Illustration Friday: FRESH

Still Life of Fresh Fruit. THE PEACH AND PLUM
A few weeks ago I was having a drawing lull, nothing came easily. So I decided I needed a drastic change, instead of drawing the usual cartoony offerings from imagination, I would do some digital still life paintings from actual real to goodness objects. Since I was looking for some changes, I used digital brushes that I had little experience with. The paintings would be practice pieces to learn and work with some of the brushes I am not use to using. “The peach and plum” was one of these digital paintings.

In Corel Painter 8, I started with a blank 850x1100 canvas at 300 resolution. I grabbed a peach and plum out of my refrigerator and set them on my computer desk. I painted with the digital oil brushes, blending them with the grainy blenders, I finished the peach’s surface with a glazing sponge and the specks on the plum with the leaky pen. The pattern on the hand made pottery dish was broken up with the shatter tool. The shadows were painted on a gel layer. There are about 18 layers, less than I usually use, mostly because I painted over and over on the same layer and then used the blending tool on the same layer. I’m posting this for two reasons, as a reminder that a fun way to get unstuck is to do something absolutely different than usual, and to encourage artists that are limiting themselves to vector programs, that they really can get a very different look and have a huge amount of fun with Corel Painter. ( And if Painter is too pricey to pop for, Wacom’s cheapest tablet $99, comes bundled with Painter Essential, a fun but slightly vamped down version of Painter.) And no I don’t work for Corel, I just love to use Painter. Best Regards, Jacque Davis.