Sue Jamieson -Thoughts and Musings from the Heart
Creating Digital Art
Healing is Art. Art is Healing. Creating art is healing and it is ageless. The young, the elders, and everyone in between can participate in the magic of creating... from mud pies to digital art. I urge you to spread your creative wings and soar.
In my studio painting with Corel Painter 2017. The paintings on the wall are my acrylics.
A few years ago I was introduced to digital painting via a computer program, Corel Painter 11. I flailed around with frustrated attempts at figuring out how to use it and then set it aside as interesting, but, with an arrogant attitude, I dismissed it as not 'real' art. (Right. We all know what 'real' art is.) An attitude for which I now eat humble pie and have upgraded over the years to Corel Painter 2017. I love digital art. It is profoundly creative, requires little space, and can be 'cleaned up' with a click save.
Have I given up other media? No!
A creative imagination is virtually boundless in using media, whether finger paints, acrylics, pastels, watercolors, charcoal, oils, pencils, fabrics, mud, or computer programs. Over the years I've experimented with all of the above and have liked each of them for various reasons. The creamy richness of feel and color of pastels, the immediacy of acrylics, the translucence of watercolors, the quickness of charcoals all make my heart sing when I'm playing with them. As does the limitless application of digital art.
Creating art is healing and it is ageless. The young, the elders, and everyone in between can participate in the magic of creating... from mud pies to digital art. I urge you to spread your creative wings and soar.
As with other media, I begin with a sketch for my digital art.
I 'paint' using a Wacom tablet and pen and a keyboard.
The initial sketch using charcoal and pastel brushes via the Wacom tablet and pen.
Here the image is magnified so that I can apply detail work.
Whether creating with 'real' paints or digital paints, it all makes me happy.
Practicing Painting Portraits
The portraits that I include in this post are not from photos that I have taken. They are from the internet and were chosen purely for my own practice in learning how to paint a portrait. These “practice paintings” have not been done with an intention of selling them or distributing them in any way for market purposes. They are strictly for my learning how to paint.
Jamie Fraser of Outlander painted with Corel Painter 2020
The portraits that I include in this post are not from photos that I have taken. They are from the internet and were chosen purely for my own practice in learning how to paint a portrait. These “practice paintings” have not been done with an intention of selling them or distributing them in any way for market purposes. They are strictly for my learning how to paint.
The four paintings that I am including have been painted using Corel Painter 2020 with a Huion drawing tablet. I have been painting with Corel Painter, beginning with Corel Painter 11, with upgrades to the newest Corel Painter 2020. The Huion drawing tablet is a newer addition to my art as I used a Wacom tablet until January of 2020. Personally, I prefer the Huion as I can look at the tablet as I draw; with the Wacom there was a disconnect at having to look at the screen while drawing independently.
I began this series of portrait paintings to practice a technique of focusing on shapes, values, and colors in relationships to each other. In other words, I removed the “brain stress” of thinking in terms of objects, such as, eyes, nose, mouth, etc. It was remarkably freeing for me. Jamie Fraser of Outlander was my first attempt at this process.
Huion Tablet using Corel Painter 2020
This is my Huion drawing tablet with the reference photo of Jamie Fraser of Outlander and the painting of Jamie in mid process. The nearly finished project is above. I still have some tweaking to do on the hair.
Huion Tablet using Corel Painter 2020
The next painting project was a photo of Alexander Dreymon who plays Uhtred of Bebbanburg in The Last Kingdom. Again, my concentration was on shapes, values, and colors.
Uhtred of Bebbanburg in The Last Kingdom
The painting of Uhtred is nearly completed below.
This painting is nearing completion. The skin tones need to be blended, for instance.
Huion Tablet using Corel Painter 2020
I find faces of all types to be interesting, so decided to try painting Ravn of The Last Kingdom. It’s not finished as you can see. It is a work (play) in process. On the right is the Huion tablet with reference photo and my painting in process beside it.
Ravn in The Last Kingdom
The painting on the left has the tatoos added, but is unfinished, obviously.
Huion Tablet using Corel Painter 2020
I was having such fun painting portraits using the new (to me) technique of freeing my brain that I decided to try something that would have put me into a brain freeze in the past. I don’t know the name of the model, but thought she was beautiful and loved her head scarf. The detail in the scarf would have been intimidating to me if I had not just concentrated on shapes, colors, and relationships. Again, the photo was from the internet.
Model from the internet
In the finished painting on the left, I eliminated some of the white in the scarf. I loved the scarf in the original photo, but in my painting I wanted the focus to be on her eyes.