Creative Portraits Class by Winifred

Creative Portrait Class is now open at Digital Art Academy. I am instructor for this class. It will be available for registration and enrollment through May 2016. To see a video overview of this course click hereThis promises to be a class you will love and value. Work within your skill level but explore the many creative techniques you can bring to your portrait painting. Class includes reference photos, textures, bushes, and video  tutorials you will need.  No matter your level of portrait painting experience or your portrait painting style, you will become a stronger and more creative painter.

WW Creative Portrait_001You may create a simple blender painting or a more complex freehand embellished work of art. You will become more proficient with your blending but we will also spend significant time exploring many other techniques to enhance your portrait and background.

This includes an option to practice easy but artistically painted hairstyles. You may want to paint simple sheer attire and using a layer mask add decorative elements to portrait and/or background. Images and textures are included for this process. These techniques may be used on simple blender paintings or cloned paintings. There will also be fun but instructive warm up exercises to get your creative juices flowing.

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Image below was not demonstrated in class tutorials though many of the techniques used are demonstrated.  Chair and face and all clothing embellishments  were freehand painted.

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Pastel Painting and Happy New Year!

First of all, I wish you Merry Christmas or the happiest of the seasonal holiday you celebrate and Happy New Year! I wonder how you will choose to challenge yourself in 2016. There are so many levels on which we can grow and take care of ourselves.

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I plan to continue pastel paintings for some months to come as well as to study landscape painting.  I have resisted landscapes for quite a while now but have begun to find some joy in them. To create pastel paintings even digitally requires more than selecting a “pastel brush variant” in Painter to paint with.   I have studied the work of several accomplished pastellist. There are many great ones but my favorite is Karen Margulis. Her work is diverse and ranges from expressive, highly textured almost abstract looking paintings to a very classic traditional look.  I find her range of pastel paintings exciting. I probably view 50 to 100 pastel paintings per day before I begin to paint – as inspiration. The following are a few practice paintings I’ve recently created – varying in style. I think you can see what a great time I’ve been having.

I will continue to offer classes at Digital Art Academy  in 2016. I love portrait painting  and will offer a class in painting portraits with pastels, as well as other styles of fine art painting.

I wish you a wonderful year of challenge and accomplishment – including getting some rest and taking care of yourself.

WW riverRiver in OSO

WW Fall PastelTree from Imagination

Mountain gold tree final 3

WW BarnRed Barn 1

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MountainWW MapleMaple Tree in Fall

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Watercolor Spring Particles – Painter 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jkyR65k3LE

Spring RWC 2 C0lThese painting examples were created with Painter 2016 Watercolor Spring Particle brush dab type using Real Wet Buildup  Sub Category. Pause diffusion was enabled and never released. If you release it, you get a different look. The link for the brush is below.

Click Here for the Brush Used

With Color Expression expressed as “pressure”, it is very important to set rather high color jitter and smoothing levels. This is what gives you the color variation and texture. Without this the colors blend and might appear very dull.

The brush is not so easy to control, but you can gain some mastery with familiarization and with practice. Give yourself extra canvas space to crop just the best part of your painting. Experiment with the Watercolor controls, the Particles Common Controls and the Spring Particles Controls to vary the brush looks. If you get a brush look you like, save the variant immediately. If you don’t save it then you will likely never see that look again – ever!!

These brushes are very sensitive to brush calibration and every other brush control slider which affects them, with each nuance movement giving you something different.

 

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Painter 2016 – Enhancing Watercolor Paintings with Creative Texture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4yWBa_bnwI

Hi Guys,

I’m really enjoying painting with Painter’s Watercolor again. I have been busy for many months doing other things. Loving the new Watercolor brushes and really loving working with new paper textures I’ve created. I thought you might want to know more about the process and to see a quick and simple painting created live using them. With some recommended brush adjustments, the techniques  can also be used in Painter 2015 but the results may vary a bit.  I hope you enjoy. Winifred

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Painter 2016 Released – Favorite New Features

Painter 2016 is released. You will want to order or download a free 30 day trial as soon as possible to try the new features. This upgrade is loaded with new options for artistic expression. The WELCOME  experience directs you to tutorials demonstrating many of these new features. However, I want to share with you some of my favorites.

New Brush Features – New and BrushCategories, Streamlined Brush Categories – Ability to import Photoshop ABR image files.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k42WkDZOE8M

Audio Expression – Let your music/sound alter your brush/color behavior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI-MGjLR-_8

Rotate Paper – Full 360 Degree Rotatation of Paper in your Paper Library or Flow Map Library

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPFv2K4g6p4

Dynamic Speckles – New Brush Category – Exciting New Media Look

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO23CnRBjK8

Custom Toolbox – A New Way to Share  Resources with Friends, Colleagues and Students

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0bFCHdgDhI

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RENOIR Inspired Part 2 is Now Available at Digital Art Academy

Renoir Part 2 became available July 10th at Digital Art Academy.  You may register for this course, download the instructional resources and work at your pace. Below is the course content preview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZoz4LDt760

During Renoir Part 2, we will add a different style of brush work.  Our new brush category is “Renoir Bristles”, brushes which create a more transparent,  sometimes scratchy, expressive brush stroke. If you choose, you might add brush work from your Impressionist dabs category as well. There are tutorials which support you in more complex paintings using the Ultimate Impressionist Brush Category. It’s Summer and this means having fun and as always painting your way! 

Renoir Part 1 is also available.

 

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Renoir Inspired – Part One

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umfFj_VJGMQ

  Winifred Whitfield discussed her upcoming class beginning May 2nd at Digital Art Academy, Renoir Inspired – Part 1. She reviews the Ultimate Impressionist brush category she has created and is provided to Part 1 of this class. She will demonstrate Auto Painting techniques for creating an impressionist look in backgrounds and overlays. She will demonstrate the use of Fractal Patterns  to create dramatic lighting effects in Painter. Students will create these resources and utilize these techniques to create simple impressionist looking paintings. One  such painting will be that of water lilies.

Register now  for this class at Digital Art Academy

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Van Gogh Inspired

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBKhI_se5Yw&list=UUEKjs5nR2wkjtO6q7iYzv9A

Hello Everyone,

Yet another exciting artistic journey awaits you… class begins March 14th “Van Gogh Inspired”. But don’t bother to read below – for more info – just watch the 5 minute video. To Register, click here.

During  Lesson 1 you will be introduced to or you will gain more familiarity with Impasto brushes and you will learn to make adjustments to Impasto Brushes. You will learn more about the life and art of Van Gogh. You will increase the expressiveness of your brush strokes and unleash your creativity.

In addition to exploring brushes, you will paint a simple Van Gogh Inspired Painting. This might be a sunflower or any object you like.

You may use impasto brushes or regular opaque brushes.  I have gathered several great impasto brushes made by Karen Bonaker, Skip Allen and David Gell as well as Painter defaults. My Impasto brush variants  are included as well. The Impasto brush collection,  is large and in case it is overwhelming, I created a small collection as well – I paint using a small collection created from my favorites. I suggest you create a custom palette of your favorites.  I find this very helpful. If you want some of the originals brush categories, I suggest you explore Painter’s Impasto brushes or download from Skip’s Blog, Skip Allen Paints (Thick Paints and/or Bristle Dabs) and from David Gell’s Jitter Brush Site (Living Impasto).

During lesson 2 you will paint a still life. A collection of reference images have been included which you can sketch.

 During lesson 3 you will paint or draw a portrait. Again, references photos to sketch/trace have been provided.

 

 

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