Pencil Sketch and Watercolor - Corel Painter 7 Tutorial

Jacquelin Vanderwood 1 Create a new file 640 x 480. Select a very light gray or off-white for the background color. This tends to work better as real watercolor paper is never totally pure radiant white. 2 Create a new layer. 3 Select Pencils and Cover Pencil. Also locate a medium to dark gray for the pencil color. At this point you can choose to import a photo to use as a template or you can freehand it. In this tutorial we'll freehand it so that I can demonstrate a little of the new watercolor features and techniques. Because I have painted portraits in watercolor for years I know how the medium works and will try and teach you a little of what I know. 4 Let's do a scenery, they are very easy to draw and you won't need to use the Pen tool for exactness. Anytime you sketch a drawing for a scenery you should always begin with the most distant features. In this case it would be the mountains. Go ahead and sketch them in.  5 Sketch in a lower set of mountains or hills. Sketch in the area where some trees will be. 6 Continue with sketching in the a river and the side areas, maybe add a sun and clouds. Save. Note: If you get to a certain point and decide you don't like what you have drawn but discover you can't go back and undo more than five times, open Preferences and change to 32 then save and exit and re-enter the program. Once you have completed your sketch, change Controls:Brush to Straight Lines. Outline the entire drawing in a box otherwise when you go to use the Magic Wand in further steps you'll be selecting the entire picture. 7 Create a new layer, a New Water Color Layer. Drag the layer down one so that it will be behind the drawing. 8 To select an area use the Magic Wand then click on the area, and subsequently change to the watercolor layer. 9 Select Water Color and Grainy Wash Bristle and select a blue color. You might enlarge the size of the brush to make it easier to wash the sky. Drag across the top once or twice. Test it. Then choose a lavender color and complete the sky.  10 Select the sun, choose light yellow and paint in. Change to Wash Bristle and select the back mountains. choose a grayish blue color and make sure you change back to the watercolor layer. Paint. Change the size and opacity of the brush to be able to darken the shadows of the mountains. Then select the light yellow that you used for the sun and paint in the areas of the mountains that would be hit by sunlight. Save. 11 Select a brown and change to Wash Camel. Choose the lower mountains and paint. Then set Opacity close to 100% and lower the brush size to add more dramatic shadows to the hills. Change to an ochre color and highlight. 12 Choose a dark green for the trees. Change to Wet Bristle and paint. Choose a brighter almost sunflower color and select the small area behind the trees. Paint. Here are the results so far. 13 Select the areas in front of the trees, the grassy areas. Choose a brighter green. Change to Grainy Wash Flat and paint. 14 Choose a lighter brown and paint in areas by the grass with Sponge Wet. Then select a dark gray brown and paint in the area below that with Grainy Wash Camel. 15 Choose a light blue and paint in the sides of the water with Runny Wet Bristle then change to a different blue and paint in the main water. Deselect and paint in some of the areas around the edges that appear white. 16 Delete the pencil layer. Click on the arrow in the Layers palette and select Drop All. 17 Press Control+A then go back to the arrow and select Lift Canvas to Water Color Layer. Choose a slightly peachy color and Bleach Runny and give the clouds a shadow. 18 Select Diffuse Flat and a light yellow with an Opacity of 100%. Make the brush small and paint in the distance on the water to replicate sunlight reflecting off of it. Then select white and Sponge Wet and hit the top of the trees. Select white and Eraser Diffuse and paint along the edges of the water with a small brush. I could continue adding more color and detail but you get the idea. Save then try adding some extra color. Try different water color brushes and settings. Add more highlights and shadows. You get the picture. Have fun with the new Water Color features of Painter 7.    Copyright 2001, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved