On-Line Study Group, Painter 5

Texture

Study Guide 07
Painter 5 F/X, Chapter 3, Pages 93-134
Paper Textures

What is it?  Look closely at the fabric of the clothing you are wearing (or look at your skin.) You know how it will feel, just by looking. In Painter, you can create "paper" that has the look of that fabric. Textures give your painting a visual feel - they look as if the rises and valleys would be touchable.

Turn to Page 94 in the book, and look at the repeating patterns. One difference between a pattern and a texture is, you shouldn't see the repeat, the regularity, in a texture.

Create A Texture

Do the Exercise on page 98 of your text (or as much of it as you can stand.)

We'll create a paper texture. The texture will depend on the black and white pattern that we make. The amount of paint that flows into the crevases or catches on the ridges will depend on the interaction of that texture (the black-grey-white values), the brush we are using, and the settings we have in effect.

  1. Create a new document. Any size is okay. Try 300 X 200, 72 ppi.
  2. Choose Black as your foreground color.
  3. Press Ctrl-F (fill), Current Color, OK. This creates a black canvas, so more of our pattern will be black (depressed) than white (raised).
  4. Choose the Pencil (B for Brushes, click the Pencil tool.)
  5. Choose the 2B variant.
  6. Switch the foreground color to White.
  7. Scribble a string all over the canvas.
  8. Select All (Ctrl-A)
  9. On the Art Materials palette, click Paper, Capture Paper.
  10. Name your paper texture Strings.


Use A Texture

  1. Create a new canvas (ctrl-N, 400 x 400, 72 res, white paper)
  2. On the Art Materials palette, click the Paper icon.
  3. Choose your Strings texture.
  4. Choose the chalk brush (B, chalk). Draw on the canvas and see the effect of your paper.
  5. After I had scribbled with soft blue, pink and yellow, I chose Effects > Surface Control > Apply Surface Texture > Using: Paper, OK.
  6. Then I used the Rectangular selection tool (R) to select a rectangle. I made it fairly large, (about 100 pixels square) to avoid seeing the repeat.
  7. Then I chose the Paper > Capture Paper feature again. This created a soft, stringy texture that looks as if it might actually be usable. I deleted the Strings texture (Paper > Paper Mover > Delete, Quit), and kept this one as Stringy.
Note: Creating repeating patterns is easily accomplished. Just click Pattern > Define Pattern, and the scribbles that you make will "wrap" to the other side of the canvas. Then, with the canvas selected (Ctrl-A) you can click Paper > Capture Paper, and your texture will not have edges.

Exercises

Work through the chapter to page 134, doing the exercises in the book.
Create a texture that might be used for an oil painting on canvas.
Create a texture that looks like soft flannel.
Create a texture that looks like you are painting on grainy, splintery wood. (I found the plug-in brush, comb, useful for this one.)



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Copyright Christine Frey, 2000
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