Joan A Hamilton's Digital Painting Site News

New Technique for translucent petals with digital watercolours

Tue, 01 May 2012 19:26:02 CDT

I tried this today because I wanted the light to seem to be coming through the layers more.

"Translucent: allowing light to pass through, but only diffusely, so that objects on the other side cannot be clearly distinguished." Just checked the dictionary in Word for a definition to make sure I was using the right word.

Digital watercolour variants in Corel painter 12.1 often don't have the translucent quality that I expect them to when I paint with them.

I have found that calibrating the brushes and squeezing the angle of a circular dab brush makes a nice brush for applying a digital watercolour stroke. Varying the pressure will vary the intensity of the colour and the width of the stroke mimicking a traditional watercolour brushstroke a little more. The Hue and Value are set to change very slightly too.

The brush I used for this was my DWC Wedge with fringe which is in my new Floral Watercolour Set which is not released as yet, but it is so easy to make your own. Check out all the brush settings in the illustration. Start with a Circular dab, digital watercolour, digital wet abrasive and go from there.

DWC Wedge brush with fringe is a staple brush of mine. I use it with different fringe levels, at different angles and sizes, and of course with diffusion on and off.

Most of the strokes needed some blending , but I wanted to keep some of the edges. Before I experimented on the layer, I duplicated it, locked it and hid it from view. Then I did my diffusing and blending on my petal and it was looking kind of opaque so I reduced the opacity of the layer by about half and turned the hidden from view layer back on. It was obviously too dark, so I reduced it's opacity as well. Lo and behold the two layers together had a different look that appeared more translucent to me (at the time anyway! lol!)

I'm going to experiment more with mulitple digital layers. I was obviously using more than one digital watercolour before, but had not duplicated the layer and blended differently on each one, then changed the opacity according to what I wanted to show through more.

Which watercolour style looks freshest to you?

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:49:26 CDT

I really would like to know what you think? That's really two questions isn't it? Okay one more ... which one do you like better (and why?)

Think about it as if you were going to buy one. Which one would you be more likely to buy?

Please help me out in my product survey and drop me a quick line via the Contact Form or Leave a Comment. Thanks very much!

Work in Progress Pink Magnolia Two

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:33:00 CDT

Coming up with some great new/revised brushes and easy techniques in my floral paintings.

Am in the process of making some videos of this painting in progress, hopeully in tine for the next session at Digital Art Academy. I lost my painting mojo for while and was sick most of March. I thinks it's all coming back stronger than ever. Using some new techniques learned from Skip Allen and Karen Bonaker re: paper texture. Have a look at Spring Essence Version Two in my gallery for a look at some interesting techniques I'm using for backgrounds. I think that it looks very watercoloury. I believe when it is professionally printed on larger than my biggest size it will make a great addition to the group of paintings my art dealer Rupert Young of artProfile has for sale. He has some framed pieces of mine and works on paper in limited to 20 editions, handsigned by artist at a couple of galleries and by appointment only.

I'm pretty excited about it. More about that later...

Where to Find Resat and About Gel and Default layers in Corel Painter 12

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:29:45 CDT

Direct quote from Corel Painter 12 Online Help Menu

"Resaturation lets you control the amount of color that is replenished in a stroke. If it is set at zero, the brush does not produce any color. When Resaturation is less than 10% (and Bleed is less), a brushstroke fades in gently. When the Resaturation slider is set at zero and Bleed is set high, an airbrush can move underlying colors, as when just the airbrush hose is used to blow paint around on the canvas."

It is a very important control that impacts my technique quite a bit. I use an Unsaturated brush in many cases to make my Custom Digital Watercolour Blenders and Removers which can be found on Painter Talk in the Forum Brushes and Dabs to share. This forum is well worth joining if you are interested in painting digitally with Corel Painter.

Organic Abstract With Corel Painter 12's Wet and Digital Watercolours

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:49:14 CDT

Experimenting with Wet Watercolours and playing around with trying to loosen up my technique.

I really like this effect and can picture a group of three or four in jewel like tones printed fairly large hung in a large space. This one looks like it's a window looking into the bright outside. Think how much that would brighten and liven up a long dark hallway.

It was fun anyway! What do you think of this look? Drop me a line and let me know!