Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Painting with Computers

My favorite thing right now is Painting with Computers, an online class at Foothill College in the Bay Area.  To take this class, I had to get Corel Painter and a Wacom tablet, both of which were completely new to me.  There's a pretty steep learning curve on Painter, and I've only just begun the ascent, but it's a cool program that allows you to do a tremendous number of artistic things.  Here's something I finished last week:


"Spooky" by Elise Wormuth
Link to Show Off Your Shot

Some people seem to think that if you're doing artwork on the computer, you just push a button and voila -- you have art.  But this image, which is a collage, took me hours and hours to do.  It's composed of three different photos of clouds, a sunset from one of my pictures, textures, trees I painted IRL in my watercolor class, silhouette images of wolves, etc.  And then some painting too -- shadows, the grasses in front, and so on.  I like the way it came out, and am looking forward to printing it out on textured paper.

It is true that Painter has "clone" and "autopaint" functions that do allow you to pretty much push a button, if you are not particularly interested in being creative, but that's not a whole lot of fun.  Our teacher introduced us to Karen Carr, a wildlife and natural history artist who does gigantic murals and whose works are in the Smithsonian, for one. Look at the link for her discussion of digital painting, and especially notice the series of pics in which she zooms in ever closer on a 25-foot mural, and you see the detail she includes in the full-size mural.  It's extremely detailed.  One mural she did for an Oklahoma museum took her 2000 hours!

   "Mustard Fields" by Elise Wormuth

This is one I did from a photograph I took -- not quite done, but I'm happy with the way it came out.  It's digital watercolor, and it was fun to do (if a little frustrating, because I'm such a noob).   

Have you ever worked in Painter?  If you have, I'd love to see what you're doing!  Have a great day --

15 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

the top one is really cool. very nice result of all of your toils. :)

Anonymous said...

My goodness, girl, those are absolutely beautiful!!!!!! Especially the first one, brilliant!!!!!

Unknown said...

I haven't used painter but I can paint with photoshop if I want but I haven't. I should try. I use wacom tablet all the time, I hate using normal mouse with photoshop. With wacom "pencil" you have more control to your hand moves. I love the second picture.
Have a great weekend

Elise Ann Wormuth said...

Thanks for the comments, and thanks for stopping by!

Kim Stevens said...

I have not heard of either of those things, but what you are doing, your collage photo is just beautiful, full of texture - I can only imagine what it will look like on the paper!

Tatjana Parkacheva said...

I like the first photo and post-processing.

Regards and best wishes

Anonymous said...

Love this. Very nice work!

Ida said...

Not at all familiar with Painter but I do like your pieces.

Monica S Engell said...

Wonderful work! I love the first one!
Have a nice weekend:)

Bonnie Zieman, M.Ed. said...

Great work Elise! The first one is haunting. The lovely sun adds warmth so that it isn't too spooky. Thank you for sharing your work with Photo Art Friday.

Anonymous said...

Bravo, I know hoe hard it is paint in the computer, but it does become easier with practice. Cheers

kareninkenai said...

Lovely painting by computer software and the Wacom tablet. Not as easy as it looks. Thanks for sharing with PAF. Karen

sunflowerkat said...

Absolutely gorgeous piece!

I'm glad you got into a discussion about how involved and time consuming digital art can be. Too many people do believe it's simply a click or two. This class sounds like an awesome opportunity. I'm off now to check out your instructor's link.

Elise Ann Wormuth said...

Thanks for your comment, sunflowercat! It's a great class; I'm really enjoying it. I'm now working on a water lily from a photograph I took, and I've spent hours and hours getting the colors right.

Thanks for your comments, everyone.

ceevee said...

Your painting at PAF shown here is truly wonderful. I am glad you pointed out that this is not just clicking a button! GReat work.