BrushTalk

I had been a user of Mac OSX Tiger for quite some time before plucking up the courage to explore Smart Folders and Automator Actions. I remember at the time that there was not a huge amount of information available on the web for either of these utilities, so Google searches, and simple trial and error figured greatly in the learning curve.

In the example below, I will demonstrate how to use a Smart Folder to power search pre Painter X (and extension stripped Painter X) Color Sets. I don’t intend this to be a step by step tutorial, but will give you some links to get you up to speed;

Mac OSX Features > Finder

Organizing related files with Smart Folders

How to create and use Smart Folders in OSX

Adding application aliases to your Finder windows

Customize Finder view modes in OSX

Getting back to our Color Set searches, we can use a pre-saved smart folder, in this case to find Color Set files by file name, content text (for named color set swatches), and even those containing specific RGB values (see later comment). Spotlight comments may also be searched.

Below is a screen shot of my Color Set Smart Folder, activated within the Finder.

The default saved Smart Folder search (’Search for’ pane left blank by default) in the above is selected to search my whole computer, but in this example, I have selected the Startup P1 Volume in the Finder. You will also discover that by adding application aliases to the top of the Finder window, will force the normal Finder search window off the right edge, which then automatically converts to a different format of ‘Search for’ window when initiating the Smart Folder search. I can also access the search pane by clicking on the double arrow, top right of the Finder window, and selecting Search from the resulting menu.

By selecting Text in the Kind field, and adding HV SV VV(-svg) in the Contents field, only Painter Color set files will be found in the search. The idea is to use the content field to display only files containing HV SV VV in their content, thus filtering out any other text file which does not contain the search terms. In practice, I had to further modify this using (-svg) to exclude several non-Painter color set files from being included in the search results. Without changing any of the above search criteria, if I were to subsequently select ‘Computer’ as the search location from the Finder window, this would list every Painter Color Set file present on my computer.

Searching Painter X ‘.colors’ Files

You will notice from the previous screen shot that Painter X color set files can be searched, however, for Tiger to recognize them as text files, the ‘.colors’ file extension must first be removed (presumably removing cross platform compatibility). I understand that this issue will be fixed in OSX Leopard, whereby the associated file extension can remain intact. To remove the .colors file extensions in the Finder, I selected them all in the Finder, and used an Automator ‘Remove extension’ plugin available from Paulo Grifantini’s website.

Another Painter X Issue

Apart from having to remove the .colors file extension for Tiger to recognize the associated documents as text files, I noticed that several of the Color Sets in the Support Files> Color Sets folder have been written in short form notation e.g (from the Gray Range);

R: 059, G:059, B:073
not
R: 059, G:059, B:073 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00

Again, there is a workaround of adding the HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 to just
one line in the color set document, but without this addition, the Smart
Folder filter text I am using; HV SV VV(-svg) would not find these files.

Incorporating Spotlight Comments

Right clicking a color set icon in the Finder will bring up a contextual menu. Selecting ‘Get Info’ from this menu brings up the Get Info dialogue, where Spotlight comments may be entered. Comments may include a download url (if the Color Set was from a third party), tag names to later identify colors associated with a particular place or object for example, or even the associated image file name for color sets exclusively used on a specific painting. I have created an alias in the Finder to an Automator application which will allow Spotlight Comments to be added to an item or items selected in the Finder search results window - download link is below;

add_comment_folder.dmg.gz (84 KB)

Note that if Spotlight comments are added while the Finder results window remains open, then it will be necessary to click the refresh button, bottom right of the Finder window for the newly associated comments to be displayed. The full text contents of individual comments may be displayed by placing the cursor over the short comments text in the Finder results window. A floating text box will appear after a few moments.

Finding Specific RGB Values in Color Set Documents

This almost works in Tiger Spotlight searches, but I have not been able to find a way of searching only for the value combinations as a complete string on the same line in the Color set document. In the above ‘Gray Range’ example, spaces between the search words/numbers are treated as AND operators, so provided all three RGB values are present anywhere in the document (say R: 059 on one line, G:059 on another line, and B:073 on yet another different line), then the document would still appear in the search results. To further compound this problem, the space immediately before the first number of the R value and the ‘:’ separators are effectively treated as AND operators, thus the associated number strings could be present in either the R,G or B columns of the search results. As each color swatch is written on its own line in the Color Set document, then such searches are of limited use to us, due to the potential number of matches returned.

An application called SpotInside uses a scoring system in the search, giving documents matching only 1 of the possible 3 RGB values the lowest score, and the highest scores to documents satisfying the complete search string (which are automatically highlighted);

SpeedSearch X performs string searches admirably, although currently does not appear to search associated Spotlight Comments;

File Association

Unless the Color Set files were saved as plain text documents (normally opening in TextEdit when their respective icon is double clicked), Painter Color Set files will attempt to open in whichever Painter version they were created and saved in. To have these latter files open in either BBEdit or TextEdit, I have also included aliases to these applications in the Finder. It is then a simple matter of dragging and dropping a Color Set icon from the Finder results window onto one of the text application’s alias icons in the Finder in order to have the document opened in that application.

Boolean Searches

Boolean searching in Tiger’s Spotlight is not fully implemented. It appears that AND (a space between the numbers or words) is the only operator available to search Spotlight comments. Text document content may also be searched using the equivalent to OR, and by using an exclusion operator.

Blue Yellow finds content or Spotlight comments containing Blue AND Yellow.
Blue|Yellow finds content containing Blue OR Yellow, but not necessarily both in the same document.
Blue(-Yellow) finds content containing Blue but EXCLUDING Yellow.

From what I hear, Leopard’s Spotlight search implementation will be more comprehensive.

brush

Although I believe I have subscribed to the Painter Canvas Newsletter, there seems to be an issue of actually receiving it or being notified of new issue availability. Thankfully the nice people at Corel use a sequential url naming convention when they publish subsequent issues each month.

Thankfully too, there are applications available to check url’s for changes/updates in page content, and notify the user of any change found. It was then a simple matter of combining the two, so that I will (assuming the url naming convention remains the same) be notified when a new issue is published, independently of any notification from Corel.

The application I use for this on the Mac platform is Changes Meter. There are probably numerous similar applications on the PC platform too, such as OutPosted.

At time of writing, the current Painter Canvas issue is July 2007. The following is a list of urls (hopefully) for forthcoming issues in 2007, which may be entered into the monitoring application’s url roster;

http://apps.corel.com/newsletter/paintercanvas/2007/08/index.html

http://apps.corel.com/newsletter/paintercanvas/2007/09/index.html

http://apps.corel.com/newsletter/paintercanvas/2007/10/index.html

http://apps.corel.com/newsletter/paintercanvas/2007/11/index.html

http://apps.corel.com/newsletter/paintercanvas/2007/12/index.html

brush

Update;

Commencing the September issue, it looks like the above method is no longer going to work, so I will have to rely on links posted around the Painter community. The method is still very useful for monitoring many other sites of interest though.

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I recently came across two very useful websites housing large and inspirational collections of five swatch color schemes; ColourLovers and Kuler.

Whist RGB values can readily entered in Painter via. the Color Info palette, then added to a new or existing Color Set, there is no global color picker to sample color directly from a web page displaying the required swatches. On the Mac, it is possible to double click the Main Color preview swatch in the Colors palette and then use the global color picker in the System Colors palette to sample the desired color from the web page. This would then update the Main Color in Painter after clicking OK in the System Colors dialogue. I found this latter method inaccurate however, when comparing the actual RGB values in Painter, with those given for the sampled swatches.

It is also possible to manually write/edit a Painter Color Set text file if the RGB values for each swatch are known. After some experimentation, I found an optimum size for each swatch which would give me 5 columns (one per swatch) so that all 5 swatches would display on one row in the Color Sets palette. Subsequent ‘5 color’ schemes saved in the Color Set would also have their own individual rows.

The screen shots below show part of the Color Set palette which I edited to contain the Beautiful Butterflies & their Color Palettes collection from ColourLovers. Note that as I named each swatch in the text file, it is also possible to display the color set along with the names. This is achieved by selecting ‘Display Name’ from the Color Sets palette menu. A third option is to display each swatch with or without a bordering grid. This option is also selected from the Color Sets palette menu.

ROWS 1
COLS 5
WIDTH 34
HEIGHT 24
TEXTHEIGHT 14
MODIFIED 1
SPACING 1
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 1
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 2
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 3
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 4
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 5

The above 12 lines of text may be copied and pasted at the very top of a new text document created in say Note Pad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac). This document will act as a template for creating ‘5 column’ color sets from known RGB values.

I’m on the Mac platform, so assume that I have already copied and pasted the above into a new TextEdit document. In the following example, I’m going to create a 3 row color set, with 5 swatches per row. There is currently a nice collection frog and toad inspired color schemes created by fazai38 on the ColourLovers website here. For this example color set, I will add the first 3 Frog schemes (BlackSpot Green, Blue spot and MultiColor Spot Frog) and show you the resulting Color Set opened in Painter IX.

As the last five lines of text in our color set document represent 1 row of 5 swatches (equivalent to 1 frog color scheme), we first need to do two things to our color set text. The first is to copy the last five line of the text and paste twice directly under each other. Secondly, we need to increase the number of rows on the first line from 1 to 3 (3 rows of 5 swatches). This is what it should now look like;

ROWS 3
COLS 5
WIDTH 34
HEIGHT 24
TEXTHEIGHT 14
MODIFIED 1
SPACING 1
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 1
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 2
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 3
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 4
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 5
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 1
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 2
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 3
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 4
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 5
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 1
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 2
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 3
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 4
R: 000, G:000, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 name 5

We now need to obtain the RGB values for each swatch so that we can edit them into our text color set file. Clicking in the BlackSpot Green Frog palette image on the previously linked page should take you to here. Scrolling down this linked page, you will see all the individual swatches which make up the above palette, with their respective RGB values given below. These values are then used to replace the existing RGB: values in our template document. Note that the RGB values expressed in the Color Set document must always be in 3 digit format, so an R value of 24 is written 024 and a G value of 3 for example, would be written 003

I note that the first swatch for this frog has an RGB value of 251, 254, 225, so I will edit the first swatch line of the color set to read as follows;

R: 251, G:254, B:225 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 BlackSpot Green Frog 1

Associating names to color swatches is optional in Painter, but may help later when searching for a previously used swatch by name. I have therefore called my first color swatch BlackSpot Green Frog 1. Below is what the text should look like after entering all the values and swatch names for the first three frog palettes;

ROWS 3
COLS 5
WIDTH 34
HEIGHT 24
TEXTHEIGHT 14
MODIFIED 1
SPACING 1
R: 251, G:254, B:225 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 BlackSpot Green Frog 1
R: 236, G:241, B:185 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 BlackSpot Green Frog 2
R: 024, G:037, B:045 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 BlackSpot Green Frog 3
R: 130, G:164, B:139 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 BlackSpot Green Frog 4
R: 202, G:232, B:170 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 BlackSpot Green Frog 5
R: 186, G:219, B:250 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 Blue spot Frog 1
R: 081, G:122, B:184 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 Blue spot Frog 2
R: 049, G:076, B:143 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 Blue spot Frog 3
R: 002, G:020, B:044 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 Blue spot Frog 4
R: 083, G:140, B:195 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 Blue spot Frog 5
R: 152, G:148, B:075 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 MultiColor Spot Frog 1
R: 225, G:121, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 MultiColor Spot Frog 2
R: 003, G:004, B:000 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 MultiColor Spot Frog 3
R: 116, G:097, B:103 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 MultiColor Spot Frog 4
R: 247, G:213, B:165 HV:0.00, SV:0.00, VV:0.00 MultiColor Spot Frog 5

The final step in TextEdit (Mac) is (with our open text document to the front) to select Format menu > Make Plain Text, and Save As ColourLovers Frogs.txt for example. Below is a screen shot of the above manually edited color set opened in Painter IX;

To obtain RGB values for a selected palette from the Kuler website, click on the icon immediately to the left of the word Welcome!. This will take you to the theme create/edit page where RGB values are displayed at the bottom.

Tips

1. On the Mac, editing the text file in Rich Text format, then converting to Plain Text before saving will prevent unnecessary eye strain.
2. Ensure there are no extra blank lines after the last line in the text file and the text does not line wrap (i.e each row of text must be on a seperate line).

brush

Continuing from part 1, I firstly want to introduce the third brush variant, again created in Painter IX. This variant also uses the luminosity of the current selected pattern to control the angle in the brush stroke, but this time the brush is a captured dab. While experimenting with the settings, I discovered an interesting artifact effect in the stroke rendering by increasing the Wet Fringe value. Although I was more interested in the shape of the resulting brush strokes rather than texture, I liked the effect and decided to keep it. As this is Digital Watercolor media, don’t forget to use the Dry Digital Watercolor command after you have finished.
Again, I used mainly short brush strokes, letting the angular twisting of the brush suggest the form;

Focusing on Detail

Having a lot of different shapes and imagery on a canvas can be overwhelming when one wishes to search for or focus on a specific/interesting shape or design. A neat way to do this is to use a lens to highlight a specific area of interest.

Corel Painter provides a very cool feature which allows images added to an Image Portfolio library to be saved along with the selected layer blending mode applied at time of saving. My Focal Point Lenses image portfolio objects utilise this feature, and support drag and drop, repositioning over the underlying imagery, as well as resizing.

Below is an image demonstrating my version of Rob’s design theory brush, with the Negative Lens Round positioned over the shape on the right. Don’t forget about using negative space as well - two shapes for the price of one.

Related Links

Design Theory 02 - the second video in the series by Sinix (Rob Stacy).

Staying Motivated - an article by Kevin Cornell

Creating Fashion Illustrations with Corel Painter by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

Thumbnailing for Quick Concept Creation by Raymond Brugman.

Concept Art/Prismacolor Brushes for Painter IX and above - converted by Juan C. Negron (originally created by Shane Caudle).

Custom Design Resources (for Corel Painter 8 and upwards);

The following download folders contain a brush library of 5 custom variants, along with the patterns and image portfolio libraries used in Creativity and Inspiration parts 1 and 2.

Download Inspiration_pc.zip (316 kb for Windows platform)

Download Inspiration_mac.dmg.gz (300 kb for Mac platform)

Edit;

My thanks to Jinny Brown for bringing to my attention the incorrect Windows file extension originally assigned to the PC version of the Fractals_01 pattern library. The correct file name should be Fractals_01.PTL. This error has been corrected in the respective download folder, and the ReadMe instructions now also include information on locating the Inspire me brush library in Painter X.

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Many years ago, a student in an engraving class mentioned to the tutor that they were short on ideas for their next engraving piece. The tutor replied with a couple of suggestions; the first was to fill a sheet of paper with random scribbles and then look for interesting shapes created within the resulting chaos which could form the starting point of a design. The second suggestion was to visit the local museum and examine exhibits for inspiration.

Thinking about it, lack of inspiration may be related to mood, depression or burnout, but whatever the reason, methods and techniques to get those creative juices flowing again are useful resources for both artist and designer. So, let’s take a look at a few of the options;

Words

Words play a very important role by the emotions and visual imagery they conjure, and in a design brief or book illustration for example, written or spoken words are the basis of the resulting visual imagery. A couple useful resources come to mind on the web, the first being the 500 list over at Sijun Forums. This list is useful when looking for ideas of what to paint or draw next, but perhaps if you already have a person, place or object in mind, try running it through the Googlism.com website for further association and exploration. In this example, I selected the ‘what’ radio button, and entered the word ‘frog’ in the search pane. After pressing the Googlism! button, I am presented with an inspirational list of frog related snippets, just begging to be explored as visual concepts.

Zoom

Looking at objects close up or magnified opens up a whole new world to explore. A good source is tree bark - if one stares for long enough, often all manner of strange faces and creatures in the texture and patterns become apparent. The reverse may be true if one is too narrowly focused on a particular subject. In this case, try standing back to see the big picture. An added health benefit with connecting with nature and the great outdoors may also be gained - fresh air and fresh perspective.

Below is a short video on the subject of design and creativity made by Rob Stacy of sinixdesign.com (you may need to turn the volume up a little once play commences).

Brush on Creativity

After watching Rob’s video, I was moved to explore his ideas further. In particular, the use of loose random brush strokes in order to create more abstract forms with an element of unpredictability to the outcome. My first task was to try and reproduce the brush variant used in the video. After achieving a fairly close likeness, I further explored the loose brush strokes concept, again with the aim of being ‘guided’ by the form of the strokes. Eventually I settled for five custom brush variants, all with very different stroke characteristics.

A New Twist on Palette Knives (Corel Painter IX/X)

For the second custom variant, I decided to focus on the more angular properties of the Loaded Palette Knife. After some adjustments, I was happy with the size and opacity response, but unhappy with the angle expression. What I wanted was more randomness in the stroke. Jitter was not the answer, so I tried setting the angle expression to Random; this was better, but the effect was too exaggerated. It was then when I remembered that setting Source as the expression utilised the luminosity of the source image (the currently selected pattern in this case) to control the associated stroke attribute (in this case, angle).

My next step was to launch the Patterns palette, where I noted that the currently selected pattern was Hens and Chicks. My thinking was that assuming the luminosity of this pattern was now being used to influence the twisting (angle) of the palette knife, then theoretically, changing the pattern scale in the Patterns palette or selecting a different pattern would effect the associated brush stroke. To my delight, the answer was yes to both. I could now introduce a controlled level of ‘random’ twisting in the stroke via. the current pattern/scale.

The head profiles below were created using mainly small brush strokes with the above custom variant (the Lumi Twist LP Knife which is included in the download folder in part 2 of this article), whilst letting the twisting of the individual strokes influence the designs. The associated pattern was a custom fractal, created via. the Make Fractal Pattern option in the Patterns palette menu.

In part 2 of Creativity and Inspiration, I will be demonstrating the third custom variant, and a neat method of highlighting interesting shapes.