Digital Computer Art (1 Viewer)

Anyone here paint with a graphics program? I do mostly watercolors and pen and ink but several years ago I began using a graphics program called Paint Shop Pro. I'd take a photo of my watercolor paintings and pen and ink drawings and put it into the graphics program, I would then add layers and start tracing over the painting or drawing using the various drawing and painting tools in the program.

I really like the result and a bonus was that when I had several painting made, I could take sections from them, for example flowers from one painting, flowers from another, etc., and compose an entirely new painting which can then become the basis of new watercolor painting.

All you that also do computer art, what kinds of techniques do you use?

My Computer Bird and Floral Art

emc said:

Anyone here paint with a graphics program? I do mostly watercolors and pen and ink but several years ago I began using a graphics program called Paint Shop Pro. I'd take a photo of my watercolor paintings and pen and ink drawings and put it into the graphics program, I would then add layers and start tracing over the painting or drawing using the various drawing and painting tools in the program.

I really like the result and a bonus was that when I had several painting made, I could take sections from them, for example flowers from one painting, flowers from another, etc., and compose an entirely new painting which can then become the basis of new watercolor painting.

All you that also do computer art, what kinds of techniques do you use?

My Computer Bird and Floral Art

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Aha! Welcome emc. It sounds as though you and I use some similar techniques. I was put onto using a Wacom tablet by Ed Keeble, (another contributor to this forum) and he has some great tutorials on his techniques here.

I'm still learning, but like you, like to use computer graphics to overlay a watercolour or acryllic original. Some of my pics are on my thread on this forum.

Nice website - looks like you do this kind of thing for a living?

Cheers

Dave

Hello there emc- nice to hear from another digipainter. We've seen three ways of going at it on here and they are rather different

- start with photo and stylize it in a graphics prgramme (not quite the bag I am into, but some interesting results have been posted)

- start with a drawing or painting, scan it in and work it up on computer

- "draw" from scratch on computer

It seems that we all (thee, I and Dave B) have found that the most rewarding technique is the middle one- to draw/paint on paper, then scan it in and finish it off in a graphics programme.

What I tend to do is scan in the sketch quite dark and saturated (i.e. so it looks like an underexposed photo with poor white balance) and then decide where to lift the whites and lights. That way you maximise or even enhance all of the grit and texture in the original.

Drawing from scratch on the computer is an altogether different thing as far I am concerned- Dave B has kindly linked to some of my efforts but I class the more detailed efforts as illustration than a spontaneous artistic endeavour. I've had a concentrated incremental sort of fun doing them, but its not the real thing..

Hey that's a cool tutorial, I really like the examples used in it, nice work Ed. I got myself a wacom tablet not too long ago and I love it. Here's a tip I picked up on another forum - put some tracing paper over the tablet, for a more natural drawing feel.

Checked out your work Dave on one of your posts, nice stuff, I especially like the Curlew Sand sketch.

No I don't make a living from this, I've come across several online print on demand companies that enable artists to sell their artwork on stuff like tshirts and posters without investing any money, those sites handle everything, the orders, printing, shipping etc., you only provide your art and find potential customers. They pay the artist a commission which gets me a little pocket change. If anyone is interested is signing up with them here are the links:

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell
www.printfection.com
These two sites sell tshirts, Cafepress has more products such as mugs and pillows.

www.imagekind.com
This site enables artists and photographers to sell prints and posters of their work. They give you a free online gallery and for paid membership you get multiple galleries.