August 2010 Issue of Digital Paint Magazine

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July 2010

This months theme is simply “Summertime�. For many folks the word brings up a host of distant childhood memories of swimming in farmer Beulahs pond, capturing green frogs, lightning bugs, dragon flies and other creatures. Others tend to view summertime with apprehension of the work to come like the ant in the childhood story.

For us here at the magazine it is a bit of both. This is the time of year where the 70 hour weeks stretch into 90 hours, it is a time of growth, solidification and creativity. There is fun involved to be sure, but it is not like the fall or winter season where one tends to have more choices specific to where the time is spent.

Clean-up is a major thing we tend to also do in the summer. One thing you may have noticed is an attempt to clean-up our data base and mailing list. While our list has been growing like crazy there seemed to have been a ton of duplicate names. We have attempted to fix that.

What that will mean for you is that if you put your name in the database more than once we should have you paired down to ONLY one name thus saving you from receiving duplicates of

the same email.

Should you be one of the people who are on multiple lists you still could get an email from the DAA list and an email from the Magazine list. So far we dont know of anyway to fix that except to combine the lists, that is not an option we have given serious consideration.

Also you will find the magazine a tad lighter in content this month. That is the normal eb and flow of putting together a free, all volunteer magazine. One thing to note here is that Skip is out this month spending time with family in a time of need. Our prayers go out to Skip and his family. He will be back next month.

We have a great line up for you and I am sure you are going to love it. As always feel free to let us know what you think via the blog. Consider sending some images for the readers gallery or writing a tutorial of a technique that you love, we can always use more guest contributors.

Until next month. Live, love, laugh.

Tim

This magazine is free to distribute by any medium.

You can print it, e-mail it, upload it on your web server. You may however not edit any part of this PDF, copy the content, or split the pages. This PDF must re-main whole at all times, the content of which belongs to Digital Paint Magazine. All art and trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

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In This Issue: 4

Seaside at Treehaven A Tutorial by Mary Mortensen

With Brush & Pen How Do You Paint Your Summer?

by Barb Hartsook

Reader’s Gallery Odwin Rensen Excerpts from the Webinar

Cartoons

by Victor Lunn-Rockliffe

Marketing Buzz:

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Spam: Where it came from and how to avoid it

by Tim O’Neill Cover

Seaside at Treehaven

By Mary Mortensen

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Summer Digital Art Summit

by Tim O’Neill

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!"#$%&"'#( )*""+#,"A tutorial by Mary Mortensen

The cover image (Kaitlynn) was the final result of a recent class that I taught with my son Shawn at Treehaven (a PPA Affiliate School) located in the northwoods in Rhinelander, WI. The class was a “Creativity - Use ALL The Tools in Your Box” to create an art piece. The first day we studied master artists and their work and styles and how changes in their lives affected style changes in their work. My point was to make the students aware of where they were in their own lives and styles and watch how both will change over time (and to embrace that change).

The second day we studied how the use of light was applied in art pieces and we completed exercises on seeing light and how to manipulate light to “mould” our image. In studying the master artists it also is apparent that the use of clothing, props, and scenery all work in harmony to influence the piece. We then spent a late afternoon in “sweet” light to photograph. I was already familiar with the “campus” at Digital Paint Magazine - August 2010

Treehaven and remembered there being a pond with a pier, having been there quite a few years before. In my mind I was already creating the “feel” of my image.

When we arrived at the pond to my “surprise” the beautiful pond with a wooden pier had dried up to almost nothing and the pier was gone.

Well my students did not know it, but I knew I was going to Kaitlynn before RAW paint this scene so with a little imagination and technical expertise the image “Kaitlynn Before” was created. Back at the computer the image was first worked on in Photoshop CS4 to do minor color correction and cleanup. (Katilynn Before RAW).

As you see, the reflector was taken out and the water was extended. I did this because I wasn’t sure yet how much of the water I wanted to keep in the final image. My feeling is that it is better to be safe than sorry! Cleanup was minor because I knew the entire image would be painted.

In Corel Painter XI a clone was Kaitlynn Before tiff 4

made of the corrected original and color was applied in areas for accent and details using the Den’s Oil Bristle Brush in the color mode and selecting colors and complementary colors from the original image. See “KaitlynnColor”. After saving and cloning the color file the paint clone was made and in the clone mode the entire image was painted. See “Kaitlynn-Paint”. As you can see from this image, I was creating a soft, peaceful look and the water was “pond-like”.

After creating a clone of the painted image, I created three different “mucks” with the first using the color mode and the other two using the clone mode.

See “Kaitlynn-muck”, “Kaitlynnmuck2” and “Kaitlynn-muck3”.

By the third “muck” my heart was pounding. My image was transforming right before my eyes.

My class didn’t know it yet, but I knew right where I was heading.

So did my son Shawn who was sitting next to me and whispered in my ear “Boy did you luck out!”.

I would call it luck because I had the perceived image but it sure is nice when a good plan comes together. And I knew right where I was going to go from here!!!

From the third muck the painted image was “gently” emerged beginning with the subject’s Digital Paint Magazine - August 2010

face. The soft cloner was used for the emerge at about an 11% opacity. The emerge continued exposing the whole subject and her immediate surroundings. See “Kaitlynn Emerge”. In working the image through the muck my “dried up pond” had developed into a misty seaside. And the photograph transformed into a delicate painting titled “Seaside at Treehaven”.

The image was brought back in to Photoshop for final touches.

I usually “clean” things up that might have been missed and adjust the color for my printer.

Kaitlynn Color I use an Epson 7880 Stylus Pro with archival inks. At this point I evaluate where I am at artistically and determine if I want to enhance the image with other “tools”. Then because I want to enhance my brush strokes so they will show better on the canvas I use the Highpass filter (Filter-Other-Highpass) two to three times (depending on the image). After signing the image and applying a vignette, the final image is ready to print. See “Kaitlynn Final”. The canvas I use is from Breathing Color called Lyve Canvas. Most of my paintings are embellished with water-based oil paint and then coated with Glamour II Veneer Gloss Finish also Kaitlynn Paint from Breathing Color.

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Kaitlynn Muck 1

Kaitlynn Emerge

Kaitlynn Muck 2

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Kaitlynn Final 6

How Do You Paint Your Summer?

Summer is my favorite season – well, in the summer it’s my favorite. I love the colors. The smells and sounds. I love being outside under the summer skies.

What are the colors of summer?

My grandma had the most beautiful back yard.

Flowers bloomed with abandon along one Digital Paint Magazine - August 2010

side and across the back, with a tall white fence as backdrop. An arbor ran the length of the far side. And as the season progressed, grape vines climbed and wove in and through until the arbor was a mass of summer greens and purple grapes.

The flower beds were not formally laid out. They meandered. The seeds had been randomly scattered, to germinate and grow as they would. Veggies and herbs grew in their own sunny patch behind the arbor.

Life at Grandma’s house was a lot like her yard. Not so much peaceful as hilarious with color and laughter and personality, and of course, the promise of food and wines. She made a profession of cooking for any family or friends who might stroll through the always-open front door. And her home-made wines were, well, home brew. She’d grown up in the deep South during Prohibition and knew what she was about. Yum. So when I thought of painting flowers in the early summer this year, I remembered my Grandma… and I picked up my Painter brushes 7

and began dropping colors as she must have dropped seeds so many years ago.

And of course I had to pick and draw the grapes, pushing for the wine...

What about summer textures?

• You are welcome to copy each to make papers

to use as salt textures in Painter. (Just don't print them as your own paintings please.)

Or you may copy and place one or both on layers above your painting and experiment with Painter’s composite methods, as I’ve done here, using both Colorize and Lighten.

•

Or I could use it as a background for a new painting. I think the colors are yummy.

How do you paint your summer? Think of all you love to do, where you like to play.

I hope you’ll send your best work to Digital Paint Magazine to showcase in the Readers’ Gallery next month.

Meanwhile. happy painting...

You can reach me at either of my blogs and on PBase: www.OverCoffeeBlog.com www.WithBrushAndPen.com www.pbase.com/bhartsook

These were painted with regular watercolors and scanned into the computer. The first I’ve called Heat Rising, the second Summer Fireworks. Both use salt, which I find difficult to achieve in Painter unless I scan it in and then use a grainy brush to reveal it.

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Grandma’s garden looked more like the first painting color-wise, but I could print the second one on vellum or at reduced opacity onto note paper for summer correspondence.

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Michelle East

Beth Tango

Joan Hamilton

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Reader’s Gallery 9

Joan A Hamilton My name is Joan A Hamilton. I am a digital artist living in Toronto Ontario. I have had a love of art since childhood, but didn’t actively pursue this interest until 2005. Beginning with Corel Painter 9 and a Wacom tablet, I entered the fascinating, and challenging world of digital painting. I am completely self taught and do not have any formal art training. What I do

have is a huge desire to paint and create and share what I have learned with other people on the same journey.

Although I tried the digital and watercolour brushes when I first started using Corel Painter 9, it was over two years before I went back to them and began to use them in earnest. After two years, I still find them a real challenge to master in any kind of way. All of my paintings begin with a blank canvas and are painted stroke by stroke in an attempt to achieve a certain look. In the course of a painting I use many different brushes and layering techniques, and have developed my own custom brushes over time. These brushes are in constant evolution as I continually experiment

with new brushes and techniques.

An additional benefit has been that I have met some very talented, generous, and truly genuine people along the way, and can now say I have friends all over the world! I plan to continue learning, and sharing and am looking forward to meeting more people who share my passion for the art of digital painting.

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Kirk Mathew Gatzka Digital Artist/Musician http://gatzkart.blogspot.com

Kirk Mathew Gatzka has been creating art since he was a child. His favorite activities early on in school were those that required the right-brained creative sphere. He has worked both with traditional media and in the early 1980’s he began making digital visual art with a Tandy Radio Shack Color Computer.

He also worked with Amiga Computers and Deluxe Paint, using a Koala Pad and stylus.

He had displayed his traditional art at the then Pontiac Mall, in Waterford, Michigan in 1970 prior to becoming enamoured with computing. He studied Sculpture, Media and Finance at a local college.

Due to his background in Banking and Finance he has worked as a LAN Administrator and Computer Support Technician\Programmer. This is

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where he was introduced to CorelDraw and the suite of Corel products. His journey with digital visual arts continued to grow.

For a time he was the creative force behind the website “Omniartz,” which he stopped due to funding. He now has a blog titled “gatzkART.” Here he displays current works and explains his techniques and programs used to create. He also is a musician and songwriter, playing the 12-string guitar. He includes music discussion on his blog.

Kirk is prolific in using Corel products such as CorelDRAW, Painter and PhotoPaint as well as ArtRage and Paint.NET, and Photoshop. His recent focus has been on Guitars and Custom Cars as a motif for his work. He uses both a PC with a Wacom tablet,and a MAC G4 for his creative endeavors.

His blog can be found at http://gatzkart.blogspot.com.

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Excerpts from the Webinar E-mail: odwin.rensen@gmail.com odwin@studioodwin.com Website: Under construction www.studioodwin.com www.redbubble.com/people/OdwinRensen

From an early age Odwin discovered that his biggest passion in life is creativity. Allthough later on, his career would guide him on his path in the world of Information Technology, where he had been working for almost 13 years, in the more recent years his love for painting and drawing started to emerge again.

He started out with photo editing and manipulation with Photoshop and from there on it developed into digital painting with Corel Painter. Now after several years of painting digital he found his specialty in making digital portrait paintings in the old masters style.

His use of light and shadow, contrast and earthly colors gives the viewer the feeling of a traditional oil painting. Allthough his technique is based on the use of photo’s, he also has the ability to start with a blank canvas

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THE BRUSH LIST: Skin brushes: Category Set Sfumato Da Vinci Fay Sirkis I use this brush to blend the skin, Similar brush Grainy Water Blender Large Vermeer Oil Paint Vermeer Fay Sirkis Dutch Masters blender Vermeer Fay Sirkis Rich Oil Paint Vermeer Fay Sirkis Captured Bristle Acrylics Painter Cezanne Oil Paint Cezanne Fay Sirkis Cezanne Oil Blender Cezanne Fay Sirkis Cezanne Rich Paint Cezanne Fay Sirkis Cezanne Rich Blender Cezanne Fay Sirkis Multiple Hair Blender Dog Hair Brushes Fay Sirkis Rembrandt Blender Rembrandt Fay Sirkis I use these brushes to add and blend in more color/highlights and texture, if you do not have these brushes, experiment with some of the RealBbristle brushes default in Painter X and either use them as a brush or clone color brush.

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With his typical painting style his work has been published in several magazines like The Official Corel Painter Magazine, Advanced Photoshop Magazine. Also his work is shown in several art galleries in The Netherlands as well as art fairs.

Allthough the creative process of digital painting gives him much satisfaction and peace of mind, teaching others to develop and refine their creative talents brings an even bigger fulfillment.

His tools of trade are Photoshop CS4/5, Corel Painter X and a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet/pen So join him on his journey of turning pixels into paintings

Hair brushes: Hair Bristle Blender Multiple Hair Blender Rich Fur Blender Master Wild Blender Dodge/Burn tool

Portrait Hair Brushes Dog Hair Brushes Dog Hair Brushes Wild Life Hair Brushes Tools

Fay Sirkis Fay Sirkis Fay Sirkis Fay Sirkis Painter

The first brush I use to blend the hair. The other brushes to add more color, detail and texture. Again if you do not have the Fay Sirkis brushes, experment with the Painter brushes, especially the RealBristle Brushes or the Captured Bristle Brush and experiment with their settings to get different effects.

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Background brushes: Background blender Background brushes Fay Sirkis Honestly I do not see much difference with the Grainy water brush and is also great for blending and softening the background.

Impressionist Artists Painter I use this brush for adding texture and detail. You can also turn this brush into a blender.

Special FX Paint Background Brushes Fay Sirkis A little bit similar brushes can be found in the Pallet Knives Category Oil Sponge Large HSV5 Living Oils David Gell Oil Sponge Small HSV10 Living Oils David Gell Effects brushes/tools: Soft Highlight color Da Vinci A similar brush is the Digital Airbrush Small Highlighter Da Vince

Fay Sirkis Fay Sirkis

Square Chalk Chalk Painter Glow FX Painter I use this brush for the colored highlights in the eyes, set to clone color brush and clone source set to the painting itself.

My website is still under Construction: www.studioodwin.com Some of my portfolio is also available at Ques

At right, details of Odwin Rensen Painting

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http: //cargocollective.com/victorlunnroc Digital Paint Magazine - August 2010

Victor Lunn-Rockliffe 18

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Marketing Buzz

By Tim O’Neill

Spam: Where it Came From, and How to Escape It Used with permission from Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO) In 1936, long before the rise of the personal computer, Hormel Foods created SPAM. In 2002, the company will produce it’s six billionth can of the processed food product. But that mark was passed long ago in the world of Internet spam. s 7HO #OOKED 4HIS (OW DID IT ALL START s 7HY $OES "AD 3PAM (APPEN TO 'OOD 0EOPLE s 3TOP 4HE &LOOD TO 9OUR )NBOX s 3TAY /FF 3PAMMED ,ISTS IN THE &UTURE s 4HINK 9OU RE .OT A 3PAMMER "E 3URE s 4HE &INAL "LOW Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)

The modern meaning of the word “spam� has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit� follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of Hormel’s canned ham.

Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors cram the word “SPAM� into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.� The name stuck.

Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam� is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail�, or “UCE.�

Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?

Chances are, you’ve been spammed before. Somehow, your e-mail address has found it’s way into the hands of a spammer, and your inbox Digital Paint Magazine - August 2010

is suffering the consequences. How does this happen? There are several possibilities.

Backstabbing Businesses Businesses often keep lists of their customers’ e-mail addresses. This is a completely legitimate practice and, usually, nothing bad comes of it.

Sometimes though, the temptation to make a quick buck is too great, and these lists are sold or rented to outside advertisers. The result? A lot of unsolicited e-mail, and a serious breach of trust.

Random Address Generation Computer programs called random address generators simply “guess� e-mail addresses. Over 100 million hotmail addresses exist – How hard could it be to guess some of them? Unfortunately for many unsuspecting netizens – not too hard. Many spammers also guess at “standard� addresses, like “support@yourdomain.com�, “info@yourdomain.com�, and “billing@yourdomain.com.�

Web Spiders Today’s most insidious list-gathering tools are web spiders. All of the major search engines spider the web, saving information about each page. Spammers use tools that also spider the web, but save any e-mail address they come across. Your personal web page lists your e-mail address? Prepare for an onslaught!

Chat Room Harvesting ISP’s offer vastly popular chat rooms where users are known only by their screen names. Of course, spammers know that your screen name is the first part of your e-mail address. Why waste time guessing e-mail addresses when a few hours of lurking in a chat room can net a list of actively-used addresses?

The Poor Man’s Bad Marketing Idea It didn’t work for the phone companies and it won’t work for e-mail marketers. But some spammers still keep their own friends-and-familystyle e-mail lists. Compiled from the addresses of other known spammers and people or businesses that the owner has come across in the past, these lists are still illegitimate. Why? Only you can give someone permission to send you e-mail. A friend-of-a-friend’s permission won’t 22

cut it.

Stop The Flood to Your Inbox Already drowning in spam? Try using your e-mail client’s filters – many provide a way to block specific e-mail addresses. Each time you’re spammed, block the sender’s address. Spammers skip from address to address, and you may be on many lists, but this method will at least slow the flow.

Also, use more than one e-mail address, and keep one “clean.” Many netizens find that this technique turns the spam flood into a trickle.

Use one address for only spam-safe activities like e-mailing your friends, or signing on with trustworthy businesses. Never use your clean address on the web! Get a free address to use on the web and in chat rooms.

If nothing else helps consider changing screen names or opening an entirely new e-mail account. When you do, you’ll start with a clean, spam-free slate. This time, protect your e-mail address!

Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future Want to surf the web without getting sucked into the spam-flood?

Prevention is your best policy. Don’t use an easy-to-guess e-mail address. Keep your address clean by not using it for spam-centric activities. Don’t post it on any web pages, and don’t use it in chat rooms or newsgroups.

specifically ask to hear from you, then you are spamming them.

Stick with your gut. Don’t buy a million addresses for $10, no matter how much the seller swears by them! If something sounds fishy, just say no. You’ll save yourself a lot in the end.

The Final Blow The online world is turning the tide on spam. In the end, people will stop sending spam because it stops working. Do your part: never buy from a spammer. When your business seeks out technology companies with which to work, only choose those with a staunch anti-spam stance.

Spam has a long history in both the food and e-mail sectors. This year, Hormel Foods opened a real-world museum dedicated to SPAM. While the museum does feature the Monty Python SPAM Skit, there’s no word yet on an unsolicited commercial e-mail exhibit. But, if all upstanding netizens work together, Hormel’s ham in a can will far outlive the Internet plague that is UCE.

Before giving your clean e-mail address to a business, check the company out. Are sections of its user agreement dedicated to anti-spam rules? Does a privacy policy explain exactly what will be done with your address? The most considerate companies also post an anti-spam policy written in plain English, so you can be absolutely sure of what you’re getting into.

Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure.

Many a first-time marketer has inadvertently spammed his audience.

The first several hundred complaints and some nasty phone messages usually stop him in his tracks. But by then the spammer may be faced with cleanup bills from his ISP and a bad reputation that it’s not easy to overcome.

The best way to avoid this situation is to have a clear understanding of what spam is: If anyone who receives your mass e-mails did not Digital Paint Magazine - August 2010

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Summer Digital Art Summit What the heck is all of the commotion? What is it?

The Digital Art Summit is a collaboration of several top artist that will give you the opportunity to look at a variety of artist for less time and less money than anywhere else. The format we will be using is webinars, you can listen and watch when you want. These webinars will cover a variety of topics spread over a 6 week period, taught by many different

Painting by Darrell Chitty

top digital artists in their fields.

If you cant be at the live session you can still view the video recording, they will be set-up to stream on the DPM blog. Anyone who purchased the webinar will get an link and a password.

It is a blast! So far we have had two webinars, one free and one paid.

Odwin Rensen taught last week. People have been raving about the quality of the content that Odwin put together, plus it was 2 hours and 47 minutes including the question and answer session.

Painting by Heather Michelle

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Coming up Tuesday August 3rd is Kirk Nelson then we have Karen Sperling on the 5th. Other presenters coming in the next few weeks will be Darrell Chitty, Woody Walters, Heather Michelle, Marco Bucci, Daniel Tardent and Tim ONeill.

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Some of the questions you may discover an answer for are: What do various artist use in their work flow that are the same? What is different about their artistic styles and techniques? How do they differ in terms of personality and teachings styles?

There are a bunch of the other questions that are hitting the DPM mail box, most of them have to do with how to access the webinars AFTER the event is already passed. Here is the process that will hopefully answer some of those questions.

Decide which webinar/s you want>purchase through the web page>a link to the webinar is sent 24 hours before the event>event is recorded>video is processed>a link and password is sent to everyone who purchased the webinar when the video is posted for streaming (roughly one week AFTER the live event) So even if you decide to purchase a webinar that has already been presented you can still get the full benefit of the informative content and the question and answer sessions.

Painting by Kirk Nelson

It is important to note that the videos are streaming and NOT downloads. The reason for this is to try and keep the content from appearing on all of the free torrent sites. We realize that generally our readers and those that purchase are not the culprits who steal the content and put it on the free sites but having a stream instead of a download from a secure page is one of the best methods to keep bots and other nefarious individuals from scraping the data.

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So there you have it, you can join the fun by going to: http: //www.digitalart-summit.com/index. html One other thing to mention here-the free webinars are all first come first serve.

The links to access the free webinars will be sent out 24 hours before the event to the magazine and Academy list then released via social media.

We only have 100 seats so some times people may get left out. We will do our best at recording the freebies and posting them on the Digital Paint Magazine blog.

Painting by Marco Bucci

Painting by Tim ONeill

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