Today I’d like to share with you a technique for creating portraits with a watercolor look. This is a fast and easy technique, and doesn’t use the somewhat difficult watercolor brushes that come with Painter. Instead, you can download and use the custom brushes I developed for these kinds of portraits. You can download them here. Unzip the file, and then copy both the folder “Bob’s WC Brushes” and the file Bob’s WC Brushes.jpg into your Painter brush folder. When you restart Painter, you will have a new brush category with the custom brushes in it. These three brushes are:

• Bob’s Soft CapBristle – a variation on the ever-popular Captured Bristle variant of the Acrylics category. The cover method is Soft Cover instead of Grainy Soft Cover, which gives this brush a softer, more pastel-like texture.
• Bob’s WC Edger – This brush is based on the Grainy Water variant of the Blenders category.
• Bob’s WC Edger2 – I created this brush from scratch, using a captured dab that looks more like a watercolor stroke than the other two. It also uses a cover method of Plug-In, subcategory of Liquid Brush. By varying the Strength, you control the amount of “pull”, and by varying Grain, you modify the amount of softness. Give it a try, and you’ll see what I mean. I really like this new brush!

Bob’s Soft CapBristle is used to paint the majority of the work, and then you’ll use the Edgers to feather out the edges. This gives it that signature “watercolor sketch” look. Let’s get started.

If you’d like to follow along, the stock photo I used here is free, and can be downloaded here. This photo was taken by Fernando Weberich, and is provided by the Stock Exchange site.

We’ll need to do a little upfront editing before we can begin painting. In Photoshop, create a new document, 20×30 inches at 300dpi. Tap the “V” key (the Move tool) and drag the photo into your new document. Resize it and reposition it as shown below. (To resize, go Edit > Transform > Scale, and hold down the Shift key as you stretch the corners. Use the Move tool to position.)

Let’s remove the background distractions (marked in red) first. Use a soft brush at high opacity to cover them over. Also, add some color above her head. When it’s done, it should look something like this. Make sure there’s some room around the figure.

Flatten the image (Layer > Flatten Image) and save it. Now we’re ready to open it in Painter. Once it’s open, create a Quick Clone (go File > Quick Clone, or in versions before 9, go File > Clone, then Select All, then delete (backspace)). You’re seeing the image through digital tracing paper, basically. In Corel Painter 9.5 and above, you can vary the opacity of the tracing paper, which is very helpful. Click on the blue square in the upper right to toggle the paper on and off, and to access the opacity control.

Now it’s time to paint. Start with Bob’s Soft CapBristle brush, set at Opacity 50, and Resat 30. Use short, directional strokes, following the form, with a 40 pixel brush. In the background, use a random, playful stroke at about 100 pixels. Leave a ragged edge, as shown, which we’ll develop into the vignette later. Make sure you have color cloning turned on (the “rubber stamp” icon next to the color wheel). Here are two screenshots. The first shows the work with the tracing paper turned on, the second with it turned off. Turning it on helps you see details, and turning it off lets you see your actual painting.

[caption id="attachment_666" align="aligncenter" width="590" caption="This is the same step, with tracing paper turned off. "][/caption]

Now go back over the whole thing with a smaller size of the same brush (Bob’s Soft CapBristle). Use size 20 to 40, depending on the area you’re working on. Use the smaller size for the face and other detailed areas, but don’t over work. Remember, we’re going for a loose watercolor look.

Make a third pass over the painting to define things like the tiara, earrings, and eyes. This time, though, use the Soft Charcoal variant of the Charcoal category. Use a small (5 to 10 px) brush. Make sure color cloning is active. For the eyes and lips, you may want to use a little Soft Cloner, to help bring out the details. Just a touch will do it.

Okay, the painting is done! Now we just need to feather out the edges to create the vignette. Give each of the custom Edger brushes a try, and see how they work. You may prefer one over the other. These work like blenders, and they don’t add color. They just spread around the paint already there. So pull and push along the edge, and try not to overwork it. You’re looking for a fresh watercolor look, so lots of roughness is the key. Here’s the finished version. I completed this with Bob’s WC Edger2. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Happy painting!

Related Posts

1. Tutorial: Create a Watercolor Portrait with Corel Painter
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3. Tutorial: Paint a Portrait in the Style of Bouguereau with Corel Painter
4. Tutorial: Basic Portrait Painting Technique for Corel Painter
5. A Quick and Easy Watercolor with Photoshop’s Art History Brush
6. Tutorial: Painting Alla Prima with Corel Painter
7. Resources: John Derry’s New Watercolor Brushes for Painter