I thought I’d post some work from my students this time around. I teach a class called Electronic Illustration Techniques at Columbus College of Art & Design in Ohio. In it we learn some basics of Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Corel Painter. Most of the students are second year Illustration or Fashion majors, although I have students of all majors from time to time.
I begin my introduction to Painter by having students do portraits. First I hand out black and white reference photos that they can practice copying to get a feel for the program and using graphics tablets. I always limit them to “dry” media such as pencils, chalk, charcoal, erasers and blenders for this exercise. They must draw straight into the program, not scanning or tracing the reference I give them.
Next I have them shoot their own photo reference of themselves or others and we do a “paint” media using the Acrylics brushes category. I find that it’s useful to limit the students at first – there’re so many things in Painter that they can get lost or confused and also I don’t want them to use certain special layer brushes such as Watercolor or Liquid ink here. I encourage them to use lighting and composition creatively when shooting their photos.
All along I’m giving handouts and lectures about various features in the program. For these portraits they can scan in their reference if they like and use the Tracing Paper feature for the sketch, but they must paint “from scratch” and not clone or paint on top of the photo. I’m always trying to encourage drawing skills, especially for Illustration majors. All these young artists are also taking traditional painting and drawing classes in addition to this course.
For some this is their first experience using tablets and with digital painting and drawing. I find most adapt to it very quickly. While not all prefer working digitally to “traditionally” many do come to love using these tools. The result is a nice diversity of styles. I’m proud of their work and want to share some of it with you here.
Kristin Anderson - Self Portrait
Katie Brenn - Self Portrait
Nicole Emenpour - Self Portrait
Margaret Hardy - Self Portrait
Jennifer Henry - Ali
Megan Krueger - Self Portrait
Leo Longalong - Self Portrait
Ron Rosa - Henry
Darian Shepherd - "Scary"
Dayna Smith - Self Portrait
Stevie Smith - Self Portrait
Zach Tyler - Self Portrait