Wine
I wanted to make a cubist-style painting that was suggestive of a figurative scene. I decided to suggest a scene of a wine bottle and glasses of wine. I painted this image in Paintstorm Studio and then made it pop in iColorama.
I opened Paintstorm Studio. On a blank canvas, I used one of the pens to draw these curves, which I made to look reminiscent of a wine bottle and two glasses of wine.
On a new layer below the previous layer (so I could still see the lines), I used the Little Texture brush to paint in some of the shapes created by the intersecting lines. I used the eraser tool to erase any color that strayed outside the lines. This also lets me avoid having to constantly change the size of the brush to fit into tiny corners; instead I can just erase the stray bits of color. I used a dark red color to suggest red wine. I chose the Little Texture Brush because it has a subtle texture and shows the brush strokes. Unlike using the Vector tool in SketchClub, which fills shapes with a uniform flat color (which is great for illustration), I wanted these shapes to look like actual paint. I experimented with several of the brushes to make sure I chose one with the paint texture I wanted. To enhance the appearance of actual paint, I also didn’t try too hard to get complete coverage with my brush; some of he white canvas shows through. Also I didn’t work too hard with the eraser to keep every bit of paint from straying out of the lines; I let a bit stray here and there. I used this same strategy in all my color layers.
On a new layer below the previous layer, I used the Little Texture brush to paint in more of the shapes created by the intersecting lines. Again, I used the eraser tool to erase any color that strayed outside the lines. As before, I didn’t strive for perfection, but left some imperfections for a more natural effect. I chose a lighter shade of red to paint with, to suggest surfaces of the wine that may be lit by a light source.
On a new layer below the previous layer, I used the Little Texture brush to paint in more of the shapes created by the intersecting lines. Again, I used the eraser tool to erase any color that strayed outside the lines. As before, I didn’t strive for perfection. I used a golden color to suggest a label and perhaps a cork.
On a new layer below the previous layer, I used the Little Texture brush to paint in more of the shapes created by the intersecting lines. I chose a darker more neutral color to suggest areas of shadow.
On a new layer below the previous layer, I used the Little Texture brush to paint in more of the shapes created by the intersecting lines. I chose a lighter color that was related to the dark neutral color, to suggest areas that would be obliquely hit by a light source.
On a new layer below the previous layer, I used the Little Texture brush to paint in more of the shapes created by the intersecting lines. I chose a pale straw color to suggest areas that would be hit by a light source.
On a new layer below the previous layer, I used the Little Texture brush to paint in more of the shapes created by the intersecting lines. I chose a pale blue color to suggest the air of the background.
On a new layer below the previous layer, I used the Little Texture brush to paint in more of the shapes created by the intersecting lines. I chose a pale yellow color to suggest sunlit air in the background.
On a new above all the other layers, I used a pen to make lines on the “label” suggestive of printing.
On another new layer above all the other layers, I used the Little Texture brush with white paint to paint over areas of the image to suggest reflected light. Then I reduced the opacity of the layer. Before saving the image for use in another app, it’s necessary to make sure there are no areas in the image where there are pixels that are not covered by some layer; this would leave gaps in the image that would be transparent in the saved image. The main problem with this is that when you import the image into another app such as iColorama, those transparent pixels will show up as black. In order to avoid this problem, I created a new layer at the bottom of the layer stack and filled it with white. I saved the image to my camera roll.
I like the image a lot so far, but I know I can really enhance it in iColorama. I opened the image in iColorama. I used Adjust/Tonelab preset 5 at full opacity, for tonal separation. Preset 5 separates the tones without altering the hues. It’s worth trying several of the Tonelab presets and varying the sliders, including the opacity slider, as the results are highly image-dependent.
I used Adjust/EQ preset 2 at full opacity, then applied preset 1 at low opacity. This adds some tonal separation while brightening the colors and adding some sharpness. The EQ presets are highly image-dependent, so you will need to experiment. Often they are not needed and will not work well at all after using Tonelab.
I want to use Raise and Sharpen to emphasize the brush strokes. First, however, I must use Denoise. I used Effect/Denoise preset 4 at full opacity because I noticed some aliasing of the lines ( jaggyness where it should be smooth). Sometimes is is necessary to use both presets 1 and 4 for de-aliasing, and sometimes I use each more than once. In this case, I needed to use only preset 4 and only once. If there is aliasing in the image and it is not corrected, it will be emphasized by using Raise or Sharpen. Now I used Effect/Raise preset 2 at reduced size and low opacity, and then Effect/Sharpen preset 2 with a low radius, to emphasize the brush strokes. When using these effects, I always zoom in to look closely at the results, so that I can use the smallest effect that does the job. In particular, when using Sharpen, usually only a tiny amount is necessary to crisp up the image without introducing halos.
Using Brush/Paint, and using the default brush with the default white color, I used a very small brush to paint a border around the image, and then reduced the opacity slightly so it was not quite so bright. Before applying, where I initially painted too thickly, I used the erase button to paint back parts of the image and thereby make those parts of the border thinner. Then I used Effect/Raise preset 2 at partial opacity with an inverted brush mask, to apply the Raise effect only to the new border, to match the Raise effect of the rest of the image. Painting the border before Raising the image would have allowed me to avoid this last step.
