by Todd Zankich

This page shows the incremental progress of drawing a background image using Fractal Design Painter 5 (which has since been bought by Metacreations and then Corel, and upgraded to version 6 along the way) with a 4x5 Wacom ArtPad. The progress has been saved after every five to ten minutes of work, and an explanation of the techniques and process is given below each frame.

I would have used a mouse, but I tried and could not go back. It's just too much strain on my hand, and it cannot equal the level of precision or control of a pressure-sensitive drawing tablet. If you are seriously interested in drawing on your computer screen, you should get one. (And no, I have recieved no compensation for these endorsments!)

Most of these techniques can be approximated using Adobe Photoshop, but I have had a very hard time using Paint Shop Pro because of its inflexible brushes and inefficient interface. No program is really good for my purposes, but Painter is the least bad. No matter which program you have, I think you can apply what you learn here.

The Sky

I start with a 400x400 pixel black background. This sky looks very detailed, but it was actually drawn in only around 30 seconds using horizontal swipes of the Liquid|SmearyBristles brush using the colors, from top to bottom: bright cyan, orange, and dark red. Afterwards, I touched it up with a few more patches of black and dark blue with shorter horizontal strokes.

At this point I don't know what I'm doing exactly, but I know I want to paint a tree growing out of a rock, so a nice big sky will give this tree some contrast.

Grass Underpaint

Next, I use a large Charcoal|SoftCharcoal brush to underpaint some green grass. Notice how the underpainting is darker as it gets closer. After laying down the green, I add some low-opacity yellow over the top, and some black patches near the bottom. Later, this underpainting will serve as a basis for the grass, and also give the painting some structure and hopefully give me some ideas where to go next.

Rock Underpainting

The focus here is that well-defined underpainting for the rock stacks. These define the 2-dimensional form of the stacks, as well as most of the composition of this picture, so I try to make them varied and intersting. This is all done using a dark black Pen.

Less importantly, I add some dark redish-orange to the grass underpainting which will probably become the underpainting for some dirt.

Rock Form

Now that the rocks have their 2-d shape, they need some 3-d form. I apply a dark orange color with charcoal or an airbrush wherever I imagine light might hit the stacks, without putting much thought into it at all.

More Rock Form

Now I use a small Water|Smear brush which is a variant of Water I created myself. It's supposed to emulate PhotoShop's smear tool, but Painter isn't very good at this. It's mostly the same as Water|JustAddWater, but with no resaturation, only slight bleed, and maximum dryout. (These attributes are set using Control|Well... which is found on the brushes drop-down menu.)

I use this tool to smear the rocks around using a small circular pattern. Doing this helps distribute the color in a natural-looking way without putting much work into it.

Rock Highlights

I use a small airbrush or small charcoal to add some bright highlights.

More Rock Highlights

Now I smear again to distribute the highlights, and make these things look more like rocks.

Tree Underpainting

I try to imagine how a tree would look if it were growing on the large central stack. Then I take out the black pen and commit this imaginary tree to the canvas. Really, I don't think about it much, I just start drawing. Since Painter allows 32 undo-levels, there is no harm is some experimentation. I start at the top of the rock and wind down a few roots, and then work by way up to the branches.

Bark Overpainting

I draw some midrange color using charcoal. The pressure sensitivity of the ArtPad really comes into play here, and I mostly use it to make a series of strokes along the left side of the tree, wherever I might see a root or branch sticking out. After looking at the underpainting, it's just a matter of thinking you see a tree, and then drawing color wherever the light might hit when shone from the left.

Foliage Underpainting

I have created my own Charcoal|SmallFoliage brush by adding some randomness to the SoftCharcoal variant. Using five or six strokes shaped like the letters "C" or upside-down "U" make a nice bunch of leaves. It's easy to see where to apply these bunches too: wherever a small branch ends!

Foliage Overpainting

Now, use those same brush strokes to apply a bright color to the upper-left of each bunch of leaves. Easy enough!

Grass Overpainting

Now for me, this is the hardest part. It's easy to lay down a bunch of unrelates trees, rocks, or whatever, but now you have to tie them together with a common ground. I used the foliage brush again, but selected a larger range of color to look like dead grass, or different types of grass. I decided not to draw the dirt, like I was going to, but to just draw grass instead. The trick is just to use mostly horizontal strokes that hug the shape of the terrain. And I use brighter colors at the hilltops (where more blades of grass would overlap, and reflect more light from the sun to your eye).

Here I've added a few bushes, and some more grass. The process for drawing bushes is the same as drawing leaves on the tree. Just start with a black underpainting and add highlights.

The (Un)Finished Product

Now, I've added some finishing touches, like tall grass (which would look a lot better if I used Photoshop), some very slight blending all around with a very large Water|Smear brush (which acts like a fan brush in oil painting to smooth over hard edges), some further highlights, and a distant treetop.

It's hard to call a painting finished, but I'm happy enough with it, and I think it has served is purpose as an exercise. I don't like that I used the foliage brush for the grass, because I have better techniques for grass and dirt, but they take longer. Now get it away from me, because I never want to see it again!!! (Hehe.)

As you probably noticed, drawing each thing is a several step process that usually involves the underpainting, overpainting, and highlights. Each of these stages will require the application of some color with a charcoal brush or airbrush (or whatever you like), and usually require some further blending with a smear tool. That's all I really wanted to get accross with this, because I think it's key to my technique when using any paint program.