Artist Moves from Traditional Crafts to Digital Art

In moving away from the traditional form of crafting that usually involves paints, glue guns, and sewing machines, Diane Cipollo has been able to combine her two passions in life – computers and crafting. And with the help of Paint Shop Pro, she has been sharing her passions with the world.

Cipollo runs her own site, Crafters on the Web™, and she writes a column about digital art and design for BellaOnline where she shares project ideas, tutorials and tips for crafters. Her columns include showing readers how to create an e-card, greeting cards, and how to draw a nine patch quilt square.

"People just love the projects," she said. "They especially love the tutorials where they have something to print out at the end."

Cipollo also uses her column to introduce people to digital art. She encourages people to try different things, and she teaches them how to do those things with Paint Shop Pro.

"I've been slowly introducing Paint Shop Pro 8," she said. "I've been teaching them about the new brush tips and what they can do with the brushes. I love the new brush tips in Paint Shop Pro 8," she said. "It really is like painting with pixels. I still use Paint Shop Pro 7 for the more advanced topics, because so many people have it."

Cipollo, who studied Home Economics Education and Computers while in college, said she gets her ideas from all the crafting she's done over the years.

"There are just people out there, like me, who like to make things," she said. "That's what we do."

Cipollo started her creative career as a painter who worked using pen and ink with watercolor, she even won 3rd place in the 1998 Holiday Card Contest presented by the Decorative Artist's Workbook.

She also had a craft business where she specialized in Christmas Collectibles. She focused on Christmas crafts because she only had time to work on her crafting in her spare time.

"It used to take all year to make enough items for the Christmas craft fairs," she said. "Most of my crafts were reproductions of Victorian collectibles such as Father Christmas, Pine Cone Santa, goose feather trees, cotton batting and wax tree ornaments."

But, Cipollo admits she's not quite the same kind of crafter she was when she first started.

"I don't craft traditionally at all anymore," she said. "I do it all on my computer. I love it! It's faster and easier and I don't have to pull out the sewing machine."

Cipollo discovered Paint Shop Pro back in 1998, when she first began designing Web sites for the artists and crafters that she knew.

"When I started making Web sites, Paint Shop Pro was one of those things you just got introduced to right away," she said. "The price is just so good. You get so much for your money."

She soon discovered that Paint Shop Pro was the perfect tool for her when designing Web sites for artists.

"After putting so much time, energy and thought into the colors they choose, artists are really picky about not having their colors changed," she said. "Paint Shop Pro has always been really good for that. It lets you accurately reproduce their work for the Web."

Cipollo hopes that digital art is the next trend to hit the art and crafts world. With Paint Shop Pro 8, she thinks people might finally discover what they can do digitally.

"Those brush tips were a nice surprise in 8," she said. "People are going to realize that Paint Shop Pro really can be used to create digital art. Once crafters realize they can use digital painting for their crafts, the whole medium is gonna explode."

In the meantime, Cipollo is impatiently waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

"I really believe that once they realize how easy it is, they'll come running," she said. "With Paint Shop Pro, you can create almost anything."

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