Can you paint like Bob Ross with Painter?

[dicky_mac]

Hi,

I'm going to explain a simple, but old technique that was made popular by Bob Ross. I want to know if it can be emulated in Painter? I have tried, but no luck so far!


With traditional oils:

Start with a blank canvas and paint it with acyrlic black and allow to dry.

When dry, cover with a thin coat of liqued clear medium. The canvas is still black, but it surface now has a wet oil based coat.

Apply a 'transparant' paint all over the canvas. Due to the paint applied being transparant the canvas still appears black.

Now, using white only, you paint onto the canvas. The white mixes with the transparent colour and the picture is created.

I have attached a picture to show the results.

I have tried to copy this by first making the canvas black, then adding a layer and applying a colour; the problem was how to make the colour transparant and usable. I then added another layer and tried to pick the colour from the underneath layer, but I could not have white on the brush and select the underlying colour.

I'm sure someone out there will be able to solve this old time technique!?

All the best!
Richard

[Christine Farrelly]

You may find the blender brushes do some of what your looking for - you will need to play with the opacity and saturation settings to achieve different effects.

Some of these brushes do not have a saturation setting and can only be used to blend existing colours. Most of the other brushes can be used as blenders by setting the saturation to zero.

Christine

[Christine Farrelly]

You could try this

Black canvas layer.

New layer in a lighter shade of the colour you want to use. Reduce opacity of the layer to about 20%.

New layer to paint on with blender brush, saturation about 10%. (I tried it with the smear blender)

When finished you can reduce the opacity of the colour layer to zero if required.


Or

Set the canvas to the secondary colour

Add a new layer and paint using pick up underlying colour and saturation set low.

When finished change canvas colour to black


Christine

[dicky_mac]

Hi Christine!

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I have tried your ideas and they work great!

The first idea works closer to the original technique, but both ways work just as well!

I don't know what I was doing wrong, but it's good to have someone out there who can help.

Many thanks
Richard

[syd]

I tried this out on a painting I did and WOW is all I can say! What a great tool to bring drama and color into a landscape. Thanks so much both of you!

[juliatkarzon]

What is the style of painting called in which the painting is round, but it is made to be viewed on a metallic cylinder that is placed in the center of the round painting? It dates from the 18th century, I think. This question has been sporadically bugging me for a while. I once saw it during an art history class. Thank you.