If you already know your way around Photoshop and Painter and want to use these amazing programs to take your skills further, this book is for you! Much more than a simple "how-to" guide, Susan Ruddick Bloom takes you on a full-fledged journey of the imagination and shows you how to create incredible works of fine art. Supplemented by the work of 20+ world renowned artists in addition to Sue's own masterpieces, you'll learn how to create watercolors, black and white pencil sketches, texture collages, stunning realistic and fantastical collages, and so much more, all from your original photographs. If you are eager to dive into the world of digital art but need a refresher on the basics, flip to Sue's essential techniques chapter to brush up on your Photoshop and Painter skills, and you'll be on your way in no time. Whether you're a novice or an established digital artist, you'll find more creative ideas in this book than you could ever imagine. Fully updated for new versions of Painter and Photoshop and including brand new work from contemporary artists, Digital Collage and Painting provides all the inspiration you need to bring your artistic vision to light.
Painting in Painter™ 291 Figure 5-84 Wedding Embrace, Cape May, NJ in Figure 5-84 was made from a photograph taken at a wedding that took place in Cape May, New Jersey, on the beach. I used the Chalk Cloner and various watercolor cloners, including one that left telltale spots of water. Digital Collage and Painting292 Figure 5-85 President’s House, McDaniel College Painting in Painter™ 293 Don’t copy. Feel the forms. Feel how much it swings, how much it slants—these are big factors. The more factors you have, the simpler will be your work. — THOMAS EAKINS , in Thomas Eakins, by Lloyd Goodrich (1987) Sometimes you may fi nd yourself struggling with an image because the software doesn’t seem capable of giving you what you had imag- ined. This was the case with Figure 5-85 . The whites that I desired did not seem pure enough in my digital painting. I tried painting and erasing, but I simply wasn’t satisfi ed with the results. I printed the painting and looked at it with dismay. I was right. The whites simply were not white enough. I then took a real paintbrush and some opaque white watercolor paint and literally stroked real paint onto my print. As that was drying, I felt compelled to add a few details with real colored pencils. When the print was dry I scanned it back into the computer and worked on it a little more until I felt satisfi ed with this commission. The point to this story is that you have to use the tools that are appropriate to your task. Feel free to intermingle digital painting tools with real painting tools. You do not need to be a purist about the tools. It is the art that is important, not the tools that were used. Use what feels right. Follow your instincts. Photocopy-Inspired Painting Figure 5-86 Original photograph of a priest character at a Renaissance festival Digital Collage and Painting294 The next example sprang from a conversation I had with an artist friend, Ann Curtis. Ann is a wonderful artist and is known through- out the United States for her work at Renaissance festivals, making plaster body-cast sculptures. As most artists do, she also dabbles in other media. She showed me a few portraits that she had done with her colored pencils, working on black-and-white photocopies of pho- tographs. They were lovely, but the poor quality of the photocopy paper meant that her creations were not going to be very long lived in archival terms. She was having such a good time with this process that I thought I could show her how she could achieve similar results digitally. The resulting prints would have a much higher archival standard. For this project I decided to use a digital photograph that I had taken at the local Renaissance festival. Figure 5-87 Photocopy version of the photograph Desaturate the color photo Copy the desaturated photo on a new layer Use Color Dodge blend mode and combine those layers into a new layer Duplicate the combined layer Apply a Curves adjustment to lighten the image Duplicate the layer and apply Filter > Photocopy Set the Photocopy layer to 78% opacity and set on the Multiply blend mode My fi rst task was to convert this color photograph to the look of a black-and-white photocopy. When I thought about what a photocopy looks like, I realized that lots of mid-tones and detail in highlights and shadows are lost. I wanted to replicate that effect, so it would resem- ble a real photocopy. Here are the steps that I used. I desaturated the image, leaving a black-and-white rendition of the photograph. That layer was copied and the Color Dodge blend mode was applied to it. Those two layers were combined into another layer, labeled “Combination.” By leaving the fi rst two layers, I reserved my ability to go back into those layers later, if need be. The Combination layer Choose only one master—Nature. — R EMBRANDT , in Rembrandt Drawings, by Paul Némo, as translated by David Macrae (1975) Painting in Painter™ 295 was duplicated and a Curves adjustment was applied to it, lighten- ing the image. That layer was duplicated and the Photocopy fi lter was applied to it. This new layer was then set on the Multiply blend mode and reduced to 78%. Figure 5-88 Hand-colored version Save Flatten and save this fl attened version (under another name) Using the fl attened version, create a new layer Set the blend mode on the new layer to Color This is a good point in the process to save your work. I saved both a full layered version and a fl attened one. The next step is the fun, artis- tic one. Create a new layer and set the blend mode on it to Color. This Digital Collage and Painting296 is your hand-coloring layer. I selected colors from the color palette and painted them onto this layer. You can be rather messy, loose, and imprecise in this step. Figure 5-88 shows the completed Photoshop piece. Figure 5-89 shows only the hand-painted layer set to Color blend mode. Figure 5-89 Hand-colored layer only Painting in Painter™ 297 Bring fl attened colored version into Painter File > Clone Select all and delete Figure 5-90 Image cloned in Painter and painted background added Digital Collage and Painting298 Use the Chalk Cloner and Straight Cloner Add a background using Artist Pastels and blend with Just Add Water Mission accomplished! But, then I started thinking about what it might look like if that completed Photoshop portrait were used as the basis for a clone image in Painter. Figure 5-90 was made using the Chalk Cloner and Straight Cloner. The blue background was painted in with Artist Pastels and blended with Blender > Just Add Water. Figure 5-91 was made with the same tools but with a difference at the beginning of the cloning process. When the portrait was cloned, and the clone was selected and deleted, the entire area was then fi lled with the tan color. This simulated a piece of tan charcoal paper. My little experiment yielded another way to make a photo-like illustration. In this case, it was a portrait, but this same process could be used on other subject matter. Figure 5-91 Painter version with solid background One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. — W ILLIAM SHAKESPEARE , Troilus and Cressida (1601) Painting in Painter™ 299 Auto-Painting: Painting in a Hurry Those engineers at Corel are wizards. They think of everything to help the artist out. The next technique is super easy and quick. Since Painter X they have included an Auto-Painting option. Here is a look at how it works. Figure 5-93 Selecting Auto-Painting Figure 5-92 Horse racer and its clone Select a photo and clone it, as explained earlier in this chapter. Turn off Tracing Paper, creating a white layer on which to work. In the Window menu, select Show Underpainting > Auto-Painting. Select Smart Stroke Brushes from our choice of brushes. Within that category, select the Acrylics Captured Bristle Brush variation. Your choices continue with what type of mark to make in the Auto-Painting and how large should the brush be. I have chosen Scribble Large with a brush set at 10.4 pixels. Press the green arrow at the lower right of the dialogue box to start the Auto-Painting. It will continue until you click again to stop it. Digital Collage and Painting300 This Auto-Painting Brush is a great way to create a fast underpaint- ing. You can proceed further by lowering the size of the brush, for more detail and handpainting directly onto the clone. I lowered the brush size to 4.4 and then to 2.8 to refi ne more detail in some sections, leaving the background area loose and painterly. I then used the Straight Cloner with a small brush (3.6) and a very light opacity ( 4%) in just a few spots, such as the jockey’s head and reins. Use the Straight Cloner sparingly. You do not want the original photo back, just a slight indication of critical details. Figure 5-96 Proceeding with more detail Figure 5-94 Selecting desired brushes Figure 5-95 Resulting Auto-Painting [...]... and Cloning Figure 5-117 Doctored original photo 311 3 12 Digital Collage and Painting As a photographer, you know that some images speak to you immediately Others take time to float to the surface of possibilities The image shown in Figure 5- 121 took a decade to be made That long ago, with a long lens and from far away, I took a photograph of a Civil War re-enactor I just liked how he was standing and. .. Distance—8 Spread 27 Size—16 Noise 23 Figure 5- 128 shows this simple edge effect It is a particularly good edge for a photo illustration in a magazine or newsletter The effect shown in Figure 5- 129 , on colored paper, was created in Painter Painting in Painter Figure 5- 128 Completed edge effect 319 320 Digital Collage and Painting Figure 5- 129 Painter clone with a brown-tone paper Open photo in Painter File... into my digital artwork is the use of painterly edges There are so many possibilities and so many brushes We will explore a few here Feel free to mix and match them as possible edge effects Figure 5- 122 New layer filled with white and painted with the History brush in Photoshop Open photo in Photoshop Add a new layer and fill it with white Use the History brush, with a rough brush type selected, to paint... the photo onto the white layer There are just tons of edge effects that are available to you Some effects were discussed in Chapter 4 Edges are easily purchased in various third-party software packages Many are really great Let’s look at how you can achieve painterly edge effects within Photoshop and Painter Figure 5- 122 was created solely in Photoshop A new layer was applied over the existing photograph...Painting in Painter 301 Figure 5-97 Straight Clone added for a few detailed touches Smart Stroke Painting Figure 5-98 Smart Stroke Painting with Smart Settings of Casablanca photo Another way to go with this tool is to check the box marked Smart Stroke Painting, which follows the lines of the photograph and is less random Next, check the box marked Smart Settings This is an automatic feature that starts... artist, is to find the brush or mark that works best for the feel and look that you have in mind for your artwork Painting in Painter 325 Figure 5-140 Completed oil effect painting This chapter provides but a little taste of the art tools available in Painter I have concentrated on the cloning tools, as they are the tools most likely to be used by a photographer You are not restricted to those tools and. .. Figure 5- 124 Eraser as a paint tool Try using the Brush Tool to create a border effect Don’t rule out using the Eraser Tool or some white paint if your background color is white In Figure 5- 124 , the scratchy-looking brush was filled with white and stroked onto the painting Brush marks were made from the border into the image, mimicking the grass directionality in the photograph Painting in Painter ... should be possible for even the photographer—just as for the creative poet or painter to use the object as a stepping stone to a realm of meaning completely beyond itself —CLARENCE JOHN LAUGHLIM, to Daniel Masclet (October 19, 1953) Fill the original photo layer with white Use the Magic Wand Tool to select the white edge of the top layer and then delete it The bottom layer (the original image) was... many ways to paint in Painter, it would take several volumes to catalog the possibilities In the real art world, tools used to blend can include water, turpentine, paper-shading stumps (tortillions), and chamois These tools can smear, blend, or water down a painting effect Painter has a variety of blending tools, and a few of them can reach down from a new layer and pull up color information to blend... layers and applied more color directly to the clone In most instances, the blend mode was set to Gel Art is the lie that tells the truth —PABLO PICASSO, in “Picasso Speaks,” The Arts Magazine (May, 1 923 ) 314 Digital Collage and Painting Figure 5- 120 Layers are blended Use Blender brushes to blend the new paint into the previous version Various Blender brushes were used to combine the clone and the . telltale spots of water. Digital Collage and Painting2 92 Figure 5-85 President’s House, McDaniel College Painting in Painter™ 29 3 Don’t copy. Feel the. Adding Chalk Cloner Painting in Painter™ 303 Figure 5-101 Finished digital painting of Casablanca Mosque, Morocco Digital Collage and Painting3 04 Make