I’ve always wanted to be a Renaissance man. While assessing my skills towards this goal I realized that I still suck at art and being able to paint should be a requirement of any homme sophistiqué! I’ve always been a terrible artist and even had my teacher flunk me in handwriting in the 2nd grade. But the other day a bolt of inspiration struck me and I realized I could use my passion for computers to help with my artistic ambitions. Why not just download a painting program!!! I was sure with a computer program I could be painting like Bob Ross and Thomas Kinkade in no time! So I quickly ordered a Wacom and downloaded the trial of Corel Painter X3. I then found a lesson on how to paint mountains with this particular program on YouTube and did my best to copy. This is how it turned out.
I’m going to say this is not bad for my first attempt.
Ever.
With Art.
I really really really want to be able to paint not only like Bob Ross and Thomas Kinkade but also magical fantasy scenes that are trapped in my mind with no hope of release until I can master this program.
I thought I had mountains down well enough and was impatient to get along to oceans. So again, I found another video on YouTube (also by Aaron Rutton) on how to paint oceans with Corel. I worked very hard at at but seeing as it wasn’t coming out perfectly and becoming a master digital artist is going to take some serious study I became frustrated and am not interested in finishing this particular painting. However, I’ll post it here so I can always remember what my second attempt at becoming a digital artist looked like.
My mountains turned out looking like those rocks in the Pacific that the seagulls poop on. I’ve got wind blowing the ocean waves but not affecting the bushes and my lighting is obscene. Furthermore, it is a little embarrassing when your digital painting looks like it was done by a 5th grader.
Alas, I’m not one to give up so easily and the urge to become a Bob Ross disciple is too strong. I’ll keep at it because damn it, my trees will be happy trees and I want to bring a little more joy to the world even if it is only laughter!
