Hey everyone! Do you think this is a traditional painting, or a digital painting?
All guesses in! ...and it is a traditional painting. Painted on wood and everything. But wait ... hang on...
that was a trick. I apologize. it's actually a digital painting. I had you going for a second
though, didn't I? So this video is chock full of tips for achieving interesting
natural, and even traditional-looking digital brushwork! The thing about traditional media
is it's organic. When i put a watercolor stroke down here all kinds of subtle varieties happen .
For example there's more pigment where I started the stroke. While that wash is still wet
here's another color and look at how the water and pigments interact, giving me color variety for free!
wetness can modify edges ... and here's some clean water being spattered in, and look at how those
droplets diffuse and grow and affect the pigment. With these watercolor washes dry
now i can put on additional washes. this wet-over-dry application will darken the washes underneath,
but this time hard edges are preserved. Clean water here can help soften edges and create gradients.
of course we can always switch media - grab some colored pencils. I love a colored pencil's granular
texture, contrasting with the smoothness of a wash. Also I really like using the hardness of
a pencil to emphasize edges and shapes. Here's a stiff bristle brush and a palette knife. I can
spatter the paint and get different sizes and spacings. Let's switch media again and grab some
acrylic paint. The thickness here is maybe the most notable thing ... but as that paint runs out we get a
difference of both opacity and texture. And while the paint is still wet, and with a dirty brush,
I can get all kinds of interesting pigment mixtures and textures. here's a frizzy brush just with water
on it and while that paint is still wet i can start diffusing edges and running colors together.
Oh and look at this! Here's an airbrush! I can glaze a super thin layer over everything.
I enjoy changing colors on the airbrush, using masking tools with it...
Traditional media, if you've never tried it, is tons of fun. It's fun because variety happens naturally
and it tends to be easier to create interesting brushwork. Now, if you know what you're going for
you can achieve very similar looks digitally. So today I'm firing up the latest version of
Corel Painter. You know what's good when there's cats on the splash screen. Anyway i'll go make a new canvas
and one cool thing i can choose here is the paper. this is a library of textures that your brushes
will react to. and brushes are really the bread and butter of painter. it comes pre-loaded with every
type of media you can imagine. The categories are on the left column and the corresponding brushes
are on the right. So i want to show you a helpful exercise for improving your digital brushwork.
And I want to be very clear: you can do this with ANY app! This is a photograph I took of an actual piece
of watercolor paper. I'll copy and paste it onto my canvas; I'll name the layer surface then go up here
and set it to multiply mode, decrease its opacity to about 60 percent, and finally lock the layer so I can't
paint on it. Now, in most apps you just make a new layer and start painting... but painter has different
types of layers corresponding to different media. Painter is smart! If I go and grab a watercolor
brush and start painting with it i get a new watercolor layer automatically. so i'll put a few
brush strokes down ...and look at how it's physically reacting with the paper! Now, Painter will treat
this as a wet wash until i choose to dry it. It's one of the many benefits of digital media.
So, changing my color up and adding to this wet wash here. For this exercise keep things abstract.
Yunno, don't try and draw anything. If I want to dry this wash, I just right click and there's an
option here. And now when I add more watercolor strokes it'll overlay on top of those washes,
rather than mix into them. Up here at the top I can dial in more paper texture as well as access
the unique parameters of my chosen brush. You can also modify its shape. So with those alterations
this same brush now looks like this! And already I'm producing that natural variety that I'm after.
Alright so let's add a different medium to this. I'll just make a regular new layer here
then i'll go up to the pencils category and I like this '6b' brush. There's enough thickness to
it to see the grain in the stroke which of course provides contrast against the smoother watercolor.
Alright, let's expand our texture palette and get some spatter in here. I'll go up to airbrushes and
grab this sprinkle brush. No matter which software I use, it's important to me that the fingerprint
of the brush be not obviously repetitious. What you're looking for is subtle changes from
brushstroke to brushstroke that throw off that digital scent. Now again, a reminder, you don't specifically
need Painter to do that! However, Painter, right out of the box, does an excellent job with this stuff.
It makes getting natural and interesting brushwork easy and fun. okay so i'm going to go ahead and
collapse my painting layers down and i'll make a new thick paint layer then i'll go and grab one
of these thick paint brushes. And while this new texture is interesting ... it's too uniformly opaque.
I want it to interact more with the painting beneath. So I can right click the layer and convert it to
a thick paint layer, which just means my thick paint brushes will interact with the painting
I've already done. So, to complete this little brush work exercise, you just want to get to the
point where you feel like you've created a full range of textures, edges, played with various brush
types, and generally have something that contains enough variety to hold your interest. The late,
great, Richard Schmid said something I'll always remember. He said that painting is often less about
the physical subject matter and more about how you filter it through the language of painting.
And this is the point where you want to look at what you've done and analyze the visual vocabulary
you've created. For example this area here: I see a shape that looks like this. Now, the key is it's not
defined like this. It's not totally solid. There's a hard edge here and then the shape continues with
soft edges. Here's a painting by Daniel Keys. This painting actually looks like something!
But the visual vocabulary is the same! Looking at that green pumpkin in the middle there
the left side of the silhouette looks like this. But look closer; it's not totally solid. It too
is made of hard edges and soft edges. there's a hard edge there interchanging with a soft edge
there, then the hard edge picks up again here, and passes the baton to the soft edge here. It can be
difficult to practice painting form and light, AND practice your brush work at the same time ...
that's why I recommend these abstract exercises. alright let's keep analyzing. See this lumpy area
here? What color would you say that is? Probably you'd say it's blue, right? Okay it reads as blue
to me too. But let's look closer. Here's a sampling of a bunch of colors that are all in that area. Now
let's remove the painting. would you still blanket term all that as blue? Probably not. Some swatches
are blue... but even there there's different types of blue, and other swatches are not blue at all.
So when painting color, consider using your brushwork to kind of weave color or layer color.
I want this to eventually look blue... which of course it doesn't yet. But I'll start swinging this
color around now, and I'll pick one of Painter's oily brushes which has a nice bit of smear to it
and i'll start working into this color. The brush work is important: I don't just want
it to be 100 percent opaque. I want evidence of that warm seeping through the cools. That'll help
give your color that unpredictable yet fresh look that we tend to admire in good painters.
You know, where the color feels like it's never really standing still - like it's always vibrating
around a bit. Anyway, then just keep working at this until it looks blue to you and that's all there
is to it! That's another quick exercise you can try! Okay so I want to point something out about
brushwork. Brushwork contributes to the emotional part of painting. What's far more fundamental is
shapes. For example this shape defines the side plane of her head. So that's the fundamental thing
we're after. Your brushwork is in service of that, and there are so many possibilities. I could do a
very straightforward approach like this or i could be more experimental and build the shape up with
multiple brushes and multiple passes...I could try filling the shape in very simplistically and then
imbue it with artistic brushwork from there...a great way to shake up your brush work is put the
shape in by painting around it, producing the shape as a negative shape. So long as you adhere to the
shape you could use whatever brush or brushwork you want. Even a cheesy image hose like this
will still work! I'm reminded of this painting by Craig Mullins. We can all see that tree right there ...
but actually zoom in on it and that entire section is not so different than the exercises we've been
doing so far. So let's fire up Painter again and flex its brushwork muscles a bit. Starting off here
with that same 6b pencil brush, and i still have that paper texture layer over everything set to
multiply mode which i find really helps give your digital brushwork that traditional feel. I'm going
to switch my brush now to this oily conte brush. I want this to be smooth and a little smudgy, so I'll
drop the grain a little bit then just work right into my pencil layer, smudging and blending strokes.
Now, we just talked about shapes. My goal here is to define two shapes: an average light shape
responsible for all of the light, and an average shadow shape responsible for all of the shadows .
And because those shapes are so important I want my brush to be very reliable: a little
bit of personality is okay, a little smudging here and there, but not too much. I feel like if you're
just sketching around you could be done right here. But to start the color process I'll switch
over now to one of my favorite watercolor brushes: the grainy wash brush. Of course Painter makes me
a new watercolor layer by default and i'll glaze in some wet washes here. Just like real watercolor
it'll lay transparently over top of the pencil, and painter does an exceptional job at the watercolor
simulation here. Just like real watercolor you can combine all kinds of colors knowing that they'll
pleasantly diffuse together in the wet into wet wash. Now, no matter which app I'm using I do like
to change my brush often. So this is a different watercolor brush. Now, this one leaves behind those
characteristic pigmented edges. This may look a little strange right now but this is just an
under layer; this texture facilitates that abstract interest we talked about earlier. Also though, these
brushes are just a joy to play, with and I firmly believe that joy should factor into your process!
Anyway, now i want to brush with less texture, so i can go back and tighten up the drawing a bit.
I'll use this grainy medium hard airbrush for that and this is just a bit of contrast to help define
shapes where needed. And while I'm here I'll grab that spattery airbrush play with that a little bit.
And now I think I'd like to build up some thicker paint texture, so I'll dig into the oils bravura
section. The word 'bravura' refers to a thick direct oil painting technique. Now, I don't want to cover
this with opaque paint. I just want to build up that opacity and texture where i think it feels
right. And again, the way you learn what feels right to you, apart from looking at a lot of
art yourself, is by doing those abstract brush exercises. Now of course, as I'm painting along
here, I'm always thinking about shapes and form and edges and light. In fact painter's Navigator window
here is really useful. It's got this little toggle for displaying in grayscale. So in the
throes of emotional brushwork, that little display window really helps me also stay focused on the
fundamentals! But anyway, back to brushes. This is really cool - this is the dirty water brush. Remember
back here when i spattered that water onto the pigment and it lifted the value? That's what I'm
doing here. it has this interesting ghostly effect while still somehow preserving your shapes and
values enough to be readable. And immediately to counteract that, I'm going back over things with
a very directional brush. With all these brushes to choose from, Painter thankfully comes with a 'My Favorites'
checkbox. A nice handy way of sorting your tool set to the most common selections.
This is my favorite 6b pencil brush which I've used several times already in this video.
It's a great tool to add crispness to your edges. Of course I'll do that only where I think it's needed.
I spent a lot of money on my colored pencil selection in real life ... but even that pales in
comparison to the selection you have with digital media! And I just want to pause quickly here to say
there is a link in the pinned comment where you can get $100 off Painter. I highly recommend you
give this app a shot! Anyway, to finish off this painting, let's go through the tonal control -> equalize filter.
You can adjust your levels and gamma for a bit of extra punch. I'll spend
a second to dial this in and there we go - let's call that finished and move on to the next one!
Let's try something more cartoony like a character design for an animated film. I'm blocking in some
shapes and gesture with a marker brush. I really like how this marker brush kind of looks like
it's dying or dried out. Using the 'my favorites' filter to quickly navigate to my pencil brush,
start sketching this guy in. Layers-wise i'm just working on a single layer - although i do
have that paper texture above as i've always done in this video. But the drawing itself is
happening on just one layer. And you get to watch me dig myself into a hole with this hand pose here.
Don't like that; let's try again. Hands are always tough to draw... and i know how to draw hands! I've
done a whole video about it! But despite that, hands remain one of the most difficult parts of the pose.
I think it's because they contain so much character and attitude and any tiny little change
can affect that. Not to mention the complexity of the form. Anyway, even though this is a drawing and
not a painting i'm still using brushwork. And the thing that helps this brushwork look interesting
is the layering of different media. You know, starting with that fat marker then switching
to a tighter pencil. And again, you can go about this with any app. Doing so really helps achieve
that organic look and steers it away from looking digital. I don't mean to imply that looking digital
is a crime against art or anything. But I do think that things that look overly digital tend to also
look overly repetitive, which, in turn, has trouble capturing an audience. Anyway so I'll make a new
layer here and set it to multiply mode and i'll go up to my favorites and grab this hard glazing
brush. It's got a nice bit of natural transparency to it really good for blocking out some quick
values here. But the thing i like about this brush is if you prolong the stroke you'll see
the digital pigment kind of build up or dissipate depending on how you're moving the brush.
Again, it's a textural quality that I think looks nice over the other brushes I've been using.
Switching up to a charcoal brush now... and just dialing in the grain here, that's why all the undos. Just throwing
a bit of atmosphere behind this guy. I think it helps pop the sketch. I learned that little trick
when I was doing live caricatures. But back to my pencil brush now, just to beef up some lines
where i think it's needed, and we'll call that sketch finished. That was fun let's do one more!
For this one i'll stay in cartoon land but I'll add a more realistic painting finish so this will
be sort of a combination of the two sketches we've done so far. You might recognize this guy
as my green monster character. A character that shows up in quite a few of my paintings! I used
a conte stick to block in the drawing and now i'm looking for some thick paint. I'll try a
few options here, and eventually i find this palette knife brush in the 'Sargent' section.
And yes i do enjoy that painter has an entire section of brushes dedicated to one of my all-time
favorite painters. Anyway I've just flattened the layers down, and as I often do, I switched
back to my pencil brush which again allows me to refine the drawing and also add some harder edges.
You probably noticed I go back and forth a lot. That is, I'll use brushes that are very expressive
and a bit random and then right after that I'll go back to a more reliable brush that allows me
to draw more accurately. That's how I like to keep expression in the brush work but also stability in
the drawing. So I'll right click and convert this entire layer to a thick paint layer and as we've
seen earlier that allows these thick paint brushes to interact with what's already on the canvas.
Playing with this brush's settings a little bit to arrive at a thickness and texture that i like and
i like this brush enough to add it to my favorites. I do that simply by clicking this heart icon.
So i'm playing with this brush here and i like its behavior but I want to change its shape and
characteristics a little bit. So, without knowing exactly what I'm doing, I'm just tweaking these
settings. Each brush in Painter has a unique set of parameters you can control here. And it really
does change the look of the brush while holding on to its original character! Another tip I have about
getting good looking brushwork is: don't be afraid to start out with a mess. This sketch has been
a good example of that. A mess is inherently uncontrolled. But it contains those abstract
differences and contrasts that then help create interest. The only thing that's different here
from my abstract exercises is: in those exercises I just let things be. I never really tried to control
anything or create any particular effect. I was just putting material down and then afterwards
taking stock of what happened and how things look against each other. In this painting i have to
exercise some control because I do want to create particular effects. For example I'm getting an
airbrush here (and Painter tells me i need to put that on a different layer not a thick paint layer)
but i'm using this airbrush only in the shadow areas, to diminish some of that texture. I want most
of the texture and thickness to be in the light. That's a brushwork aesthetic choice. And I'm making
that particular choice because the eye tends to look at the light side for the most information
and if I know the eye is going to dwell on the light side I might as well load it up with the
most interest brushwork-wise too. Now that's not a rule; that's just a thought that makes sense to me.
Oh, and I'm not saying I invented this: here's Mead Schaeffer doing it like 60 years ago. So to thicken
up that texture in the light I'll use Painter's impasto brushes. These brushes are pretty neat - they
mostly add thickness to the paint that's already on the canvas so you're not really painting with
this brush... as much as you are 'sculpting' paint. And the other neat characteristic about Painter is
it remembers where you've put that thickness. So if you then switch to a brush that doesn't have
thickness like this 6b pencil here the pencil will appear to travel over the clumps of thick paint.
It's pretty cool! Flipping the canvas here to help check my work, and you notice I'm doing that
thing where the monster reads as green, but i'm actually weaving together many different colors
that are all related to green. And the different brushes helps that blending look interesting.
And anyway i think that'll just about do it for this one. Here's where I ended up with it ... and
that's about all for today! Thanks everyone for watching this video! If you want to try Painter
yourself you can use the link in the pinned comment to grab a free trial or use that same
link with the checkout code to get 100 dollars off. Thanks to my Patrons as always, and hey, happy brushwork!