DESCRIPTION: Create unusual painting effects using bright paint colours and one of the retouch tools.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Save often.

This type of painting shows up best with pale and bright colours abutting so works well for clouds and skies.

CLOUDSCAPE:

[Tip: After choosing your Remove Scratch tool and your Paintbrush in the Tool Panel, switch between the two while you're working by pressing H (Retouch) and P (Painting) on your keyboard.]

1. Apply very bright blue (#0000FF) in patches with Paintbrush (Shape Round, Size 80 Soft Edge 80) on a new 500x500 pixel document, marking out cloud shapes.

2. With the Remove Scratch tool (Level 100, Soft Edge 0), paint by dragging and tapping from within the blue around the white shapes and from the white into the blue to get a cauliflower cloud edge effect.

3. With a smaller brush, paint a grey-ey blue into the white of the clouds. If you find the grey is too heavy, just cover it with white to remove some of it. Move from this grey back into the blue with your Remove Scratch tool. It is harder to see the tool working between the greys, but be patient, gradually effects will show, especially when you pull down and out from the greys/whites to the blue. After a while you will find new colours coming out. You may like this, you may not. Just airbrush with white if not.

4. After a while you will get a feel for the cloud shapes and start experimenting a bit more. Use a tapping motion occassionally, other times drag. Dragging will make very interesting edges to the clouds.

5. Occassionally grab your airbrush Size 80 and add some wispy clouds across the blue to join the clouds and take away any hard edges. Change the colour to a warmer yellow (#FFFDE4) maybe to add warmth. It's up to you.

Detail:

More wisps added:

If you are using a tablet, have the paintbrush tablet settings on the Attribute Toolbar set to Size / Transparency and use your hand pressure to make some fluffy edges over the remove scratch tool effects you've already made.

6. Back to the Remove Scratch tool and add some more edges, tapping and pushing.

Final result plus another try:

SURREAL LANDSCAPE:

With each band of colour slightly overlapping and using the above paintbrush settings, apply:
band of deep blue (#2C00A5)
under that hot pink (#FF50A7)
then neon green (#D2FF78)
under that baby blue (#8ED7FC)
and under that a warm green (#19B16A).

1. Choose your Remove Scratch tool. Drag around where the blue and hot pink meet until you get an interesting cloud effect.

2. Repeat this between the hot pink and neon green colours. When colour goes down into the green, tap around in here too to make more colours. An orangey colour will appear. (This effect would also make a wild stormy sea with different blues.)

3. Drag between the neon green and the baby blue to create distant mountains. Drag in the "reflection" as well to get the water effects of the "lake". The green and blue won't mix as well because they are both pale colours but this is good because we want a feeling of distance and glowing light. I kept this part simple.

4. Drag lengthways quickly and heavily along the baby blue and cool green join to create a "bank" to the lake. At this point I wanted a darker colour and added a thin band of dark maroon (#690057). Tapping around in this gave some interesting colours of rocks and grass and ground cover. Drag up from the maroon and into the green to make some rocks etc.

You can finish here if you wish...

...or "scratch" around some more ;-)

EXAMPLES OF COLOUR MATCHES TO MAKE INTERESTING EFFECTS:

Offwhite in hot pink creates some lovely pale oranges:

Bright yellow in vivid blue creates gorgeous reds, yellows, blues:

Neon green in deep purple creates rich reds, pale blues, luscious pinks:

SURREAL PHOTOS:

Use a large size Remove Scratch tool with big movements to create unusual effects on photos:

Enjoy experimenting :)

Hillie © 2005