Jacquelin Vanderwood
October
Painter is a great program for expressing all kinds of creativity. I'd like to introduce some ways to expand that creativity by exploring abstract art. Abstract art in some ways is more complicated that one might at first presume. Good abstract art takes into consideration that you know the basics of shapes, light, and color. It's a good method to use to learn more about yourself as an artist and what you can do. Painter gives you the opportunity to "play" artist without costing a fortune on supplies. Though you may not realize it, you see abstract art in a variety of formats including advertising. Open Painter and use a size of 1500 x 1500 pixels working at 150 resolution, and a light gray background.
Using any tool, sketch an outline on a new layer. After that make the layer fairly transparent to be used as a guide only. Create a new layer.
Let's lay in the groundwork. Select in Sponges, Dense Sponge 60. Set the Transparency to 46% and use a sponge size of 60 and choose mid gray. Paint as I have done below.
Use Glazing Sponge 60 set at 20% Opacity using grayish blue.
Select a tan color and use Fine Sponge 60 to set in the next square.
Using Sponge at 100%, lay in the two yellows and the green.
Change to Chalk and Square Chalk 100% Transparency and sketch in the gray blue areas.
Under Tinting select Soft Glazing Round 15 set at 8% Transparency and enlarge the brush size. Add in the lighter green sections.
Still using Tinting select Basic Round set to 16% Transparency and add the light pink area. So now we have the piece generally blocked in ready for us to manipulate. Go ahead and hide the underlying layer.
Open Charcoal and select Charcoal Pencil 3. Increase the size to somewhere around 48. Use the eyedropper and select the upper left color. In the color wheel choose a darker version of same. Working at an opacity level of 10%, add in shadow color into this area. Use the eyedropper again and select the right hand square. Change to Palette Knife and Subtle Palette Knife 40. Drag down in the middle and then make lines horizontal.
Use Sharp Triple Knife 3 and drag through the areas shown. Then change to F-X and select Squeegee. Go around multiple edges to loosen them up.
Under Photo select Burn and set opacity to about 35%. Burn in different areas as shown. You can increase and decrease the size of the brush as needed.
Go back to Photo and use Saturation Add in several areas to brighten up the piece. Apply the default settings for Woodcut then fade to 60%. Add some text and change the layer transparency. Finally I used the Airbrush and Fine Detail Air 8 with a transparency of 60% and selected an aqua color to flow around the right side. You could continue to play with it but knowing when to stop is key.
Copyright (c) 2004, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved
