Digital Painting

Purpose

To explore a variety of mark-making with the brush tool, along with a variety of techniques to create a digital landscape painting;

To practice using the tablet and stylus with Adobe Photoshop;

To create works of art that use different subjects, themes, symbols, and images;

Demonstrate increasing level of competence in use in the elements of art and principle of design to create a digital landscape (line, color, shape, form, texture; unity, variety, contrast, movement, emphasis, and balance).

The most helpful tools when creating my painting were the brush and smudge tools. I downloaded an array of brushes from online and used them to create a hand-painted look in my illustration. I used the smudge tool to blend my colors together and add a rough edge on the distant canyon hills. I also changed the opacity of my brushes and layers to add clouds and a little bit of fog.

It was difficult at first to create convincing shadows, but after I learned how to mask and change the opacity of a layer it became quite simple. I used information online to figure this out, and messed around with settings inside Photoshop until I got a result I was proud of. It also took me a while to get used to the Wacom board. I have never painted digitally before, and at first it was very odd. After a while, I began to understand the potential of the Wacom board and felt in control of my illustration.