Corel Painter 11: Mastering Brushes Now Available

Corel Painter 11: Mastering Brushes, now available on lynda.com, takes a deep look into the variety of mark-making tools found within Corel Painter 11.

Through a comprehensive demonstration of different brushes, I'll show you how to adjust multiple variants to achieve desired results. Just like an artist who holds a paintbrush or piece of chalk at a particular angle to create a specific mark, I demonstrate with both live action and within the application how to modify brush variants for maximum expressive impact. From bristle media to ink media, watercolor to utility media, I explain how to get the most out of this drawing and painting application. Exercise files accompany this course.

Topics include:
Comparing real-world brush behavior with brushes in Painter
Saving a brush variant for future use
Using loaded brushes
Using sponges and modifying captured dabs
Drawing with pastels and chalk
Painting with the traditional watercolor brushes
Packaging brushes for distribution

You can preview this course by visiting the Mastering Brushes title page. The video segments that are underlined are viewable for free.

There is an accompanying blog entry on the lynda.com site that covers a bit of the making of this title, as well.

A Big Thanks goes out to my producer, Nick Brazzi, author relations manager Megan O. Read, queen of production Tanya Staples, and all the fine folks at lynda.com!

Photographic Craftsman Degree Conferred

I'm pleased to announce that I've earned the Photographic Craftsman degree from Professional Photographers of America. The degree was presented by PPA President Ron Nichols, M.Photog.Cr.Hon.M.Photog., API at the association’s annual convention, Imaging USA, held January 10-12, 2009 in Nashville, TN.

The Photographic Craftsman degree is awarded in recognition for service to the photographic profession as an orator, author and mentor. Professional Photographers of America, a worldwide association, exists to assist its more than 22,000 members in achieving their professional, artistic and fraternal goals; promote public awareness of the profession; and to advance the making of images in all of its disciplines as an art, a science, and a visual recorder of history.

A special thanks goes to JoAnne Blumenshine, who originally encouraged me to work on a PPA degree.

Thanks PPA, I'm honored!

Maybe It's the Cabin Fever...

There's been nothing but snow-and-more-snow here in the midwest for what seems like forever, so I'm attributing this non-digital art post to Cabin Fever. Every once and awhile I'll see a photo of a commercial aircraft landing taken at Princess Juliana International Airport on the island of Saint Martin in the northeast Caribbean.

Princess Juliana is famous for its extremely short approach which includes a popular tourist beach immediately before the end of the runway. As a result, many images show up on the web documenting these low approaches prior to landing. But the one that takes the cake in my book is this one:

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Here is a video that is apparently of the same landing:



You can use both of the links to see many similar images and video taken at Princess Juliana by visitors. It certainly looks scary, but I don't believe that there has ever been a disastrous incident. By the way, the KLM pilots are famous for their particularly low Princess Juliana approaches and this landing tends to support it!

John's Watercolors User: Barb Hartsook

Northern Ohio artist Barb Hartsook created Snowy Trees with John's Watercolors. I like Barb's spontaneous approach.

"This is a quickie, done on different layers. Your watercolor brushes give me the feeling of painting with real paints, but without the slowness of Painter’s watercolor layers. With the Wet Rough and Wet Soften brushes, I can get the look of traditional watercolors fading away – a look I like.

I used the following brushes on this doodle: Gel Wash to get the background. Great brush for skies, distant mountains or trees. Wet Bristle to draw the trees. Versatile brush that will do just about anything I want it to. It responds to how I hold it and move it, and with how much pressure. I feels real in my hand. Gel Opaque to paint the snow. Wet Splatter for the fun."

You can head over to Barb's blog, Over Coffee, to see more of her work.

If you have an example of art created with John's Watercolors, send me a JPEG—your work may get featured here!

John's Watercolors are $35. You can purchase these brushes by clicking the PayPal "Buy Now" button below. If you don't have a PayPal account, an option to pay via credit card is offered as well.

If you've been frustrated trying to master digital watercolors, John's Watercolors for Painter are the answer!

Painter Brush Checklist for Non-painting Layers

New—and experienced—Painter users can find themselves stuck when a brush seemingly refuses to paint on a layer.

I have a handy Brush Checklist in PDF format that users may find handy in this situation. You can download it by clicking on the image below:

John's Watercolors User: Jan Coffman

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Columbia, Missouri artist Jan Coffman created Colorado Rocky Stream with a combination of John's Watercolors and her photography.

"I just downloaded John's Watercolors about three weeks ago, and I am so excited about them." says Jan.

"This is the look that I have been wanting. Watercolors were a hobby years ago, but my education and work centered around technology. Now that I am retired, I enjoy combining these two special interests. You have opened up a whole new world to me."

You can see more of Jan's art and photography at her website: Jan L Coffman Design.

If you have an example of art created with John's Watercolors, send me a JPEG—your work may get featured here!

John's Watercolors are $35. You can purchase these brushes by clicking the PayPal "Buy Now" button below. If you don't have a PayPal account, an option to pay via credit card is offered as well.

If you've been frustrated trying to master digital watercolors, John's Watercolors for Painter are the answer!

Corel Painter 11 Service Patch Now Available

Corel has released a service patch update for users of Painter 11. Service Pack 1 is available for both Windows and Macintosh.

Service Pack 1 offers enhancement in the following areas:

Transformations
Improved on-screen transformations when using the Transformations tool.
Enhanced rendering when applying transformations, which produces a better preview of the final transformed content.
Transforming layer content that is larger than, or outside, the canvas is no longer clipped to the edge of the canvas. Residual effect of an anti-aliased edge is no longer left on-screen after making a selection. Undoing a transformation works as expected.
Residual artifacts do not remain on-screen.

Copying and Pasting
Improved copying and pasting from other applications.
Copying text into Painter works as expected.

Eraser
Selecting the eraser, resizing it, and then switching to the original brush, maintains both the brush and the eraser size.

Color Management
When color management is enabled, colors display as expected when displaying documents on a second monitor.
User-installed color profiles that are stored within the user folder appear as expected in the Painter color management settings.
Opening files without color management, or with color management disabled, will now appear unmodified.
An image’s color profile is maintained when the image is cloned.
Painter no longer crashes when opening a JPEG with an embedded CMYK profile.

Performance
When idling, CPU usage is reduced.
Painter is more responsive within a Windows Vista 64-bit environment.
When resizing a brush to a larger brush size, minimal memory errors should occur.
The Open Document dialog box within Mac OSX10.5 and Mac OSX10.6 displays correctly.
Paperselector is available. You no longer need to open a document to access it.

Auto-painting
Smart-stroke painting system is reset when re-starting to allow multiple auto-painting attempts.
If the smart-stroke painting system is stopped and then re-started, it starts from the beginning, instead of starting where the previous image was stopped.
If the smart-stroke painting system is stopped and then you open a second image for painting, the new painting starts from the beginning, instead of starting where the previous image was stopped.
Clone color can be turned off, which allows the auto-painting to paint with its own color.

Color Wheel / Mixer
Resizing Color Wheel and Mixer palettes appear within their own palettes, which will allow you to resize them separately.

You can download Service Pack 1 here:

Corel Painter 11 Service Patch Download Page

John's Watercolor User Redux: Joan Hamilton

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Canadian artist Joan Hamilton—previously featured here—created Crooked Little Creek with a combination of John's Watercolors and her own watercolor brushes.

Joan has additionally written up a very informative tutorial describing her process: Digital Watercolour Demonstration of Crooked Little Creek.

Be sure to check out the rest of Joan's blog for great digital watercolors and tutorials.

If you have an example of art created with John's Watercolors, send me a JPEG—your work may get featured here!

John's Watercolors are $35. You can purchase these brushes by clicking the PayPal "Buy Now" button below. If you don't have a PayPal account, an option to pay via credit card is offered as well.

If you've been frustrated trying to master digital watercolors, John's Watercolors for Painter are the answer!