Underpainting, Auto-Painting, and Freehand Painting
by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

Corel® Painter™ IX.5 allows users to transform photographs into paintings by applying tonal effects and incorporating style, pressure, and direction in their brush strokes. This tip gives beginners a good place to start experimenting with the Underpainting and Auto-Painting features. For the technique described here, I combined these features with some freehand painting.

The photograph below was taken in the evening at Hanalei Bay. It has a strong, dramatic composition, which makes it a good candidate for a painted illustration. To enhance the photograph, I used the Underpainting, Auto-Painting, and Restoration features of Corel Painter IX.5.

My photograph used for the purpose of this demonstration measures 1200 x 800 pixels. If your image is much larger, you'll need to adjust the sliders and the brush sizes proportionately to achieve a similar effect.

The original photograph of Hanalei Bay

Step 1. Enhance the image color, and create a quick vignette. The Underpainting palette allows you to quickly adjust the tones and colors in an image and to create a variety of edge effects. Open a photograph that has good composition and contrast. To increase the color saturation in your image, choose Saturate from the Style menu. (The added saturation helped bring out the sunset colors in my image.) Then, to quickly create an irregular vignette, choose Jagged Vignette from the Edge Effect pop-up menu, and set the Amount control (I used 30%). The Smart Blur control is also important, because it helps remove photographic detail from the image, making it look more like a painting. For your image, try choosing a Smart Blur setting between 20% and 30%. My image was already slightly soft, so I set the Smart Blur control to 20%. The image updates as you change the settings, but the image is not actually changed until you click the Apply button.

To accept the Underpainting settings for your image, click the Apply button.

Before you begin to work with the Auto-Painting effect in the next step, click Quick Clone to make a clone of your working image, and save your underpainted clone image with a descriptive name to keep your files organized.

My settings in the Underpainting palette

The increased saturation and the quick irregular vignette are applied to the image, in preparation for painting.

Step 2. Use the Auto-Painting feature. The Auto-Painting feature uses recorded strokes to help build a painted look. If the Auto-Painting palette is not open, choose Window > Show Auto-Painting. The illustration below shows the Auto-Painting palette with its default settings. Using the sliders in the Auto-Painting palette, you can adjust options such as Pressure, Length, Rotation, and Brush Size to create the brush strokes you desire.

Default style and stroke settings of the Auto-Painting palette

When I paint from scratch with conventional paint, I begin my composition by roughing in basic color shapes and values. For the technique described in this tip, the Auto-Painting effect break ups the image and makes it look less like a photograph. Begin by choosing the Smeary Flat variant of the Oils category. I used the Smeary Flat variant because it performs like a soft flat oil brush that smears the photo imagery subtly in a painterly way. This brush works well for the Auto-Painting feature and for freehand painting.

Now, click the arrow on the Stroke pop-up menu on the Auto-Painting palette, and choose the Short Dab stroke style. (You may need to adjust the other sliders to achieve the effect that you desire.) I reduced the Length setting to create shorter dabbed strokes.

The Length slider in the Auto-Painting palette is adjusted for shorter strokes.

Now, check to make sure that your clone image is active, and click the Play button. Sit back and watch as Corel Painter adds brush strokes to your image, directly over the vignetted photograph. You can click the Stop button or click in the image to stop the Auto-Painting process at any time. Click the Play button again if want to add more strokes with the Auto-Painting feature. As you can see from the illustration below, the oily strokes are painted directly on top of the underpainted photo.

The strokes added with the Auto-Painting feature help break up the photograph.

Step 3. Refine the image. Before adding more paint to your image, look at its composition carefully. Which areas need work? Would you like to make the background recede more, which would help draw attention to the focal point? After analyzing your image, pick a few important areas or edges to improve.

I wanted to create a loose, oily look, so I used the Smeary Flat and the Round Camelhair variants of the Oils category to paint a few crisper edges, and to smudge areas that were still too photographic. To sample color from the painting, I used the Dropper tool, and then I used a Round Camelhair brush to brighten the highlights on the water and on some of the clouds. I also added a few subtle strokes to the foreground water reflections. When you want to pick up color from the Clone Source, you can click the Clone Color button on the Colors palette to turn the brush into a Cloner brush.

I added freehand strokes to the top of the distant hills and to the foreground water reflections.</p>

I made short, dabbing strokes with my stylus while using a Round Camelhair brush to move color in the sky, clouds, and water.

You can also use the Soft Cloner variant of the Cloners category and the Restoration palette to bring photographic detail from the clone source back into your image. Keep in mind, however, that if you restore too much detail, your image will return to its original photographic look.

Now that you've worked through this Wow! tip, experiment by trying out more brushes and settings in the Underpainting and Auto-Painting palettes. Happy painting!

The final image combines freehand brushwork with the Auto-Painting effect.

Content and images: © 2006 by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

An award-winning artist and author, Cher Threinen-Pendarvis has always worked with traditional art tools. A pioneer in digital art, Cher has created illustrations with the Macintosh® computer for two decades. She has been widely recognized for her mastery of Corel® Painter™, Adobe® Photoshop®, and the Wacom® pressure-sensitive tablet, and she has used these electronic tools since they were first released. Exercising her passion for the artist tools in Corel Painter, Cher has worked as a consultant and demo-artist for the Corel Painter developers. Her artwork has been exhibited worldwide, and her articles and art have been published in many books and periodicals. Cher holds a BFA with Highest Honors and Distinction in Art specializing in painting and printmaking, and she is a member of the San Diego-Museum of Art Artist Guild. She has taught Corel Painter and Photoshop workshops around the world and is the principal of the consulting firm Cher Threinen Design. Cher is the author of The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book: Creative Techniques in Digital Painting and all seven editions of The Painter Wow! Book. The Painter IX Wow! Book is the latest edition of this highly praised volume of techniques and inspiration.

To learn more about Cher, please visit her Web site at www.pendarvis-studios.com