Karen Sperling’s Blog

Back in Corel Painter’s early days, theories circulated about the rate at which people accept ideas.
I just did a google search on theory of acceptance and naturally found a ton of information.
The Wikipedia definition lists five categories of adopters:
• Innovators
• Early adopters
• Early majority
• Late majority
• Laggards
These categories indicate how quickly someone is going to accept a new concept. The innovator creates the software product, for example, the early adopters buy it as soon as they find out about it, the early majority buys it when they read a review of it, the late majority buys it when they read the review and hear from the people who bought it and the laggards buy it after it’s been around for a few years.
In the case of my crowdfunding campaign that I announced recently in a blog, I’m the innovator. Although crowdfunding is being applied in many fields nowadays, the most-often seen crowdfunding campaigns are for independent movies. I don’t know of any software instruction sites like my Artistry site that are using crowdfunding to sustain them, so it is an unusual idea.
A handful of early adopters came forth after my first email to crowdfund, and I thank you all very much.
One supporter, Rhonda Krambs, sent in the following at my request for examples of how my Artistry instructional materials have helped her and led her to crowdfund my site.
In case you don’t realize it, let me point out that Rhonda’s contribution helped fund my putting together this blog post. And also in case you don’t realize it, showing you the following information promotes me and promotes Rhonda, certainly, BUT the real reason the following should be interesting to you is if you are painting photos or want to, these images are great inspiration. I’m excited seeing them and they inspire me to paint, too, and I appreciate Rhonda taking the time to send them and write about them!

Painting in Painter
By Rhonda Krambs
Painting

Painting detail

Photo

The house I grew up in - my mom still lives there and 2009 was one of the few Tennessee Christmas seasons that we actually had snow. As you can see from the original there was a little too much clutter on the porch so I just painted it away - I love that about Painter! I tried to keep your art concepts in mind, but still wanted to keep the historical significance as well. I had a lot of difficulty painting in the wood siding - probably a better way to do it, but I was in a hurry for this one and did not have time to research. I tried to bring in some of the blue from the sky onto the snow to give it a little more texture and depth. I’d really like to share what brushes I used, but I am afraid I don’t remember. That is something I must work on!
Your tip about creating custom palettes was a big step in the right direction - but then I just have to remember to name them so I can remember what painting they were used on!! Gee, Karen - I sure hope you keep doing this for us, because I still need a lot of help!

Painting

Painting detail

Photo

Here is another offering to show what I have been able to accomplish by reading your book and watching your tutorials. I titled this painting “Amos the Amazing Cat” because to his owners he was all that. This was a favorite cat that had died recently and it was the owners’ wish to have a painting that reflected the amazing color of his “milky green” eyes. It took several emails sent with different shades of green until I got it right. The jpeg photo they provided did not really do him justice. They used to hold him up and look into his eyes and say, “Amos you have the most beautiful sea green eyes.” First I opened a photo of the gulf beaches with the sea green they described and sampled the color from that - it was wrong. I finally resorted to ebay and sent images of vintage green dishware until they confirmed the right shade of green. Whew! It is difficult at times to adhere to the art concepts you teach in your tutorials and still satisfy the client’s view of their loved one. [In that kind of situation, I choose the color scheme based on the colors that have to be in the painting from the photo.-K.S.] Although a challenge, this was a fun painting. I mostly used the “captured bristle” variants in the acrylics brushes and the “real oils short” variant of the natural bristle brushes - which is one of my favorites. I also experimented with the f-x “fairy dust” brush to leave the sparkle in his eyes and the “furry brush” to outline the top edge of the blanket he was lying on - a fun brush that looks like a “wooly worm” (what we call catepillars here in TN). Amos’ owners wanted the background done in the same shade as his eyes, so in doing so I also applied a little of the background color within the black window frame in keeping the art concepts that you teach. I also mixed a little of the fur tones into the bricks of the window ledge below. I printed this out on Epson’s Somerset Velvet fine art paper and was very pleased with the outcome. I hope you like it as well.
Thanks again for all the knowledge you share with us every day!

Painting

Painting detail

Photo

Here is another example of what I accomplished from reading your book and tutorials. This little beauty is my favorite model. My husband took the photo and after several hours of posing for us she was more than a little annoyed and let us know she had had enough. As it turns out, this was the best of the whole session. I used the “chunky oil pastels 20″ and the “soft pastels 20″ from the oil pastels brush category. I was very pleased with the brush strokes the pastels left on the skin surface as shown in the captured close up if you can see them. I could have done better on the eyes, but needed to get it done for an exhibit we set up at a local festival. I also see that I had some “noise” issues that I did not address around the upper eye lids. Any suggestions on dealing with digital noise when painting from photographs? [I use the Blenders' Just Add Water to paint out noise. I talk about it in this blog-K.S.] I had several edited versions of this image, but apparently used the one that I had not “de-noised.” By the way, if you can see the brown spot in the bottom of her right eye, that is not an artist error - those gorgeous blue eyes actually have one little brown fleck in that one eye - although, she is self concious of it, I think it just adds to her unique natural beauty. So, for a rush job, I think it turned out very well. I also printed this one on the Epson Somerset Velvet with very good results.

Thanks, Rhonda, for being an early adopter and for crowdfunding Artistry, for writing up your experiences and for showing your results in your beautiful images.
This blog is the first review of my crowdfunding campaign. I hope you will consider joining the ranks of the early adoptors/early majority and contribute to my Artistry crowdfunding campaign to create low cost and free Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop CS5 instructional materials.
Thanks!

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