Aurora Borealis: Quasi-tutorial

[athena]

All the best laid plans of mice and moderators . . . .
(oft go astray)

This is the tutorial I had been wanting to do for a very long time. Unfortunately it took a long time to find my images for inspiration, I finally built the brush i thought i needed to complete the image. (and I still have some corrections to make to the building a dab based brush tutorial [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] can you believe it? )

The Aurora Borealis, also known as the northern lights, (if I underdstand correctly), are caused by solar winds bouncing up against our atmosphere. . . beyond that I don't have the details.

For my purposes, the only thing that is important is the concept of negative space. (We've touched this topic before [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] and for some reason the words from T S Eliot always come to mind.

And where you are
Is where you are not

To make our own aurora borealis, you need a black canvas, a stroke of color, the smear brush, and then black paint to add detail to the Aurora Borealis effect. (all apologies to the real Aurora Borealis if my attempts fail to capture the real beauty of the event [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] especially since I've never had the pleasure of seeing her in all her glory in real life )

1. start a new document and make the canvas black
   
2. I chose the pens -->grad pen --> kryptonite gas gradient
   
3. I wanted this image to look like a sheet or billowing curtain of light so i made the curve like so. You can build a more complex or simpler curve if you want a curtain or sheet look (and this is one of the reasons I apologize to Aurora Borealis [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] (not sure if the curtain of light is ever so pronounced. . . but mine is [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...ra%20b%204.jpg
   
   
   
4. Why i chose the grad pen: I like that the grad pen lays down a nice variety of colors from say dark to light green in one grand stroke. but the grad pen is certainly not necessary. ultimately you'll choose the tool you like best.
   
5. this would be the easiest line to make the curtain version of the aurora borealis with
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...urorab1002.jpg
   
6. this would be one that requires layers or cloning from one image to another to make the billowing curtain of light
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...urorab1001.jpg
   
   
   
7. all you do from here is use brushes --> liquid --> smear and smear down
   
8. then pull out your favorite tree making brushes and black paint. I used my pine tree brush (perhaps more properly called evergreen tree brush) and built the trees from the bottom of my canvas.
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...urorab1004.gif
   
   Right here is where we get to play with negative space.
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...urorab1004.jpg
   
   We are building the silhouettes of trees caused by the brilliance of the aurora borealis. Alternatively you could put buildings or mountains or you could build a stonehenge like stu did and make it more fantastic and have its silhouette enhanced by the beauty of the aurora borealis. Of course Stu's southern lights will be called Aurora Australis [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] And wouldn't that be an amazing discovery? A stonehenge in Australia and/or New Zealand [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] or maybe a completely different planet altogether. . .(distant strains of the Doctor Who theme song, begin to play and the title, Pyramids of Mars flashes on my mental screen "How long does an Osirian, live?") .
   
9. of course, you can do more typical northern or southern lights by just brushing the color upward. And if you accidentally brushed too much color, hehe brush some black paint back down. . . [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
   
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...a%20b%2013.JPG
   
   
   
   

Just a quick thought on one more way to have fun in Painter.


Athena

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[athena]

All the best laid plans of mice and moderators . . . .
(oft go astray)

This is the tutorial I had been wanting to do for a very long time. Unfortunately it took a long time to find my images for inspiration, I finally built the brush i thought i needed to complete the image. (and I still have some corrections to make to the building a dab based brush tutorial [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] can you believe it? )

The Aurora Borealis, also known as the northern lights, (if I underdstand correctly), are caused by solar winds bouncing up against our atmosphere. . . beyond that I don't have the details.

For my purposes, the only thing that is important is the concept of negative space. (We've touched this topic before [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] and for some reason the words from T S Eliot always come to mind.

And where you are
Is where you are not

To make our own aurora borealis, you need a black canvas, a stroke of color, the smear brush, and then black paint to add detail to the Aurora Borealis effect. (all apologies to the real Aurora Borealis if my attempts fail to capture the real beauty of the event [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] especially since I've never had the pleasure of seeing her in all her glory in real life )

1. start a new document and make the canvas black
   
2. I chose the pens -->grad pen --> kryptonite gas gradient
   
3. I wanted this image to look like a sheet or billowing curtain of light so i made the curve like so. You can build a more complex or simpler curve if you want a curtain or sheet look (and this is one of the reasons I apologize to Aurora Borealis [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] (not sure if the curtain of light is ever so pronounced. . . but mine is [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...ra%20b%204.jpg
   
   
   
4. Why i chose the grad pen: I like that the grad pen lays down a nice variety of colors from say dark to light green in one grand stroke. but the grad pen is certainly not necessary. ultimately you'll choose the tool you like best.
   
5. this would be the easiest line to make the curtain version of the aurora borealis with
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...urorab1002.jpg
   
6. this would be one that requires layers or cloning from one image to another to make the billowing curtain of light
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...urorab1001.jpg
   
   
   
7. all you do from here is use brushes --> liquid --> smear and smear down
   
8. then pull out your favorite tree making brushes and black paint. I used my pine tree brush (perhaps more properly called evergreen tree brush) and built the trees from the bottom of my canvas.
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...urorab1004.gif
   
   Right here is where we get to play with negative space.
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...urorab1004.jpg
   
   We are building the silhouettes of trees caused by the brilliance of the aurora borealis. Alternatively you could put buildings or mountains or you could build a stonehenge like stu did and make it more fantastic and have its silhouette enhanced by the beauty of the aurora borealis. Of course Stu's southern lights will be called Aurora Australis [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] And wouldn't that be an amazing discovery? A stonehenge in Australia and/or New Zealand [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] or maybe a completely different planet altogether. . .(distant strains of the Doctor Who theme song, begin to play and the title, Pyramids of Mars flashes on my mental screen "How long does an Osirian, live?") .
   
9. of course, you can do more typical northern or southern lights by just brushing the color upward. And if you accidentally brushed too much color, hehe brush some black paint back down. . . [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
   
   
   http://www.nol.net/~athena/paintutor...a%20b%2013.JPG
   
   
   
   

Just a quick thought on one more way to have fun in Painter.


Athena

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[ghi stecyk]

T.

that's really cool! seriously! i never thought of doing that before.

nice to see you're back. and as for your explaination of aurora phenomena... heck, it's good enough. why get bogged down in technical details.

hehe [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

hang out for a bit athena. the coffee's on, we got lot's to eat, beer's chillin', good tunes are playin' and the night sky is glowing all magical.

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

'66

[gmotto]

Hi Athena,
Where have you been????
This is a really neat tutorial. Sorry about taking so long to respond to it. I was up to my arm pits in water color brushes.
Have some of Stecyk's coffee, it will knock your socks off.(He air brushes it you know.)
Attached is my attempt at the Aurora Borealis. I have seen it several times at sea but that was a moon or two ago.

[athena]

Stecyk

Hi there Stecyk [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

I'll have some coffee with my sugar [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] Thankyou (is it Hazelnut? hehe I love coffee any way you make it. Just be sure you have a full sugar bowl [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] )

I am so glad you liked the aurora borealis topic. I'm guessing in your part of the country you get to see that magical sky more often than a humble Texan might [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] . I wonder what people of ancient civilizations thought of those light shows. I hope they just enjoyed them [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] .

I hoped this topic it wasn't too "mickey mouse" for for the more advanced visitors but I like to look for simple fun in Painter.

I saw a segment in our local Houston Chronicle and thought to myself, "I can do that easily in Painter". And then here in the Painter Forum we got to talking about making brushes and it all just came together. I knew I had to make a brush for this because I didn't know of a native Painter brush that did quite that effect.

And you see, the way I do tutorials is I try to debug them before I post them. But the dab based brush one needs more de-bugging [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]. I do the project, then I try to write down the steps I took , then I revise based on what instructions are clear to me (and I have to spell things out for myself quite a bit [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] Then I do the lab rat run through my tutorial to see if I forgot something [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] )

So I kept quiet while I researched my bugs in the dab based tutorial [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img].


Greg

Hi there Greg! Thank you [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] hehe air brushed coffee [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] delicious!

That is a lovely aurora borealis! The tree silhouettes are lovely. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] How incredible that would be to see the aurora borealis over the ocean.

I think it is fantastic that y'all have been exploring the water color brush in the other thread. I'm like Stecyk, in that respect, I haven't really tested that brush out too much. (ok except for the .pdf tutorial that came with the Painter 6 this last time)

I like negative space. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] hehe it sounds star trekky to say that. But it's true.

Thank you for posting your Aurora Borealis. It's lovely [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Athena

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[Jinny Brown]

Athena,

Thanks for posting a great tutorial. It's something I've not seen amongst the many tutorials on the Web and the results of both your efforts and Gregs are wonderful.

Keep up the good work. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
________________________

[qom]

Athena, even though you wrote that great tutorial for Painter 6, I thought I'd try it in Painter Classic to see how close I could get. Here is what I ended up with... not great, but not a total wash either. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

http://w3.cablespeed.com/~jimt/files/aroura.jpg

[athena]

Hello Jim,

It's a nice looking image. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Hopefully you had fun making it [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] (and thank you for verifying it could be done in Painter Classic. . . glad it worked [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] )

Athena

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[qom]

Athena, yes I had fun improvising the steps in Classic. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] Obviously Classic doesn't have the depth of brush options as P6, but I managed to gt it done.

I've reworked the image and made it a bit darker than the first version I posted... but perhaps no one even saw the original.