Others are of a single colour but touch on a different shade as in the light pink neighbouring the darker shade. For the piece to have the Monet look, these strokes need to be applied in the same style as the original.

Mixing up strokes of different directions gives the picture texture and keep it in the original Monet style

These vertical strokes of lighter green help add depth to the image

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TutorialPaint like M

onet

No shortcuts in this oneFor the true Monet experience, were afraid there is no choice but to apply stroke after stroke. It takes an awful long time, but it is worth it in the end. If your computer can handle it, create a new layer for each important area of work. This way you dont risk ruining something youve spent hours on. And as ever, be sure to clearly name your layers so you know what they are.

16 Even richer Repeat the process to cover the water area. Here the strokes are short and horizontal. The easiest way to achieve full coverage is to concentrate on a colour or area. Make your choice and move to the next area. You are applying dark green, light green, lilac, purple and pink tones to the entire image. Strokes are short and move in all directions.

17 Deep strokesIncrease Depth to 180-190% and follow the original to apply strokes to the image. These are deep and quite shiny. The area top left of the image calls for long strokes going from top to bottom whereas the area over the water calls for short dabs. Make sure you move in different directions.

Make your canvas appear roughExploit textured brushesExploit textured brushes

14 Impasto Oil In Brush Creator choose Impasto Oil and go to the Impasto category. Here, set Draw To to Color and Depth and Depth at 40%. With Grain and Opacity at 14% and Size to 25-30%, apply strokes to cover the layer underneath. This layer is meant to partly blend with the one below it to create a multitude of shades.

15 Impasto Oil 2 Reduce brush size to 12% and choose an area to concentrate on. We are going to apply small strokes of darker shades to a given area to re-create the richness of the original. If you are working on the dark-green area left side of the bridge for example, move to a slightly darker shade and apply short strokes in any direction to the area. Follow with lilac and light green strokes.

18 Glazing Sponge In the Sponges category, choose Glazing Sponge 60. We will try to re-create some of the oil paint sheen seen on the original. Set Grain to 10%, Opacity to 20% Spacing to 25-40% and Draw to Depth. Depth Method should be Uniform and Expression set to None. Simply go over some of the strokes applied in the previous step.

No shortcuts

19 Accentuate 1 The extreme high and low points of the image are crucial to its overall look. Choose a dark purple colour and apply to the darkest points in the image. You simply nd a dark area, sample it, open the Colors palette and move the slider to a darker tone. Blend the colour as you apply; the stokes should be soft. Move to dark green and apply to all relevant areas.

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Make it easy on yourselfOkay, so we lied a bit in the tip on the previous page. There is a shortcut of sorts with this effect. You could lay a base layer of strokes using the Impressionist variant of the Artists brushes. Once you have this applied, you can then use the techniques explained here to make your own Monet masterpiece from a sketch or photo.

Ensure your image isnt flatCarry on with the tonal work

20 Image highs We need to repeat the process executed in step 19 for the highs of the image. Choose the lightest yellow/green in the image and open the Colors palette to move to a lighter shade as in the previous step. Apply to the lightest areas of the image.

Carry on with the tonal work

21 Image highs 2 Adjust Opacity as you progress applying many dabs all over. These high points, just like the lows, lift the image and give it an edge. Again, there is no short cut to this one; you need to continuously apply lots of dabs all over.

22 Red/pink The pink owers are made of more than one shade. Create a dark pink/red shade to apply as a dab to any part of the owers. Repeat this with a light pink/white to apply the high points.

23 Light green plants Use a small Impasto Oil brush to apply long-to-medium light green strokes all over the plants in the image, excluding these over the water. The density of these changes. On the right, for example, they are very dense but a little less so at the centre of the image just below the bridge.

24 Whites Use a white coloured brush to accentuate white areas like some parts of the bridge. This can be applied at low Depth or just Color. Choose your preference under the Impasto category and adjust Opacity and Grain to suit. There are odd white strokes all over the image. Zoom to 100% and us the Hand tool to nd them and apply.

25 Image Luminance Go to Effect>Surface Control>Apply Surface Texture>Image Luminance. Observe the Preview window as you adjust Amount, Re ection and other settings to nd the level of texture you wish to apply. The original is very textured but as we used textured brushes earlier, you might even nd this step unnecessary.


Make it easy

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s an artist, the surface you paint or draw on is every bit as important as what you draw or paint with. Sadly,

many Corel Painter novices overlook this vital aspect of creating an image. Without choosing a surface which will exploit the characteristics of the current variant youre using, the results can be rather disappointing with lat, featureless brush marks. Although Corel Painter features a whole host of very varied painting surfaces, they are collectively referred to as Paper within the program, and they have an entire palette of their own. So, here were going to look at everything Paper related! Were going to show you how to choose them, use them, and even how to create your own!

Dry media, such as chalks, pastels and pencils are the guys that really take advantage of surface textures, simply because these mediums work by their pigment being caught and shaved off by the tooth, or grain, of the surface. In Corel Painter, you can even control the size and depth of this surface grain, so you can change it from a barely perceptible texture to a surface as rough as a gravel driveway! Add to this the fact that you can even use a number of different paper surfaces in the same image and you can see just how much choosing the right surface can enliven your work! So, if you thought that all paper was created equal, then read on and revolutionise your painting surfaces!

By clicking this option, you quite literally invert the grain pattern of the current paper. In effect this swaps the valleys and peaks of the paper texture, so what were formerly valleys become peaks and vice-versa. By using this option, you can create some really cool effects. Here, for instance, the red chalk was sketched onto the paper, and then the Invert Paper option was activated before painting the yellow. The result of this is that the yellow chalk is applied only to the peaks of the paper grain, formerly the valleys, so it fills in the grain spaces of the red chalk.

Using Paper textures

Peaks and valleysInvert PaperInvert Paper

Sizing it upScale Paper sliderScale Paper slider

Using this slider, you can determine the size of the grain in your paper surface. Its a good idea to experiment with this slider, with a few test marks before you start drawing or painting properly. Its best if your paper grain looks suitably sized to match the physical size of your entire image. You can see to the left how much difference this value can make. Both of the strokes in the image use exactly the same size of chalk, but in the top one, the Paper Scale is set to 100%. In the lower stroke, Paper Scale is set to 350%. Both strokes use the Linen Canvas paper.

Peaks and valleys

Feature focus Paper textures

GRAINY UNDERPAINTINGFor establishing the overall under-painting in the image, a large chalk, used over the Rough Charcoal Paper created a really nice rough cover. Remember to adjust the Scale of the paper and to use a fairly low Grain setting with the brush.

Paper loreIf your ambition in Corel Painter is to create images which most closely mimic traditional media effects, remember to choose a suitable paper texture for the medium youre using. So, when youre using Oils, choose one of Corel Painters canvas textures, or perhaps a watercolour paper if youre using one of the transparent paint category of variants.

If your Corel Painter creations are flat, try using paper textures to their full potential

FEATUREFOCUS

CUSTOM PAPER TEXTUREFor a particularly rough texture for the ground, we created a custom paper from an Earth pattern. You can see exactly how to do this in the step-by-step walkthrough within this feature.

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Feature focusPaper textures

Higher highs and lower lowsPaper ContrastPaper Contrast

Shiny happy paperPaper BrightnessPaper Brightness

All Corel Painter papers are based on a greyscale texture map image, where the darker areas in the grain pattern represent the valleys, or low points of the paper grain, and white areas represent the high spots or peaks in the grain. The contrast slider, as the name suggests, controls the degree of contrast between these two tones. So, if we choose a low contrast setting, the grain of the paper is just subtly featured in the chalk stroke. At high contrast setting the grain is very obvious indeed.

The Paper Brightness slider controls the overall brightness of both the black and white areas of the paper texture. At low values, the chalk will fill up more of the paper grain, because the brightest parts, or high points of the texture map become darker. At high brightness levels, all of the tones of the texture map become brighter, so in effect, the paper texture becomes flatter. You will find at high brightness values, less chalk will be deposited on the paper overall.

Higher highs and lower lows

BRICKLAYING WITH PAPER!The Worn Pavement paper was ideal to use beneath the bricks, automatically creating a very effective, rugged surface. Increasing the Contrast setting for the paper exaggerated this effect.

INVERTED PAPERUsing a darker tone, we added some complimentary tones to this area after choosing the Invert Paper option in the Papers palette, still using the custom Earth paper texture.

Feature focusPaper texturesPaper textures

Expand your paper texture choice

Load new paper

Sharp Peaks

Leaf

Feather

Fibre Wood

Soft Canvas

Furry

Thick Paint

Bumpy

Wool

Glitter

INCREASED GRAIN VALUETo add the main colour, we needed a higher Grain setting, still using the Rough Charcoal Paper, so that the chalk penetrated the paper grain less and created more de nite, opaque marks.

As you will see over the page, Corel Painter comes with a decent amount of paper textures already installed and raring to go. But it is so easy to make your own that you shouldnt rely on the default options alone. On this issues disc you will find a selection of different textures, suitable for both Cor

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