[v1510nAry]

Do you have to know how to paint in Real Life before Painting digitaly ?

Cause I'm Really lost on technique
Wondering if dishing out on some painting tools would be worth it ?

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[Pat]

I've painted traditionally for years in oils, acrylic and gouache. I've found my experience with those media helpful because many of the same techniques work digitally. Some of the skills I learned are now useless because there are no digital equivalents.

For me it broke down like this:

Blocking in color and "bringing out values" is exactly the same. It's still necessary to fill the canvas with sepia or neutral grays before starting to paint to avoid competing against bright whites. I still work from broad to specific, background to foreground. Rendering and composition skills are ALL still important.

Underpainting still works to an extent. It doesn't have quite the same impact, but it still has it's place.

Glazing, all the science to mixing oils, thinners and dryers is totally useless now. Richer colors can only be achieved through pure color theory now.

You can adjust colors as you paint without laying down new strokes. So instead of planning out your colors in advance isn't as necessary. You still have to know what you want, but you can find it along the way instead of planning on it before you set out.

If you use Painter, like I love to, nothing works exactly like it should in real life. It's close, but it's not the same. Real world experience with tools will result in frustration when using the digital version --it's unavoidable. This cost me some time as I had to LEARN to mix "oils" and watercolors and chalk to achieve all the effects I needed in Painter. This is something I was taught wouldn't be such a hot idea in real life.

Analog painting is very rewarding, but it's also a big hassle and expensive. I'm faster digitally for the sheer fact I'm spared clean up, color mixing and stretching canvas. That's worth it in my book. Is it necessary to being a good digital painter? Probably not.

-Pat

[jzero]

Technique is technique, no matter what medium you're using. Tools would seem to be irrelevant. I am completely useless with a paintbrush in my hand, but with a Wacom stylus and the Undo key, I seem to do all right.

It's not that you have to know how to paint with paints, but you do have to know how 'to paint'. Kind of like, owning a copy of Quark Xpress doesn't mean you know how 'to design'.

Good luck.

/jzero

[travis travis]

yeah, jzero said it, using a tablet and finding a method with that and software is it's own little experience, painting in real life is different. But learning some things about color, composition, perspective, etc... is universally helpful with art

[maxon]

Real life painting is fucking messy. I will never try to do some oil-paintwork - yuk! Why to make something in hard way when the easy way is available. www.maxon.rules.it