Why Sign In?
Access your order history, manage your account, memberships/subscriptions and more.

Jennifer Reagles


Fantasy artist gets inspiration from her children, Paint Shop Pro

As part of earning a degree in counseling, Jennifer Reagles had to find a place she could volunteer. With kids at home this wasn't the easiest thing to do, so Reagles of Madison Wisconsin started volunteering in an advice chatroom.

"Everyone in the chat room had avatars next to their name. Someone recommended Paint Shop Pro to make the avatars, so I gave it try," she said. "I hadn't taken any art classes since high school, but Paint Shop Pro was so easy I just kind of moved up from there."

Moving up for Reagles has included designing book covers, posters, and having her art featured on the cover of magazines. In fact she has two pieces in Exotique 2, which has just been released by Ballistic Publishing.

Despite her success Reagles hasn't moved to high priced photo editors, she remains loyal to Paint Shop Pro.

"The thing that's so great about Paint Shop Pro is that anybody can really use it," she said. "I can show people who have never used it at all how to improve their photos in a few minutes.

"The One Step Photo Fix is just a godsend for any beginner photographer," she said. "I've even shown my children and their friends how to fix their photos."

Reagles' children have played an important role in the direction her art has taken.

"My daughter asked me to make her into an angel. She was four at the time. I took some pictures of her in our backyard and painted some wings on her. That started the whole fantasy thing.

"Later she asked me to make a mermaid. She has a large imagination and that helps me out a lot. I didn't start out as a huge fan of fantasy, but it kind of grew on me. It's enjoyable to create things that people find so pretty."

Though she's been creating art for about five years now Reagles said her mermaids are still her favorite.

"The first mermaid "Mera" turned out better than I thought I would, she said. "It's one of my favorites. It started with a very bad reconstruction of a stock photo, that was small and pixilated. I was able to improve it with the tools that Paint Shop Pro has. It started as nothing but turned out to be quite good. I love the fluid nature of the artwork that came out of that."

Reagles explained that much of her art is a combination of photo manipulation and painting, and, of course, Paint Shop Pro.

"I find it much easier to paint in Paint Shop Pro with a mouse," she said. "I found that you don't need a whole lot of brushes to get a painted look. If I paint foliage or anything that's really time consuming, I just turn it into a Picture Tube™, that helps a lot. Then I can kind of change them and use them later. It's a big time saver for me."

When creating her art, Reagles puts Paint Shop Pro through the paces. She said she couldn't live without Layers and the Layer Blend Modes, Picture Tubes, and she even uses the scripting features of Paint Shop Pro.

"I've tried other programs and always come back to Paint Shop Pro," she said.


Copyright © 2013 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Anti-Piracy
Back to top