Using Artistic Brushes – V3

Satori's customisable brushes are great for expressive painting and are easily able to produce fine-art techniques.  There are one or two points that need to be remembered when using them, however.  As with any medium, once these have been used a few times, they become as automatic as any other technique.  This brush set was designed for use with graphics tablet, but most should work reasonably well with just a mouse. (I can recommend Wacom's "Graphire" tablet as an inexpensive way in to PC fine art - it's what I use!)

Installation:
Place all the files from the “movie-brushes.zip” file into your Satori/Brushes/Movies folder. 
Place all the other files into Satori/Brushes.
You may find that there is not enough room for all your brushes.  If this is the case, follow the steps in Usage Note 3 below.

Usage Notes

1.  Movie Brushes.
A few of the brushes are “movie brushes” (Patches, Splatter, Wet-inWet, Turpsy and Tissue).  They use sequentially numbered canvasses as a brush profile, this creates a more random and natural effect. When you use them you need to set the movie brush setup to “Random”. To do this open the brush set-up dialog box (click on set-up on the brush tab).  Click on movie brush setup, click the “random” button and click apply.

Unfortunately you will have to do this every time you change to a new movie brush as  older versions of Satori don’t seem to save this part of the movie brush setup and the “Linear Loop” isn’t always reliable.  Forthcoming versions may solve this.) 

2. Slow Brushes.
Some brushes (eg Chinese), paint very slowly unless you click on the “build” button on the “size” tab in the Paint section of the Actions palette.  Select the largest brush size you are likely to use before you do, however.

If all this seems a bit fiddly try to think of it as preparing your materials for use or as a part of an artistic brushing technique.

3. Make room for more brushes. 
Either use the “Library” tab in the Brush Setup, which only removes Brushes from the actions palette for the current session, or follow the steps below:

We’re going to replace all the brushes that use ‘picture’ shapes with one brush that can reference all of these, similar to Picture Tubes and Image Hoses in other paint software.

- Create a new folder on Satori’s folder called “Moved Brushes”.
- Into this folder move all the brush profiles that are pictographic, eg pool, dice, leaves etc
note: These are found in Satroi\Brushes.  Files with a .SBD ending are brush profiles and contain all the settings for the brush.  Files with a .CVS ending are Satori Canvasses and are pictures used as brush shapes or outlines.  You need only move the .SBD files.

Start or restart Satori.  The brushes you moved should now have disappeared. Open the Brush Setep dialogue box by clicking on either “Brush Setup” in the Paint/Size tab, or on “setup” on the Brushes and More tabs, also found in the Paint section of the Actions Palette.

Now we will make one Shapes brush to replace all the deleted brushes.

• On the Brush Set up/Styles tab, click on “New..”, type in the word Shapes and click “OK”.  This creates a new brush called Shapes in the action palette. If you already have a shapes brush you can call this one “Shapes2” or just replace it.

• On the Styles tab, make sure that only “No build-up” is checked.

• On the Response tab, make sure the “Max Press” is set to 255 and in the box marked “Brush Application Distance [% of Brush]” enter the figure 99.

• Click “Apply Now” and “Save”.  (Click on “Yes” when asked if you want to overwrite with the new settings.)

Here’s the clever bit.
In Brush Setup, click on the “Type” tab.  This gives you the choice of using a Standard Brush or an Imported File.  Activate the “Use Imported File”; the buttons marked “Browse” and “Thumbnail Browser” should now become active.
Click on “Thumbnail Browser”.  With a bit of luck it will open in your Satori/Brushes directory.  If not, you’ll have to browse to that directory.  When you do, behold, there are the shapes of the brushes you deleted earlier!

Double-click on a shape you want to brush and click “Apply Now”.  Now you can paint with the chosen shape.  When you want to change the brush shape just select a different file to import.  Some of the brush shapes are in Satori/Brushes/Movies. Select the first one in the series and Satori will recognise them as a sequence.
(note: “Apply Now” uses the current brush shape until you change brushes, then it returns to its default state.)

To make the brush shapes paint closer together or further apart, change the amount you set in the “Brush Application Distance” on the response tab.  Experiment with other settings as suggested in the next section to change the character of your brush.

Tips on Artistic Brushing

1. It is useful to have the brush set-up dialog box open, this make it easier to make any of the above changes.

2.  Personalize those brushes! 

• With the brush setup dialog open try using the same brushes with varying amounts of chalk added, (on the styles tab).

• Do the same with the water dialog box.  This governs how the paint you are applying mixes with the paint underneath.  Anything over 90 makes thin runny paint that can be moved around.

• Check or uncheck the No Buildup check box.  This will totally change the way paint flows out of the brush. With the No Buildup unchecked, the brush will continue to pour out paint as long as your in contact with the canvas.  When it’s checked, the brush puts down it’s shape one blob at a time. 

• Change the Limit amount on the style tab.  This will change the maximum amount of paint you put down.  Lowering the number make the paint appear lighter or thinner.

• All brushes can be turned into erasers by selecting “Remove Alpha” on the styles tab.

• Smear paint around by selecting “Push” on the styles tab.

3.  Make a folder for Brush shapes.
Into this you can keep small canvasses or RIR files (400 x 400 pixels is about right), with different shapes that can used for any existing brush.  ANY shape or picture can used, so long as they are either a Satori CVS or RIR file. Follow the instructions above to browse to the canvas you want.
Always save brush shape canvasses that you make with the highest compression. 

Remember to check or uncheck the "Use Imported Colour" button, depending on whether you want to use the imported file as a picture with its own colours (like, say, a leaf or coloured shapes), or just as a brush outline and using palette colours.

Painting Techniques

Glazing.
   Use limiter to “thin” the paint and make it transparent”.

Blending and Smearing.
   Use push

Painting on a coloured ground.
   Create one layer for the ground.  Fill with a coloured rectangle.  It is then very easy to experiment with different coloured backgrounds.

Palettes
   There are a few ways in which to make palettes. 
The first is to use the Swatch on the colour palette.  Click on “Clear” to clear the swatch.  Add colours as you create them.  Remember to save your swatch before you close Satori.  (Although Satori remembers the last palette loaded.)  This gives you a maximum of 48 colours.
   Another way to make a palette is to create a second canvass with a white or neutral grey background onto which you can paint small blobs of all the colours you use.  This means that colour mixes are possible.
   The picture itself is, of course, its own palette.  Just use the colour picker tool on Satori’s colour palette to select the colours you want.  This doesn’t always work as they may be mixed or transparent colours.
   Another idea is to create a colour swatch with the basic artist’s colours.

Layers
   Using separate layers is an ideal to keep different element from mixing. Eg.  Have one layer for the canvass or paper colour, one for the drawing or sketch, one for sky and background elements and one for the main subject.  This means that if you don’t like the way things are going it is quicker to edit or simply delete a part of the painting.  You can also use the layer resize and move functions to re-arrange the composition.


Have fun painting!

Tim Ross
tim@rosses.force9.co.uk