On-Line Study Group, Painter 5

Study Guide 05

Chapter 2, Painter 5 F/X, Pages 52 - 66
Brush Strokes

The Brush Look Designer

What is it? The Brush Look Designer is a small, sample canvas that lets you see how your current brush will look on the current paper texture. You can change from one drawing tool or texture to another while the BLD is open.
  1.  Choose a color.
  2.  Choose Brush palette > Brush > Brush Looks > Brush Look Designer
  3.  Choose a brush. Paint on the BLD.
When you change to a different brush, the marks you painted will be displayed as if painted by the current tool.
  1. Choose a color.
  2. Open the BLD.
  3. Be sure you have the white background on the BLD.
  4. Cycle through all the Water Color Brushes.
  5. Which tools seem to make no mark on the BLD?
  6. Switch to the blue bars background on the BLD.
  7. Try some of the brushes again. Try some of the felt markers and chalks.
  8. Notice the translucence and opacity of different drawing tools.
  9. Now use the Liquid brushes. Be sure the bars background is chosen.

You can save a brush look:

  1. If you have adjusted a brush until it looks just the way you want it to, click the Save button on the BLD. You’ll have to name it.
  2. You will find your brush look under Brush palette > Brush > Brush Looks > Brush Looks. (yes, twice.)
  3. Brush looks are also stored as libraries. If the brush look you want isn’t there, you may have to load a different library.

Expanding the Brush palette, pg. 55

You can display the small boxes at the bottom of the Brush palette by clicking the Expand button on the palette’s upper right corner.  Then you can see which brush, Variant, Method and Subcategory are in use. Click and hold on a window to make other choices.

Creating Brush Variants

Do the exercise on page 57.

Exercise:

  1. Click Brush palette > Control > Size
  2. Place the Size palette where it can be seen.
  3. Choose the Chalk tool, Square Chalk, Buildup, Soft Buildup
  4. On the Brush Control: Size palette, click the window that shows the Brush Dab (an oval)
  5. You will see a rectangle.
  6. Draw on the canvas. Notice that the brush stroke is a series of rectangular dabs.
  7. Click on the window that shows the Dab again. It will again look like an oval, but the tool’s stroke is still a series of rectangles. Note the four check circles at the bottom of the Size palette. The selected dab is Captured.
Exercise:
  1. Choose the Brush > Big Rough Out. Change both the method and subcategory to Drip.
  2. Change the size of the brush to 12 pixels, the opacity to 20%.
  3. Click Variant > Save Variant.
  4. Name the variant Blender Brush.
Your new brush will be in the list of Brush Variants. You’ll see it when you click the Variant window on the Brush palette.

You can create new Brush libraries.

  1. Brush palette > Brush > Brush Mover > New
  2. Type a name for your new library (George is a good name.)
  3. Your library will be open on the right, but there are no brushes in it.
  4. Move the brush categories into it from the open Brush Library on the left.
  5. You can close the current library on the left and open a new one, then move brushes from that library into the new library.

To load your new library:

  1. Choose Brush palette > Brush Pop-Up (selected tool window) > Load Library
  2. Choose George (your new library.)
  3. Your library and the brush in it will be chosen.
  4. Switch back to the default library again, if you like, or just close and open Painter again. The file named Painter.brs is always the brush library that will be loaded.
Do the Creating a Captured Dab exercise on pages 64-65.
Experiment with the sliders (page 66).

When you have worked with the book and the study guide up to page 66, be sure to post your results to the Painter5Novitiate@onelist.com mailing list.
 

Copyright Christine Frey, 1999
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