Corel Painter Watercolor | Skip Allen Paints

Hello Everyone,

I am having a lot of fun with Painter 2018 these days. I decided to combine watercolor and thick paint; just wanted to see what it would look like. The results pleased me; of course I’m never completely happy, but I don’t hate them. For imagery, I chose to attempt abstract landscapes. I particularly like sumi-e work. The initial bone structure of the painting nods to sumi-e. It doesn’t stay there; the work becomes way too busy to even see a sumi-e influence. I would like to simplify the images and I think I can as I paint more. In the beginning I am unsure of what brushes to use…and I try various ones…each variant adds a little more business to the final image.

This first image gives a good balance between watercolor and thick paint. I really like the watercolor and played down the thick paint.

Corel Painter 2018, watercolor and thick paint

I couldn’t sleep last night. When that happens, I usually get up and start my day. I did the following two paintings this morning…starting at 4 AM. I don’t like to fuss over a painting for hours…I prefer to jump in, paint, and finish in an hour or less. I certainly do not want to paint over three hours. I lose interest, or I get obsessed with minute details. Both of these images played a bit more with thick paint. I really do like Corel’s new thick paint brushes. I think they are more natural than any other type of variants in Painter.

Corel Painter 2018, watercolor and thick paint

By the time I started the second painting, sleep deprivation raised its head. I figured bright reds would wake me up. I rarely work with bright reds; I enjoyed the activity very much.

Corel Painter 2018, watercolor and thick paint

In the title, I mentioned that Painter 2018, Is It Real Paint, is still open. You will remember in my last post I said I was going to close the class on December 31st. Well, I didn’t. And folks have continued to join the class. So, I decided to leave the class as an Open Enrollment Class at least for the rest of 2018. Open enrollment, means you can register at anytime, all the materials are available for download once you register, and you can work at your leisure. There are no deadlines…just set your own pace and post your paintings for critique if and when you want.

I know Corel ran a special price a week or so ago, so if the special prompted you to upgraded to Painter 2018, then this class is for you. It covers all the new features of Painter 2018. If you didn’t get the special, the upgrade price currently is $189.00. I hope to see you in Class.

Enjoy,

Skip

Hello Friends,

I was playing around with the technique I used in the last posted videos. I started the same way, but this time I tried adding gradients to a layer mask to vary the look of the black brush strokes. I wanted color, so I added gradient to layers and changed the composite method. On the first try, I got the following. Not bad for a first try, right?

Corel Painter 2016, Watercolor, Gradients

I thought the technique was worth sharing, so in the next 4 videos I created the following image. Hope you like it. It reminds me of flying at dusk.

Corel Painter 2016, Watercolor, Gradients

In the first video, I make the black inky watercolor underpainting.

In the next video, I altered the look using a gradient in a layer mask.

It gets interesting in the third video. I added gradients to several layers and change the composite method coloring the gray-scale image.

In the fourth video I planned to add another gradient to a layer mask, but tried something different and liked the results. I copy merged the image and placed it in place. I transformed it a bit and then changed the composite method. I loved the moody nighttime feel of this image.

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that did a bunch of videos for Corel about making paper in Painter 2016. Corel released the videos yesterday. Making and using paper in Corel Painter is very important; I can say that it is one of the most important functions in Painter. In this set of videos and the set before, I used papers to create the landscape. You can get papers for Painter from a lot of sources, but why? It is so easy to make papers and it is fun, too. Take a look at the following videos. Some techniques are basic and perfect for the beginner, but others are for the advanced user. Take a look and while you there, check out Painter Tutorials. There are a ton of video tutorials.

My paper videos:

01-How to use Corel Papers

02-How to use the Paper Library

03-How to use the Paper Control Panel

04-How to create a new Paper Library

05-How to use Make Paper Command

06-How to make a Fractal Pattern Command Paper

07-Helpful Paper Tools you can make

08-Capture a non-seamless paper texture

09-Create a seamless paper texture

10-Auto-paint a seamless paper texture

11-Watercolor and Pattern papers