By Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

This month's Painter Wow! Tip shows you how to build an Impasto brush in Corel® Painter™ X. Impasto brushes and the Impasto depth layer in Corel Painter give you the ability to paint with realistic, three-dimensional brush strokes that leave bristle marks and paint texture on the surface of the image. Impasto brushes are found in the Impasto brush category and in other brush categories in the Painter Brushes library, such as Acrylics, Gouache, Oils, and Cloners.

Hummingbird (a detail of which is shown here) was painted with custom RealBristle and Oils brushes, with Impasto settings applied to the brushes.

1 Choosing the brush and making a stroke

You can build your own custom Impasto brush by adding settings to a brush that will allow it to paint with thick Impasto paint. I chose a variant from the new RealBristle™ category. RealBristle brushes bring a new level of realism to the digital painting experience by simulating the natural movement of an artist's brush. Begin by choosing the Real Tapered Round variant of the RealBristle brush category.

Use your stylus to paint an expressive stroke with this brush variant.

2 Adding the Impasto settings

The Impasto section of Brush Controls contains settings that allow you to create brush variants that give the illusion of depth, like variants in the Impasto brush category. You can access the Impasto Brush Controls by choosing Window menu > Brush Controls > Show Impasto. I used the following settings in the Impasto section of the Brush Controls to build a Real Tapered Impasto brush that had subtle settings for the thick paint:

• Set the Draw To pop-up menu to Color and Depth.
• Set the Depth Method pop-up menu to Uniform.
• Set the Depth slider to 8%.
• Set the Smoothing slider to 100%.
• Set the Plow slider to 90%.

Now, make a stroke with your new brush, and notice the thick paint.

3 Saving the new brush

You can save the brush variant you created by clicking the selector menu arrow on the Brush Selector bar and choosing Save Variant. When the Save Variant dialog box appears, name your new variant (I named mine "Real Tapered Impasto"). Your new variant will appear in the RealBristle category. You can revert the original Real Tapered Round brush to its default non-Impasto settings by choosing Real Tapered Round from the Brush Variant selector, clicking the selector menu arrow, and choosing Restore Default Variant.

Good work! You have created a new, custom RealBristle Impasto brush to use on your paintings.

All content and images © 2007 Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

About the author
An award-winning artist and author, Cher Threinen-Pendarvis has always worked with traditional art tools. A pioneer in digital art, Cher has created illustrations using the Macintosh computer for two decades. She has been widely recognized for her mastery of Painter, Photoshop and the Wacom pressure-sensitive tablet, and has used these electronic tools since they were first released. Exercising her passion for Painter's artist tools, Cher has worked as a consultant and demo-artist for the developers of Painter. Her artwork has been exhibited worldwide and her articles and art have been published in many books and periodicals. Cher holds a BFA with Highest Honors and Distinction in Art specializing in painting and printmaking, and she is a member of the San Diego Museum of Art Artist Guild. She has taught Painter and Photoshop workshops around the world, and is the principal of the consulting firm Cher Threinen Design.

Cher is the author of The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book, Creative Techniques in Digital Painting and all eight editions of The Painter Wow! Book. The upcoming Painter X Wow! Book is the latest edition of this highly praised volume of techniques and inspiration.

To learn more about Cher, please visit her Web site at www.pendarvis-studios.com.