Page One Revision #99, or So It Seems

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I’m auditioning Artrage. I love the brushes, but I’m puzzled by the color picker. For now, since Artrage is new to me, I’ll assume that color picker is really awesome, but I don’t know how to use a color picker. I’ll assume that once I understand what’s going on, the color picker will make sense. The main problem isthat color picker is selecting the luminosity rather than the color. The second problem is the the color picker is so small on my 27-inch monitor that it’s impossible to select colors precisely. I don’t see a way to enlarge it. Is this program only supposed to be run on dinky monitors from 1995?

Overall the oil brushes are the star of this program.

Channeling Alfred E Neuman

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artrage.blog.png

I’m trying to figure out Artrage. As an impatient student, I just jump in without reading the manual. I start pushing all of the buttons and try all of the Photoshop keyboard shortcuts (they don’t work). I immediately tweak the brush settings and screw them up irrecoverably and have to reset them. Without a clue how to make my own brush, I try anyway and end up frustrated. In the end I resort to using one of the default oil paint brushes (the Normal Square brush) and paint the guy with a bowl haircut. And…I’m happy with it. Artrage is a blast, and it runs without breaking a sweat on my seven-year old PC. Very cool, Artrage.

I’ve scoured the web looking for Artrage tutorials, but they are scarce. Daniel Ibanez is the most prolific and informative Artrage user I’ve found. Check him out.

Resources

Al Fresco Art Club Challenge, Nov 29, 2020 -- Painting with Artrage

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Painting with Artrage iOs. Resource from New Masters Academy

Today’s Al Fresco Art Club challenge was to paint digitally and get a traditional look in one hour. I used my iPad and Artrage to paint this picture of Rajiv, one of the male models featured by the New Masters Academy. I used Artrage because it has convincing oil brushes.

I also updated to Artrage 6 on my desktop and then spent the afternoon trying to figure out why the Epson printer has been acting funky. To my dismay, the printer seemed to work flawlessly. However, I won’t know for sure until I create a printer color profile for the sticker paper we use for sticker products. I’ll create the profile with the X-Rite Color Munki. While I’m at it, I’ll create color profiles for my Cintiq and for my iMac. I’m using the iMac as a second monitor for my Windows 10 PC. iMacs from 2009 and 2010 will work as second monitors using a displayport connection.

Rough Sketch of a Butterfly Airlifting a Burro Over the Border Wall

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sketch_flying_over_the_wall_blog.png, Children's Picture Book, Clip Studio Paint EX, Border Wall

Buddy gets magically big and strong in this picture. No stinking wall can stop him from helping his friends. I’m working in Clip Studio Paint EX at the moment, but I’ll be painting this picture with Artrage.

Final Version of Buddy's Bright Idea for Getting Over the Border Wall

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This is the final version of the page that shows Buddy describing his brilliant idea. At least he thinks it’s brilliant. He just can’t help boasting about his own awesomeness! I think it’s great when a children’s book character has character flaws. I’ll make sure that Buddy’s flaws get the attention they deserve.

Tomorrow I’ll begin the next painting, the one where we get to see a boastful butterfly magically airlift a burro over the ugly border wall into Mexico.

I’ve been tinkering with Artrage again. Now that I’m learning to paint, Artrage is calling to me again. When you buy Artrage, you get both the Windows and Mac versions, which is uncommonly generous these days.

Artrage has awesome digital natural media brushes that I’ve never been able to master. I’ve been re-watching Danial Ibanez’ instructive Artrage videos on Youtube. It’s inspiring to see a fine art painter using digital tools to create one-layer paintings.

Al Fresco Art Club Challenge, Aug 18, 2019 -- Another Cézanne Masterpiece

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The Al Fresco Art Club is in a sweet groove. For the last couple of months the challenge has been to paint in the style of the masters, as if we were students trying to learn by copying a painting in a museum. I’m hooked on Cézanne. This week I decided to attempt to paint one of his more colorful portraits, Woman with a coffee pot. We’re allowed one hour to paint. Having a strict time limit encourages looking at a painting and quickly prioritizing the important details that must be in the final work.

As always, our painting had to be done on one layer, with no undo, no filters, and no gradients. I chose a triad color palette, which I created with Krita’s Artistic Palette and Gamut Masks tools. Very cool!

The gamut mask for Woman with a coffee pot…

Cézanne’s Woman with a Coffee Pot

Cézanne’s Woman with a Coffee Pot

Created with the Krita Gamut Masks tool

Created with the Krita Gamut Masks tool

My attempt…

Al Fresco Art Club Aug 11, 2019 -- Another Masterpiece Challenge

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The Sunday Al Fresco Art Club Challenge was, once more, to copy or interpret a masterpiece. I chose one of Paul Cézanne’s paintings of Mount Sainte-VIctoire. This “cool” version captured my fancy. I created a color gamut in Procreate (see this post for my method). I used Artrage on my iPad Pro. The iOS version of Artrage has a basic set of tools, definitely nothing fancy. I find that working with limited resources and fewer choices helps keep me focused on the painting, not on software features.

I used this color gamut.

I used this color gamut.

Sunday Al Fresco Art Club Challenge, Aug 4, 2019 -- Gamut Mapping

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This week’s Al Fresco Art Club challenge was to use a restricted color palette to paint a masterpiece. I chose to repaint “Farmhouses near Bellevue” by Paul Cézanne. I painted this masterpiece two weeks ago, but Artrage failed to save my work. Or maybe I failed to save it. I really don’t know.

This restricted palette challenge was inspired by the “Creating Gamut Masks” chapter in James Gurney’s Color and Light. I created a gamut mask in Artrage with the aid of Aaron Rutten’s Gamut Masking Tool, which he explains in his Youtube video Color Gamut Masking Tool for Artists. Aaron is a cool guy —- I love artists who freely share their knowledge.

Here’s the gamut mask I created using Aaron’s tool. I examined Cézanne’s painting and picked the predominant colors. However, for the sake of experimentation, I intentionally chose to limit blues. Neutral gray serves as blue in this color scheme.

Getting this palette into Artrage was a pain — Artrage for iOS can’t import PSD files. To work around this, I created the gamut mask in Procreate, which does handle PSD files perfectly, then exported a PNG to the iOS Photos app, then imported the “photo” into Artrage. File handling is a tragic affair on the iPad. The idea of using an iPad as a general purpose computer is a joke.

Here’s my attempt to repaint a Cézanne masterpiece. The five swatches at the top of the painting were picked from the color gamut and used for all of the colors in this painting. I did adjust the value of some colors to get some darks into the painting. Overall, I like the mix of colors, a lot.

Sunday Al Fresco Paint a Masterpiece Challenge -- Paint Some Pop Art

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Because the air quality is officially unhealthy today*, we decided to meet indoors. The challenge of the day was to paint a pop art masterpiece in one hour. Though Wayne Thibaud has stated that he’s not a pop artist, for my purposed I considered him one of the Pop Art gang. I used my iPad and Artrage to paint my version of his Three Machines.

Here’s what I came up with

* Every summer is wildfire season. From July to October we have many days of smoke and ash particles filling the Rogue Valley. Some days we have the worst air quality in the United States.

Al Fresco Art Club Artrage Masterpiece Challenge for July 20, 2019

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There was a full day of Arting around here today. It started with the Vitamin D sketch, which I do every sunny day it’s not freezing. In the Pacific Northwest we get short-changed on sunshine. Vitamin D deficiency is epidemic. While I’m catching rays and generating Vitamnd D, not to mention resetting my biological clock, I do these sketches in 15 minutes. With the short time limit I have to simplify. I like to do a pen and ink drawing when I’ve got just a few minutes.

Here’s the Vitamin D sketch. I used by Kuretake Sable Brush pen and a 5.5x8 in. Strathmore Visual Journal (140 lb. watercolor paper).

For the weekly meeting of the Al Fresco Art Club, we decided to do another one-hour challenge that forces us out of our comfort zone. We decided that trying to copy a masterpiece always pushes us to do some thinking. The bonus is that we learn something about humility, as I did today when I tried to copy Gaugin’s “Woman with a Mango”.

Here’s the Alfresco Art Club painting of Paul Gauguin’s “Woman with a Mango” done using Artrage on the iPad Pro. Really, you should check out the original here.