Paintings by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

With its incredible variety of realistic Natural-Media® features, textures, and special effects, Corel® Painter™ continues to delight me. Together with a Wacom® tablet and stylus, Corel Painter provides the perfect work environment for fine artists, illustrators, photographers, and other creative professionals. The Wacom® Intuos® tablet and stylus give me the freedom to paint with a cordless pen when I use Corel Painter, so that the expressive nuances of my hand and wrist movements are communicated to the computer. Without a fine-quality tablet and stylus, I could not create my paintings. I use Intuos tablets because of their complex sensitivity to pressure, tilt, bearing, and other movements, which enhances the performance of Corel Painter and allows me to create complex brush strokes.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to set up your Wacom tablet so that you can paint as expressively as possible with Corel Painter.

Choosing settings for your stylus

After you connect the tablet to your computer and install the software, you can open the tablet application and begin learning about the settings. The dialog box in the driver software for the Wacom Intuos3 tablet is shown below. The settings are similar in earlier tablet models (for instance, the Intuos2 tablet). If you have already begun to use your tablet and want to follow this exercise, I recommend resetting the tablet application to its global defaults by clicking the Reset Tab to Default button.

The default settings in the Wacom Tablet dialog box for the Intuos3 driver

With the driver installed, the tablet is automatically mapped to fit the screen on the computer where it is installed, as shown below.

The Mapping section of the Wacom Tablet dialog box shows the Mode option set to Pen, and the Screen Area and Tablet Area controls set to Full.

Adjusting the Tip Feel controls

The Tip Feel controls are the most important because these settings affect how the pressure that you apply to the tablet is interpreted in Corel Painter. The "tip feel" refers to the hardness or softness of the pressure curve. The harder the pressure curve, the more firmly you have to press on the tablet to make a brush stroke appear on your screen, and the less variation appears in the stroke. With a softer curve, you can apply much less pressure when you draw. When you experiment with the range of Tip Feel settings in the Wacom Tablet dialog box, you might discover that you prefer custom settings for Corel Painter, as I do.

Using a Tapered Pastel brush in Corel Painter, I drew these brush strokes. I used a default Medium Tip Feel setting for the top stroke and my favorite medium-soft setting for the bottom stroke.

Customizing the stylus buttons for expressive sketching

Now, let's choose settings for the tool buttons on the pen. Click the Pen tab (the Tool Buttons tab in the dialog box for the Intuos2 tablet). Keep the default setting of Erase for the top button on the stylus. While doing expressive sketching, I often roll the stylus in my hand, which makes it easy to push one of the buttons accidentally while holding the stylus. To avoid this problem, I set both pop-up menus for the shaft buttons to Disabled.

The Tip Feel controls under the Pen tab in the Wacom Tablet dialog box for the Intuos3 driver are circled. The pop-up menu setting has been changed to Disabled to help with expressive sketching.

Customizing the stylus buttons to sample color

By setting the stylus buttons to allow toggling between the Brush tool and the Eyedropper tool in Corel Painter, you can sample colors at any time while you paint. To set the shaft buttons on the Wacom® DuoSwitch™ pen for color sampling, click the Pen tab in the driver dialog box. Then, click the pop-up menu for the upper shaft button, and choose Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows). Click OK.

Customizing the keys on an Intuos® 3 tablet

You can set your Intuos3 tablet keys to the square bracket keys, which are shortcuts in Corel Painter for changing the brush size. The left square bracket ([) key reduces brush size, and the right square bracket (]) key increases it. This customization lets you change your brush size instantly, as you paint. In the Tool area of the Wacom Tablet dialog box, click Functions. Then, choose a key and select Keystroke from the pop-up menu. When the Keystroke menu appears, choose [ and click OK. To set a key for increasing the brush size, follow the same process, but choose ].

Choices for the tablet keys

The keys on the right are disabled for an artist who draws with the pen in the right hand.

USING BRUSH TRACKING

Before you begin to paint, it's a good idea to set up the Brush Tracking so you can customize how Corel Painter IX.5 interprets the input of your stylus, including parameters such as pressure and speed. Windows users choose Edit, Preferences, Brush Tracking (Mac OS X users, choose Corel Painter, Preferences, Brush Tracking) and make a representative brushstroke in the window. For instance, if you plan to use both light and heavy pressure, while painting slowly for a while and then quickly, try to make a brushstroke in the window that would include all of these factors.

Making a brushstroke in the Brush Tracking window.

Customizing brushes

You can use the controls mentioned in this tutorial to create many of the custom brushes I've described in The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book: Creative Techniques in Digital Painting and in The Painter IX Wow! Book.

Most of the brushes in Corel Painter are already programmed for tablet use. The following exercises can increase your understanding of the brush controls so that you can customize the feel of the brushes to your personal preferences.

You can modify a default brush variant in many ways. Here, I'll show you how to change the width and opacity of the brush stroke according to the pressure you apply to the stylus. To try out the brush settings, begin by choosing the Brush tool in the toolbox and opening the Brush Creator in Corel Painter IX.5. Choose Window menu > Show Brush Creator, and then click Size. Next, click General, and set the Expression pop-up menu under the Opacity slider to Pressure. (You can also access these controls by choosing Window menu > Brush Controls > Size, and then Window menu > Brush Controls > General.)

On the Brush Selector bar, choose the Chalk category and the Blunt Chalk variant. Vary the pressure on your stylus as you paint a squiggly brush stroke. Note that the default brush reveals more grain when you apply less pressure.

Now, let's set the brush to change its stroke width. In the Size area of the Brush Creator (or the Size palette of the Brush Controls), set Min Size to 32%, and choose Pressure from the Expression pop-up menu. Make another squiggly stroke, and you'll see that the thickness of the stroke changes according to the pressure that you apply to your stylus.

The Size controls in the Brush Creator

Stroke drawn with default settings of the Blunt Chalk variant

Stroke drawn with custom settings of the Blunt Chalk variant

The Expression pop-up menu in the Size section

Enjoy more expression

You can set all of the Expression pop-up menus in the Brush Creator (and Brush Controls) to Velocity, Direction, Pressure, Wheel, Tilt, Bearing, Rotation, Source, and Random. (Note that the Wheel setting activates the fingerwheel on an airbrush pen, and that you need the Wacom 6D Art Pen to take advantage of the Rotation setting.)

Well done! Now that you've completed this tutorial, you're ready to paint more expressively with Corel Painter and your Wacom tablet, and to experiment with customizing your own brushes. Happy painting!

Content and images: © 2006 by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

Cher Threinen-Pendarvis is an award-winning artist and author who 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, her articles and art have been published in many books and periodicals, and she is a member of the San Diego Museum of Art Artists 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, in which she shares techniques and provides inspiration. The Painter IX Wow! Book is the latest edition of this highly praised volume.

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