Class 6: Look Ma, No Art School

This week I showed off one of Painter's many magical tools: Quick Clone. Quick Clone allows anyone with a good (and sometime not so good) photo to use some of Painter's best brushes to simulate a painting done from "scratch" with real media. The process begs the question: Is it cheating? Well, I personally don't think so. There are many skills in painting that still come through in this process. I've always felt that art and drawing was about -seeing- and sometimes I feel people give up their "eyes" because they have that little voice in their head telling them they can't draw. I hate to see ideas fall silent in that way and never get their chance out in the light. As a person who has drawn, painted, created and invented - and for a living to boot - for 30 years now and I say NO, you are not cheating, you are seeing, thinking, experimenting, growing and becoming someone who looks to the edge of what they know to discover something new for them and the rest of us to enjoy. 

Original Image

Chosen Sky Photo

Composite Photoshop Image

Finished Painter Piece

Class 5 - Splitting Hairs

In this weeks class we covered a technique of selecting fine detailed objects in an image  such as hair and branches. There are several ways to do this - the "easiest" or most common is choosing the color channel that has the most amount of black and white contrast to develop a good selection mask from. We used an image that lent itself to creating a white mask using levels and the dodge tool. In the PDF tutorial we will use another method of creating a mask by creating a black silhouette and then inversing the channel. You can download the step by step instructions from the support doc links on the right.

It was then time for an introduction to painter. An introduction is all I wanted to cover at this point. This program is thick and deep. I thought it best to give the class a general overview with the tools and some of the pallets. Though similar in operation to Photoshop, Painter has its own personality and handles such things as color selection and brush adjustments in a completely different manner. The main difference between Painter and Photoshop is the wealth of natural media brushes and tools one can use to be creative. Photoshop in all its glory cannot touch Painter when it comes to the amount of tools at hand for the digital fine artist and illustrator to use.

In the last hour of the class we went over the various jobs available to make the show on Dec. 5th a success. This will be a student show of digital works, on display, for the month of December over at the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council building. Each student is required to submit a minimum of two and up to a maxium of 4 pieces for the show showing their best work during the semester studies in technology and fine art. 

Jobs Available: 

(when more than one person chooses the same job, I will select the leader of that group)

Liaison 

This person's job is to find a space and make all the necessary arrangements for securing it. It is also this person's job to convey and manage all the requirements for the usage of the space to the rest of the class. Tom has agreed to take this on and has secured the Juneau Arts and Humanities for our purpose. Thank you Tom.

Marketing 

(Radio, Newspaper, Fliers, Invitations)

This covers the strategizing, design, production, and distribution of marketing materials to promote the show. Rob has graciously agreed to act as Marketing Director and will find out things such as the resources available and deadlines for publications and air times.

Set-up 

(Set-up and Break-down of show)

This job covers the collection of art, hanging and takedown of the show and making sure that everyone gets their pieces returned to them. This job also includes the design and production of the labeling system for individual pieces.