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Here I show how I made this unique silhouette by painting shapes in Sketchbook Pro. Although I’m using Sketchbook Pro, you could follow these same steps in almost any painting app.
I used this beautiful gradient image that I made in iColorama. To make it, in iColorama I opened an image of roughly the size I wanted. Then I used Adjust/Exposure and moved the brightness slider all the way to the right, to create a blank white canvas. This way, I can get the size file I prefer, rather than the sizes iColorama offers when you create a new blank file. Now I used Preset/Gradient preset 8. I played with the color palettes and the buttons and settings, to see what I liked, and made several images, which I plan to use at a later time in my digital collages. My favorite of those is this beautiful gradient image.
I imported the gradient image into Sketchbook Pro. I created a new layer above the gradient layer, and I selected the Paintbrush brush, located in the Legacy brush set.
I used this brush to paint black negative space that forms a silhouette. Actually, it forms an inverted silhouette, because normally a silhouette is black, and the background is in color. I painted this freehand, but alternatively you could import a photo of a figure (or anything else) and trace an outline of it using a black pen. Before you start tracing, go to the horizontal menu bar at the top of the screen, and touch the icon that looks something like the letter S. This turns on Predictive Strokes, where Sketchbook smooths out the lines that you draw.
When you touch the Predictive Strokes icon, a submenu pops up, where you can choose the amount of smoothing you want. I usually choose level 3, but you can experiment with the other levels too. When you are done drawing the outline, you could delete, or alternatively turn off visibility for, the layer with the imported photo, and then use the Paintbrush brush to fill in the area around the outside of the outline.
This image looks fine by itself. In fact, you could try importing other photos or images onto layers just below this black layer, and that could be all you need for your finished piece. If you try importing a different photo and it isn’t the right size or in the right place, use the Move tool, located on the horizontal menu bar at the top of the screen, to resize it and/or move it to position it where you want it relative to the black layer above.
However, I want to proceed with the gradient image, which I love for its beautiful simplicity. So, after importing the gradient image onto a layer immediately below the black layer, I created a new layer above all the other layers. I started to make the rectangular shapes that will make up the cityscape. I used the selection tool, which is located on horizontal the toolbar at the top of the canvas. It looks like a dotted rectangle with an arrow overlaid on its bottom edge.
After touching the selection tool icon, a new menu comes up. I selected the rectangular selection tool from this menu.
Then, with the rectangular selection tool selected, I made a rectangle at the bottom of the canvas. This is a selection, which you can tell because of the white dashed border. Now we want to fill this selection with black. Simply touch your stylus to the inside of the selection, and it will fill with black (since you already had black selected when you were using the Paintbrush brush). Simple! I could have drawn the rectangle freehand, but it would never be as straight as I wanted it. That’s why I used the rectangular selection tool. We no longer need the selection, so next I touched the last icon on the selection tool menu, to remove the selection.
Now, with the rectangular selection mode still on, I made another rectangular selection and filled it with black.
I continued making selections and filling them with black until I had what looks suggestive of a cityscape.
Now I want to add windows to the buildings. To do this, I used the rectangular selection tool to select a small rectangle. Then, I went to the layer menu on the right side of the screen. I selected the layer with the cityscape on it, and tapped it. This opens a menu of layer operations. I selected “cut”. This cuts out the selected small rectangle. Now you can see through the cityscape to the gradient layer two layers below it. This gives the appearance of seeing the sky through the window, or reflected in the window. I continued doing this to make several additional windows.
When you are all done, BE SURE TO TOUCH THE SELECTION ICON TO TURN OFF SELECTION MODE! Otherwise Sketchbook will think you want to keep on making selections, when you are trying to paint.
To complete the illusion of a cityscape at night, I wanted to do a black moon in the sky. To do this, I created a new layer above the cityscape layer. Then I opened the Shape tool by touching the Shape icon in the horizontal menu bar at the top of the screen. The icon looks like a square and a circle overlapping.
When you touch the Shape tool, a submenu opens. From this submenu you can select the Circle tool.
Select a pen. Now you can draw a perfect circle! Then fill the circle with black, just as you did before when you filled the rectangle selections (even though these are actual circles not just selections). Now use the Hard Eraser to erase the interior area of the circle, so that it forms a crescent. The Hard Eraser is in the Legacy brush set. If you don’t get it right the first time, just undo and try again. Try different eraser sizes to see what works best for you.
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