All Things Painter New Year's Resolutions for Corel® Painter™ Users by John Derry

You know the routine: Every year at this time, we resolve to make important changes in our lives. Here are my suggested New Year's resolutions for Corel® Painter™ users.

Read a few pages of the Corel® Painter™ User Guide each day. OK, the user guide may not be on any bestseller lists, but it includes all of the information you need to learn how to use Corel Painter. What's best, it is instantly available from the Help menu. Start at the beginning and read through to the end, or just choose the topics that interest you.

Audition a new brush or feature each day. You can do this while you are reading the user guide, or you can treat this as its own activity. You can simply experiment with brushes or features. If a feature doesn't seem to be working as advertised, consult the user guide for help. You can also check out the Corel Painter online community for more assistance. Remember: The only foolish question is the one not asked.

Visit a museum or art gallery once a month. Nothing inspires the creation of good art more than looking at good art. Visiting a museum is a great way to open your artistic eye to new possibilities. You'll be surprised how your subconscious mind can hold on to visual impressions, which can enrich your own work later on.

Explore a new area of expression. Are you mainly into figure drawing? Or watercolor, perhaps? How about fantasy art? Whatever your primary area of interest, there are many other genres out there for you to experiment in. You may end up realizing that a particular style or medium does not fit your temperament, but you will walk away with a newfound respect for it—as well as a few new techniques to put in your bag of tricks.

Organize your brush library. Corel Painter comes with nearly 800 brushes. Do you use them all? Probably not. Make a backup folder of the master Painter Brushes library, and then prune your brushes down to your own personal "must-haves" to simplify your brush-selecting routine. You can always load the full backup brush library if you need the occasional specialty brush.

Get one of your final art pieces printed and framed. If you don't follow any of my other suggestions, I do hope that you'll take this one to heart. There is something special about having the result of your creative toils on display in your home. Don't pick just any image for framing—plan an image that specifically fits your decor and expresses your personal esthetics. Knowing that you are working on an image destined for framing and display encourages you to put forth your best effort. Once your expressive work is framed and hanging for friends and family to appreciate, you'll gain a real sense of accomplishment. You may even receive requests for prints!

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to organize my garage and go work out at the health club.

Happy New Year!

John Derry
Somewhere in Kansas

John Derry is a pioneer of digital painting and one of the original authors of Corel® Painter™. Since 1985, he has leveraged his background in drawing and painting to advance the look and experience of traditional art-making tools on the computer. John has a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in Fine Art and is a practicing artist and photographer. He is currently serving as Corel's Painter Ambassador-at-Large. John's Web site is at www.pixlart.com.