If you read the Introduction, then you know this book addresses the most recent version of Painter, Corel’s powerful software for natural media sketching and painting. You are also aware that a pressure-sensitive tablet is necessary for working effectively with Painter—any Wacom tablet will be fine. If you didn’t read the Introduction, I admire your eagerness to get right to the main course. But trust me, there are some tasty appetizers in those opening remarks. Lesson 1 will still be nice and warm when you get back.
I made these scribbles with just a few of the brush variants available in most versions of Painter. In just a few minutes, you’ll be able to create digital scribbles as good as this! So, launch your Painter program and let’s get started.
You’ll need a blank canvas to work on. When the Welcome screen comes up, choose Create New Document. If you don’t get a Welcome screen, just choose File > New (Cmd/Ctrl+N). The New dialog box, shown in Figure 1.1, lets you enter height, width, and resolution for the image. We’ll use 72 ppi most of the time, so you’ll be able to see the whole image on screen without scrolling and you can work faster. (Pixels and resolution are explained in the Appendix.)
Figure 1.1
Choose size and resolution for your new canvas.
Hide and Seek |
If you don’t see a palette you need, scroll down the list in the Window menu until you find it. This should toggle it on. Palettes that are open have a check mark next to their name in the list. Earlier versions of Painter use “Show” and “Hide” to indicate a palette’s visibility. |
In addition to your canvas, the Painter workspace consists of several palettes offering brushes and other art supplies as well as special features and commands. All palettes are listed in the Window menu and can be organized any way you like. (I’ll talk about customizing palettes later.) You’ll see the vertical Toolbox on the left side of your screen. Make sure the Brush tool is selected, as shown in Figure 1.2. If all you want to do is draw and paint, you can ignore all the other choices in the Toolbox for quite a while.
Working with Painter, you will have only one actual tool in your hand— the Wacom pen. Hold it as shown in Figure 1.3. Avoid touching the lever on the side of the pen’s barrel. (It has click functions that won’t be useful while you’re drawing.) This model is the Intuos 3 with a 6x8-inch active area—my preferred size. Pressure sensitivity enables you to control the width and/or opacity of your stroke by varying how hard you press the tip of the pen to the tablet as you work.
Figure 1.2
The Brush tool lets you make your mark.
Figure 1.3
Wacom tablet and pen.
The marks you make with your Wacom pen can imitate virtually any traditional art materials. Traditional (analog) tools for drawing and painting include a wide variety of pencils, pens, brushes, and sticks. They differ greatly in the kinds of marks they can make and the type of material they can mark: paper, canvas, or boards, with various surface textures. You’ll choose your digital “brush” with the Brush Selector Bar in the upper-right corner of the Painter workspace. It has two sections: one for the category and the other for the specific variant within that category. Figure 1.4 shows that the Design Marker (20 pixels size) in the Felt Pens category is the current “brush.” Each category has a distinctive icon, and the shape of the variant’s tip is also shown. That black rectangle means the Design Marker has a chisel shape.
When Is a Brush Not a Brush? |
When it’s a pencil, or a pen, or a piece of chalk! Painter uses the term brush in a generic way to refer to everything used for drawing and painting on your digital canvas. |
Figure 1.4
The Brush Selector Bar shows the current category and variant.
Click on the Brush Category section to see the long list of options. Figure 1.5 shows most of them. Look over the list to get a feel for how many choices you have, but don’t let that scare you! Move your cursor to Pens and click to choose that group. Now click on the Brush Variant section and choose Thick n Thin Pen 5, as in Figure 1.6. Make some strokes and squiggles on your canvas, changing the pressure and speed of your pen.
Figure 1.5
There are 37 brush categories in Painter 11.
Figure 1.6
Choose Thick n Thin Pen 5 from the Pens category.
Figure 1.7 has scribbles made with the Thick n Thin Pen 5. We expect pens to make smooth lines that might have thick-and-thin variation based on the tip shape or pressure applied. This variant also shows opacity changes as a function of pressure, imitating traditional nib pens that are dipped into an inkwell.
Figure 1.7
Thick n Thin Pen 5 practice.
Test Your Tablet |
Make sure the tablet is mapped to your computer screen by doing the “two-point test.” Touch the point of your pen to any corner of the active area of the tablet and notice that your cursor shows up at the corresponding corner of your screen. That was one point. (If that didn’t work, you’re in trouble—see the Wacom tablet section in the Appendix.) Now lift the pen away from the tablet (don’t drag it!) and touch it to the opposite/diagonal corner. If the cursor shows up in the new position, you’re good to go. If not, see the Appendix. |
Did your pen strokes respond to pressure variations? Even more important, did the lines appear where you wanted them? Use the “Test Your Tablet” note to confirm that your Wacom tablet is functioning properly.
If the pen strokes required more pressure than you’re comfortable with, or (on the other hand) if the pen seems too sensitive to pressure changes, you can customize the tablet’s sensitivity within Painter. Click on Corel Painter in the menu strip and find Preferences > Brush Tracking. Make a stroke in the rectangle shown in Figure 1.8, and Painter will automatically adjust to your touch! It’s a good idea to do this whenever you change the way you work. Now try some more pen strokes on the canvas, and see if that helped. Painter X and 11 actually remember your touch between sessions.
Figure 1.8
Customize your pen pressure and speed.
Just below the Brush Selector Bar is a set of palettes for choosing colors. The default Color Picker shown in Figure 1.9 has a Hue (H) ring with a movable indicator (the transparent rectangle) showing your color’s position on the spectrum. The triangle inside the Hue ring has another indicator (the hollow circle with crosshairs) for Saturation (S) and Value (V), also called Brightness or Luminosity. To choose a new color, drag either of those indicators to a new position. Or you can drag the R, G, and B sliders to control the red, green, and blue components of a color. Type the numerical values for R, G, and B to match a specific color. The popup menu on the Colors palette lets you switch to HSV display. The little swatches at the lower-left show the current main color is a rich magenta. See the Appendix for more info on color.
Figure 1.9
Pick a color, any color.
You might prefer to pick colors from an array of swatches called Color Sets. Figure 1.10 shows this palette open along with a menu of choices for switching to a different Color Set or creating your own. All Painter palettes are managed by clicking on those little triangles, circles, and X-boxes.
Figure 1.10
Switch to swatches.
Dry media, such as pencils and chalk, respond to pressure changes with variation in opacity. Figure 1.11 has marks made with Pencils > Grainy Pencil 5 and Chalk > Square Chalk 35. In real life, overlapping pencil or crayon strokes build up, getting darker and denser. By contrast, chalk and pastels are opaque, so light colors can cover darker strokes. Notice that pink chalk strokes are able to cover up the darker brown underneath, but the same pink applied with a pencil gets even darker. Painter uses the terms cover and buildup to describe these two basic methods for determining the behavior of a brush variant. Do felt markers use the cover or buildup method? If you’re not sure, or even if you are, test one of the variants in the Felt Pens category. Make overlapping strokes with any light color and see what happens.
Figure 1.11
Pencils and chalk.
We expect pencils and chalk to reveal the surface texture of the paper we are using, and digital dry media behave as expected. Painter uses the term grainy for this brush behavior. I used three different paper textures—Basic Paper, Artists’ Canvas, and Pebbleboard. The results are especially dramatic with the wide chalk marks on the right. Lighter pressure reveals more of the paper surface because heavy strokes tend to fill in the depressions. Basic Paper has a subtle grain and is the default texture. Choose a different type of surface from the Paper Selector near the bottom of the Toolbox, or open the Papers palette by choosing Window > Library Palettes > Show Papers. Figure 1.12 has the current paper library open to show thumbnail swatches.
Figure 1.12
Pick your paper.
When Is Paper Not Paper? |
When it’s canvas or pavement or wood! Of course, you can draw and paint on a variety of surfaces that aren’t paper. Painter uses the term generically, referring to any surface texture. The word “grainy” describes brush variants that can reveal texture, but “grainy” might not always be part of the variant’s name. |
Traditional brushes can have a variety of shapes and are composed of numerous bristles that can range in length, thickness, and stiffness. The kind of mark made by a brush depends on a large number of factors: quality and number of bristles, viscosity and amount of paint loaded, and pressure and direction of the artist’s stroke. There are several categories devoted to bristle-type brushes. They include Oils, Artists’ Oils, Acrylic, Impasto (Italian for thick paint), and the intriguingly named RealBristle Brushes. I made the orange and pink strokes in Figure 1.13 with Oils > Smeary Flat. Choose that variant, and notice that the shape of the tip is a compressed vertical oval, like a plump grain of rice. I made half a dozen marks using only the tip of the brush by pressing down hard with my Wacom pen and jiggling it just a little. When you paint horizontally, the Smeary Flat Oils stroke looks light and airy, but it is dense and smooth when you make vertical marks. Go ahead and give this brush a test drive. Switch to another color to see how overlapping strokes behave. The color of your stroke is influenced by the color underneath. My orange marks are pale when I begin on the white background, but darker when I start dragging on a red area.
Figure 1.13
Different strokes.
Now choose Artists’ Oils > Oily Bristle. The trailing off of those long blue and violet squiggles is not the result of reduced pen pressure— this brush actually runs out of paint! Compare these two brushes. Oily Bristle has more translucency than Smeary Flat. Both of them have a “smeary” quality, so underlying color mixes with a new stroke.
Okay, let’s get really messy now. Choose Real Oils Smeary from the RealBristle Brushes category. Nothing much happens if you paint on a plain white section of the canvas. But when you scribble over several existing strokes of different colors, things get exciting in a hurry.
Every new version of Painter has more brush categories and variants than the previous version. There are hundreds to choose from. Just exploring a fraction of them and keeping track of the ones you like can be a challenge. Fortunately, every new version of the program also provides increasingly better ways to organize brushes and customize the workspace. Yes, you even have more choices for how to choose!
Painter lets you find recently used and favorite brushes without having to search through all those lists in the Brush Selector Bar. Open the Tracker palette from the Window menu to see a list of the brush variants you have used so far. To return to a previous brush, simply click on its name in the Tracker. Figure 1.14 shows my Tracker during a recent work session.
Figure 1.14
Automatic brush tracking.
Click on the little black triangle on the right of the Tracker title bar to access some handy options. Brushes you want to use over and over can be locked, while others can be cleared from the list to keep it slim and trim. The Tracker palette remembers your most recently used brushes even between work sessions.
After you’ve been working with Painter for a while, maybe tomorrow, you’ll probably know what your favorite brushes, papers, and other art materials are. All of these can be combined in a compact little palette that is saved automatically. Custom palettes are easy to make. Choose the brush variant you want, and drag its icon away from the Brush Selector Bar. A new custom palette is created containing that brush. Add more brushes by simply dragging in more items. Hold the Shift key down to remove or reposition items. Figure 1.15 shows how I created a custom palette with most of my scribble brushes. I dragged a few of my favorite paper textures in, too.
Figure 1.15
Make a custom palette.
Figure 1.16
Get organized.
Have It Your Way |
Custom palettes are very versatile. You might want to have a different custom palette for sketching, painting, working with photos, or for a specific project. No problem. Manage them with the Custom Palette Organizer by choosing Window > Custom Palette > Organizer. Figure 1.16 shows my Scribbles palette highlighted and ready to be saved to a folder with other custom palettes, using the Export command. It’s available on the CD that accompanies this book. Load it now, using the Import command. |
Continue exploring more brushes, using the Scribbles custom palette for help in making your selections. Here’s a list of the brushes I used, in no special order, showing both the category and variant. (I’m leaving out the pixel sizes.) As you sample each of them, see if you can match them to the strokes and squiggles I made. You don’t need to imitate my scribbles, just identify them.
Pens > Thick n Thin Pen
Pencils > Grainy Pencil
Crayons > Dull Crayon
Pastels > Square Hard Pastel
Airbrushes > Finer Spray
Calligraphy > Dry Ink
Artists > Van Gogh, Impressionist, Seurat, Sargent Brush
Blenders > Pointed Stump
Real Bristle Brushes > Real Oils Smeary
Digital Watercolor > New Simple Water
Impasto > Gloopy
Artists’ Oils > Oily Bristle
Oils > Smeary Flat
Your first assignment is to create a “sampler” using each of the brushes in the Scribbles palette at least once. To help make something more pleasing to the eye, restrict yourself to one color. A monochromatic piece tends to have visual harmony even with lots of variety in brush strokes, texture, and detail. I chose a warm golden yellow to begin the painting in Figure 1.17. You may change the saturation and brightness of the main color by clicking in the triangle of the Color Picker, but stick with the same position on the Hue ring.
Figure 1.17
Mano a mono.
I love the brushes in the Artists category, designed to imitate some famous artists and styles. I use four of them in my golden sampler and near the bottom of the scribbles page. The Van Gogh brush is composed of several parallel strokes with some slight variation in hue and value (brightness). Each stroke creates a random combination of those colors, so I recommend applying short overlapping strokes, as in Figure 1.18. I increased the default size of the brush. The Impressionist brush is composed of a narrow spray of tear-drop shaped dabs, which follow the direction of your stroke. The Seurat brush is named after the French painter who invented the technique of pointillism, where tiny dots of color combine optically for the viewer. This brush sprays overlapping dots of variable color. The Sargent brush, a tribute to the portrait painter John Singer Sargent, has no built-in color variation but does have a smeary quality that contributes to its creamy, luscious look.
Here’s a trick most Photoshop users know for changing the size of your current brush on the fly with your keyboard—use the bracket keys. The left bracket ([) makes the brush a bit smaller, and the right bracket (]) makes it larger. |
Figure 1.18
Famous artists.
Proceed at Your Own Risk! |
You can explore other brush categories now, or any time, but be warned—some of them are pretty wacky! For example, Pattern Pens don’t apply the current color but paint with the current pattern (you’ll find that library right under Papers at the bottom of the Toolbox). Watercolor brushes require a special layer, created automatically when you use one of them. Then you have to switch back to the Canvas layer to use non-Watercolor brushes. But Digital Watercolor variants can be applied directly to the canvas, needing no special layer. Liquid Ink is in a class (and layer) by itself. Well, you get the idea. |
Here are some exercises I recommend for developing skill with the Wacom tablet. Use them as a warm-up before you begin a work session, and to check whether you need to reset the Brush Tracker (not to be confused with the Tracker palette) for your pressure and speed. Do the exercises in the order given. If you save them, you can observe your progress from one session to another.
Crosshatched Scribbles
Start with a new white canvas at least 6 inches square at 72 ppi. Choose Pen > Ball Point Pen 1.5 and use black as the primary color. Refer to Figure 1.19 as you work. For your first stroke make a rapid saw tooth vertical scribble that fills most of the canvas. You’ll have better control if you support the side of your hand on the tablet and slide up and down. (Notice that the Ball Point Pen doesn’t respond much to pressure changes, just like its real-world counterpart.) This first stroke should remind you of Bart Simpson needing a haircut. Your second stroke goes over the first, but it is horizontal. Then make each of the diagonal strokes on top of that. At this point your canvas should look like the lower left corner of Figure 1.19.
Figure 1.19
Scribble and smear practice.
Now switch to a brush that smears without adding color: Blenders > Grainy Water. Working on top of the same crosshatch scribble, repeat those four strokes again—vertical, horizontal, and two diagonals—for the result in the lower right of Figure 1.19. That loosened you up, didn’t it?
Practice Your Scales
Drawing is a lot like playing a musical instrument—ya gotta practice, practice. With that comparison in mind, let’s do some scales! Begin with a new canvas or simply eliminate your previous scribbles quickly with Select > All (Cmd/Ctrl+A) followed by pressing the Delete (Backspace) key.
This exercise will help you develop an accurate placement of strokes. Let’s use a Pencil variant this time and a bright color. I used a Greasy Pencil to make the rows of scales in Figure 1.20. Make a series of vertical scalloped curves, starting either at the top or the bottom. Working horizontally is okay, too. Switch direction (color, too) just for variety. If it’s easier for you to work from left to right, try going the other way to challenge yourself. Fill up the canvas with scales of different sizes. I love that Greasy Pencil! With a little more practice, I bet I could work up a really good chain-link fence effect.
Figure 1.20
Nonmusical scales.
Dry Ink is one of my favorite brush variants. One of the things I love about it is the extreme variation in stroke thickness, as a function of pressure. You’ll find it, for some strange reason, in the Calligraphy category. Clear your canvas once again, or start a new one. Make a long horizontal stroke that begins with light pen pressure and gradually increase pressure to the maximum as you end the stroke. My first practice stroke in Figure 1.21 shows an abrupt change in thickness, looking more like a corn dog than a tadpole. It might take several tries to get the right touch for a smooth transition. Alternate right-to-left strokes with left-to-right and try vertical strokes as well. Can you make a stroke that begins thin, swells to full width and then tapers off?
Can You Handle the Pressure? |
Making smooth transitions in line width is more challenging if you’re working with a smaller tablet, or models with fewer pressure levels (the Bamboo Fun series). If that’s the case, it’s especially important to tweak sensitivity of the tablet with Preferences > Brush Tracking. |
Figure 1.21
Dry ink under pressure.
Recall the custom palettes feature we explored earlier in this lesson? Refer to Figure 1.15 as a guide to making one for your warm-up brushes. The brushes I used for the exercises were as follows:
Pens > Ball Point 1.5
Blenders > Grainy Water
Pencils > Greasy Pencil (any size)
Calligraphy > Dry Ink
Is Dry Ink still your current brush? Drag its icon away from the Brush Selector to start a custom palette, then add each of the other three variants. If they aren’t in the order you want, reposition an item by holding down the Shift key as you drag it. The Shift key allows you to remove items, also. Give your new custom palette a descriptive name with the Custom Palette Organizer. Figure 1.22 shows the New Palette field for typing in any name you like.
Figure 1.22
Rename the palette.
You’re off to a good start. You have a basic understanding of how to choose and organize Painter brushes and how to show your Wacom tablet who’s boss. You’ve already created an abstract monochromatic work of art. I hope you saved it! In the following lessons, you’ll practice skills and learn concepts for improving your mastery of drawing and painting. I promise to take you way beyond scribbling!
