Publication Magazine Volume 2 Art And Soul | Page 17

1. START WITH A SKETCH
Sketching is something that is essential to many artists, both traditional and digital.
The benefits of sketching before painting is that it allows for quick iteration of ideas
without committing to the longer process of painting. Things can be worked out in
rough form ahead of time. Sketching digitally can take many different forms – it can be
a traditional pencil sketch or (as in this case) a quick painting. When working on quick
sketches, try to give yourself time limits, both per sketch and for the overall sketching
process. This will help you avoid spending too much time on any one idea and get
you into painting faster.
Establish perspective and set the mood
Once a sketch has been finalised, it’s a good idea to lay down some perspective guides
before you paint anything. Perspective is such an important part of painting – even in
paintings like this one where there aren’t a lot of visual cues. It’s something I make a
habit of doing in every painting, as it helps with the flow of the image. Every element
you paint should recede towards the vanishing point. This is quick and easy to do in
Photoshop with the Line Tool. You’ll also note that in this image above I’ve applied a
simple gradient behind the perspective lines. This is something I like to do for exterior
paintings as it does two things. First, it implies the direction of the primary light source
in the image (in this case, the sun). Second, it gives me a bit of direction for the colours
I want to start painting with. I’ve opted for cool, muted blue tones.
2. CHOOSE YOUR BRUSH
As you start using Photoshop’s Brush tool and Brush panel for the first time you might
feel a little overwhelmed. The amount of customisation and control you have over what
your brush looks like and the way it behaves can be something that sidetracks you if
you’re new to digital painting. My recommendation is t o limit yourself when first starting
out to two brushes. Here, I’ve highlighted both the Soft Round and the Hard Round
brush in both the Brush panel and the Brush pop-up. It’s also worth mentioning that
painting in Photoshop feels infinitely more natural when you use a pressure-sensitive
tablet. I use a Wacom Cintiq but can also recommend its Intuos product line. Photoshop
actually has tools built in to take advantage of this hardware. The two options marked in
the Options bar at the top of the image correspond to pressure control over the brush’s
opacity and size.
3. BUILD THE FOUNDATIONS
As you start to think about translating your sketch using these two brushes, it’s
easiest to start with simple shapes and silhouettes. This allows you to focus on
the composition and flow of the image without getting bogged down in the details.
Here, I’ve used the Hard Round brush with pressure-sensitive size control to shape
the silhouettes. This can be done rather quickly by applying paint with the Brush
tool and subtracting it with the Eraser tool. It’s also worth noting in this image
that I’m breaking the composition apart into layers. In the Layer panel I’ve created
layers for background, midground and foreground. When painting silhouettes for
these layers, I’ve also considered the effects of atmospheric perspective in the col-
ours I’ve chosen. These silhouettes can serve as a base to build detail upon later.
4. TURN ON THE LIGHTS
Now it’s a good idea to define your main light source. In an
exterior painting like this, the primary source of illumination
is typically the sun. It’s vital to establish the light source
because it will influence the way you render out the details
on top of the silhouettes as it will affect colour selection and
shadow placement. For this step, I used a large Soft Round
brush, first with red, then orange and finally yellow. I shrunk
down the brush as I changed from one colour to another.
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