Painter X Creativity: Digital Artist's handbook [Paperback]

Jeremy Sutton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0240809297 | ISBN-13: 978-0240809298 | Publication Date: August 30, 2007

Empower your artistry in the digital environment

This unique Painter book addresses both creative and technical proficiency, helping you step ahead in today's world of photography, art, multimedia, and design. This lavishly illustrated guide speaks directly to all visual artists and shows you how to combine traditional and stateof-the-art media to capture the essence of your vision.

Fully updated for Corel Painter X and the newest range of Wacom graphics tablets, progressive, well-structured tutorials from beginner to advanced level, case studies, and examples of art will inspire your imagination at every stage. Let world-renowned Painter master Jeremy Sutton guide you step-by-step in how to experiment with creative ideas and techniques that you can adapt to your own style.

New time-saving tips, workflow strategies, and keyboard short cuts allow you to quickly transform your work with Corel Painter X's outstanding natural-media tools. From expressive paintings to evocative collage portraits, oil impressionism, live portrait paintings, and painterly effects for video, television, and the Web, you get the best techniques through...

*Clear explanations with colorful screen grabs and inspiring artworks that lead you
through the sophisticated and creative Painter tools
*Practical, hands-on tutorials, and project illustrations that show you every step in
image development, including multimedia artist techniques
*A CD-ROM packed with unique custom brushes, tutorial images, and additional art
materials not supplied with Painter X

Included on the resource CD:
*48 extra brushes including many unique custom brushes not supplied with Painter
*38 custom color sets
*Jeremy's SupaDoopa custom palettes to help speed up your workflow
*Collection of Jeremy's favorite Image Hose nozzles, paper textures, and patterns to greatly enhance the variety and richness of art materials available at your fingertips
*Gain instant access to Jeremy's interface customization and optimize your creativity with unique custom workspaces, new to Painter X
*4 QuickTime movies including a studio tour, artwork commentary, and details on Wacom tablets
*Have fun practicing with 28 tutorial images!

*Clear explanations with colorful screen grabs and inspiring artworks that lead you through the sophisticated and creative Painter tools
*Practical, hands-on tutorials, and project illustrations that show you every step in image development, including multimedia artist techniques
*Chapter endings with quizzes and questions to cement learning
*A CD-ROM packed with unique custom brushes, tutorial images for all projects, and additional art materials not supplied with Painter X

Editorial Reviews

Review

'If you are starting, or are already on your own creative odyssey, you couldn't be in better hands.'
John Derry, pioneer of digital painting and an original author of Corel Painter

'An exceptional handbook for learning and mastering Corel Painter X.' Nick Davies, General Manager, Graphics, Corel Corp.

About the Author

Jeremy Sutton is the author of Fractal Design Painter Creative Techniques and the Painter 4 Video Training Series. He is a former faculty member of the San Francisco Academy of Art College, and editor of EFX Art & Design Magazine, and host of the Painter World Wide User Group. He earned his Master's in physics from Oxford University and studied art at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University, and at the Vrije Akademie (the Hague, the Netherlands). Jeremy has been a Painter beta tester since 1992. He is very close to the core group of creators, Mark Zimmer, Tom Hedges, and John Derry and regularly interacts with the entire team at Corel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press (August 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0240809297
• ISBN-13: 978-0240809298
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #922,520 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeremy Sutton is a world-renowned artist, author, educator, Corel Painter Master and pioneer in the field of digital painting. His background combines art and science. Jeremy, who has drawn since he was three, studied drawing, sculpture and print-making at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University, as he earned a degree in Physics. While pursuing a career selling superconducting magnets and cryogenic systems for Physics research, he continued his art studies, learning lithography at the Vrije Academie in The Hague, The Netherlands.

It was after his move to live in the heart of Silicon Valley in the late '80s that Jeremy was first introduced to the powerful combination of the Macintosh computer, pressure-sensitive Wacom graphics tablet and sophisticated paint programs that could emulate natural art media. These tools took Jeremy on a new journey of art exploration that included a career transition into being a full-time professional artist, painting a live digital portrait of British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson on the San Francisco Virgin Atlantic Inaugural and traveling the world teaching and demonstrating digital painting technology at numerous trade shows, conferences, workshops and seminars.

Painter 11 Creativity: Digital Artist's Handbook, is Jeremy's sixth and most recent book. He has also authored and produced instructional videos and DVDs, and founded the online training web site PaintboxJ.com. He runs digital painting workshops in his San Francisco studios.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Goes beyond software basics, November 11, 2007

By 

Diane Cipollo (Editor at BellaOnline.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Painter X Creativity: Digital Artist's handbook (Paperback)

This book is more like an art class. The author, Jeremy Sutton, teaches the technical aspects of Corel Painter X and then goes beyond that to share his hard-earned tips and expertise for digital art creation and production. His personal secrets are what makes this book stand out among the crowd. The goal of the author is to teach readers both the software and also creativity. Although it still has the same format as previous books, this latest effort not only covers the new Painter X features but has been rewritten with new and better projects.

One of the many features in this book that makes it more like an art class than a book is how the author walks the reader through the setup for their own digital art studio from optimizing their computer and color management to fine tuning the Wacom tablet. Besides this technical stuff, the author discusses his own production tested techniques. I especially liked his Project-Version-Notes folder and file naming convention.

From this point, the author discusses the Painter X tools and interface and then how to customize the palettes and workspace for your own needs. Painter X brushes are the next topic and Sutton includes a nice glossary of sample brush strokes for each of the major brush categories. Next, he discusses how to experiment with different brush variants and how he maintains and organizes his ever increasing list of favorites. This production tip alone will save the reader much wasted time.

The thing that makes any artwork stand out from the crowd is the ability of the artist to go beyond the basics of the software. One way to do this is to create your own brushes, textures and patterns. After discussing the ins-and-outs of these features, Sutton shows you how to use your own customized tools to take your artwork to the next level.

The second part of the book concentrates on several case studies that demonstrate design and composition. Sutton discusses some methods that are only available in a digital environment such as generating several variations of the same artwork as a starting point for a project. Finally, he discusses how creating scripts can be a time saver and a teaching aid.

There were a few things that I have seen covered in books of this type for many years including techniques for creating a digital painting from a photo and digital collage. Although these topics are still popular, I would have preferred that those pages of the book were used to introduce some new ideas.

Readers have come to expect this type of book to have supporting tutorial image files and extra goodies such as brushes and training videos and this book has that. There are some nice extras including custom workspace layouts that the author has built for his own production needs and uses throughout the book. Any artist knows how useful these real world, production proven resources can be compared to the usually list of bland goodies found on a book's CD.

Jeremy Sutton's artwork is collected worldwide and he is the author of several books and video tutorials.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible Resource!, October 22, 2007

By 

D. Heitmuller (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Painter X Creativity: Digital Artist's handbook (Paperback)

As an someone who teaches and has written this sort of book before, I commend Jeremy Sutton. His book was a huge help in learning how to use the Painter software in new and innovative ways; revealing a number of tools, tips and techniques that I would never have found on my own. It is clearly organized, chock full of helpful hints and advice, and all written in an engaging manner. I was able to work through the entire book without getting bored or feeling overwhelmed. I am really excited about the possibilities Jeremy opened my eyes to. This book is a must for anyone trying to get the most out of their creativity when using Painter, whether a beginner or advanced user. Well worth it!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding book!, May 8, 2008

By 

Ann Hess "Digital Artist" (Camarillo, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Painter X Creativity: Digital Artist's handbook (Paperback)

A wealth of information that would take you months to acquire otherwise. I worked in the past with Painter 4 & 5 years ago. I would have had trouble wading through all the new information.
The cost is a bargain.