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Understanding Watercolour Brush Controls in Corel Painter 11 and 12This is a link to the tutorial on Issu. It is in an online magazine format. The article is also published in Digital Paint Magazine. You can also request a PDF of it by emailing me via the Contact Form in the left sidebar. It's actually easier to follow in PDF format because the text explaining the illustrations is beside the image. I think it is one of the most useful tutorials I have written so far. What I've done is shown how the various controls, which are shown on the Water Control Panel pictured below, affect the appearance of the brushstroke made with the watercolour brushes. With the advent of the Real Watercolour Brushes in Painter 12, those of you not upgrading at this time may feel there is no point in trying to paint with the watercolours until you have upgraded. Or, you may be using Painter 12 and want to use these brushes in conjunction with the Real Watercolours and the many Custom Watercolour sets freely available on the Painter Talk Forum and Skip Allen's blog Skip Allen Paints. I recommend you check out these sites for further information on Digital Painting with Corel Painter. The key to controlling these brushes is in knowing how the controls change the character of the brush and therefore the look of the mark you are making. The controls remain the same in Painter 12 for the Wet Watercolor Variants and some of the Real Watercolour Controls such as Pick Up, Evaporation Rate, and Dry rate are similar to the Wet Watercolour ones. When you start to use Custom sets made by other people or by making your own you will see why an understanding of these controls is so important when you want to alter brushes or design your own  The first control on the water control Palette (which is now called a Panel in Corel 12...I think?) is the Wetness Slider. P11 Help Index defines it like this: “slider controls the dilution and spread of the paint. As the wetness is increased, the resulting stroke expands over a larger area, eliminating the appearance of brush hairs.” The increased amount of Wetness in the second brushstroke, as well as the increased Diffusion make this brushstroke spread further and look wetter. The Dry Rate is also lower which makes it take longer to dry during the diffusion process. The higher Evaporation value in first brushstroke reduces the amount of paint spread because it controls the minimum amount of water that can still diffuse. The Dry Bristle brush does not have a bristle dab type, despite its name. It has a Camel Dab Type.
The biggest differences in these brushes are caused by these controls mainly; Wetness – huge difference, which will dilute the paint and spread it further. Dry Rate – higher values reduce the amount of spread because it ‘dries’ faster. Grain Soak- In is dramatically different between these two strokes. 1000 % on Left makes the paint soak into the paper grain a lot. 0 % on the right shows the paint not soaking into the paper grain at all. All 3 elements of these controls work together to give a wet look and the Wind Force of 23 % pointing down pulls the wet paint down.  Capillary Factor is the only Water Control difference between these two brushes. I painted them both with gradient colours. In the one on the left the edges are slightly more jagged. Cap Factor slider controls the effect of the paper’s grain on the diffusion of the paint. It is not very noticeable with this stroke because my Italian Watercolour Paper is only very slightly bumpy.  Pickup, Cap Factor and Grain Soak in are the big changes between these two brushes. The latter two will mean the stroke is going to be grainy and have a rougher edge. The high Pickup value means it will move the paint and blend together a bit, especially with a little bit of Wind Force to pull the paint down. It makes the bristle marks look fuzzier or more diffused. These two strokes by the same brush produce a very different look because of the changes in the Water Controls for Pickup and Diffusion. Higher values for Pickup produce more leaching and mixing of paint.
Diffusion appears to be a very important factor in the wetness of a WC Brush. Higher values produce more diffusion of the paint which results in softened edges that feather into the grain.  These two strokes by the same brush produce a very different look because of the changes in the Water Controls for Pickup and Diffusion. Higher values for Pickup produce more leaching and mixing of paint.
Diffusion appears to be a very important factor in the wetness of a WC Brush. Higher values produce more diffusion of the paint which results in softened edges that feather into the grain.  Image 5.2 shows the dramatic effects of diffusion only, on a stroke in the two examples of painted strokes.
 The only apparent difference between these two brushes seems to be the amount of Diffusion, which is a difference of 15 %. Obviously something else is causing the squared off end on the Fine Flat stroke. As you will see in the next illustration the difference is the Dab Type which is not in the Water Controls. It can be found in the General Brush Controls.
Image 7 shows the Watercolour Camel dab type which has softer more diffused edges. The one on the right is the Watercolour Flat Dab Type which has hard edges and a more oval squeezed shape which allows for finer lines type strokes.  Not only are the dab types different, but the settings for the controls are very different between these two brushes as well. In brush two the controls that make the paint spread further and look less grainy are the Wetness, Pick Up, and Grain Soak. These make the major differences between them.
Not all the airbrushes change into watercolour airbrushes that are of much use. I use a wet Fine Spray, a wet Variable Spatter, a wet Pixel Spray and wet Tiny Spattery Airbrush. You generally have to use a very light colour with them and a low opacity or they are too dark.
 Tips: I sometimes use a dry airbrush where I need to change colour ie: to add more light, then the layer can be dropped to the canvas and lifted again to a watercolour layer to incorporate that 'dry brush' into the wet workflow. You can also use the Distortion Brush Confusion (set to Multi) to blur your tiny spots to make them look wet or like part of a back run. 
This one definitely looks better in the PDF format. It's rather small here, but can't do much about it because of the constraints of this site. 
These illustrations show the effects of the various controls on the same brushstroke. Make a Control stroke using Record Stroke and Playback. Then vary your controls one by one and see what happens. Return brush to default state in between if you wish, but the effects are often a result of one or more variances in the controls. Remember your goal here is to discover and understand how the controls change the brush.  Wind Force controls the amount of force exerted on the diffusing particles. How stiff is the breeze, in other words. Because we can tell the paint which direction to flow in, it is like tilting your paper to let the paint run. It makes gravity a factor in how to paint particles are moving . Therefore Wind Direction which is set by the arrows (in P11 and by a number in P12) is an important water control to consider. It can be set in any direction in the 360 degree radius.  To help you set the wind direction Painter 11 has the circle with the arrows which you can move around a 360 degree radius by clicking on the point of the arrow and pointing the arrow in the direction you would like the paint to flow.  Painter 12 does not have the circle with the movable arrow, so you need to know the number to set your Wind Direction. Being a visual kind of person I need the little circle to figure it out quickly and easily, so I made the circle with some of the numbers on a sticky posted to my screen.  With Accurate Diffusion enabled a smaller diffusion window is used. In sample 2 you can see that the diffusion is more focused and the grain of the paper shows more than the wider spread diffusion of sample 1. If you really want to see diffusion in action check out the Real Watercolour brushes in Painter 12. You can be sure I am studying them pretty closely too, to figure out how they work! All three of these brushes have very similar, or the same brush controls. Notice that they all have a high Diffusion value of 89%, Pick Up 20 % and 0% Grain Soak -In or Cap Factor. The two grainy versions Diffuse Grainy Camel and Diffuse Grainy Flat use Cap Factor and Grain Soak-In to get the paint particles to soak into the paper grain. I must admit though, that I see very little practical difference between these three brushes, even though one is a bristle dab and one is a flat dab type. Perhaps the differences show more when other controls are changed in conjunction with the Wetness Control. Hope this helps you understand the controls and gives you the confidence and skill to feel comfortable and creative with these amazingly versatile brushes. Until next time! Happy Painting!  Related postsCommentsDoreen said: Thank you so much for taking the time to create this wonderful tutorial Joan. I've only had Corel Painter 11 since January and since I don't use it all the time I'm still learning when time allows.
Thursday, July 28th
Joan said: Thank you so much Doreen, Judith and Elaina! Hope it well help you out!
Friday, July 29th
Kathleen Voss said: Joan this is a wonderful tutorial. Thank you for all the effort you put into this.
Thursday, January 26th
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Judith said:
I saw this in the latest magazine and have saved it. Very valuable information Joan. Thanks for all the work that went into this. Very informative.
Judith