A water (not watercolor) brush?

[willt]

Hi,
When painting with watercolor (paint) on paper, I often use plain water to "lift" color back out and finesse blended areas. I have been trying to simulate this technique in AR but so far unsuccesful. Any ideas on how this might be accomplished? The idea is sort of like this. Put a small drop of water on a painted area. The drop thins out the paint and spreads it into the surrounding colors. lightly touch the wet area with a piece of tissue paper which soaks up the water leaving a lovely bright area with nicely blended colors around it. This is very controllable as to how much color is lifted, how much spread occurs, etc.

Thank you,

willt

[DaveRage]

You can take the 'thinners' setting up to a high value with the watercolor tool to the point that it will just place wet colorless watercolor, but I can't think of a way to specifically do what you're asking in ArtRage.

It's possible that another user has come up with a way to acheive a similar effect. I'll move this to the Tips and Tricks forum in case anyone has some ideas for you.

[willt]

Thanks Dave, I have tried that and find it useful but not what I had in mind. I will keep working on it and if I find a way to make it happen I'll post it.

Been looking through tutorials and find one by a senior member name of Jules who had the following in one of her posts. She mantions a "just water" brush. Does that exist?

"OK, ive been faffing... Ive attached a screenshot, I used the the delicate on dry preset, each individual color on a separate layer, then overlapped the colours and blended them with the just water brush.. I like the desired wet on wet effect...hope its something you resemble as wet on wet?"




willt

[Caesar]

As far as I used watercolors (and tried to follow some real watercolor step-by-step tutorial) I didn't find a way to get that simply (obviously You may set up very complex and time consuming procedures to do almost anything). The same applies to some grainy effect specific pigments produce etc.
Anyway I just made a try with either the watercolor on watercolor and the gloop pen on watercolor along a boudary where a red and yellow blended. At the end of the story You just either lay a more or less transparent white spot (with fully thinned color) or superimpose the gloop drop. I'm sorry.
As a matter of fact no gravity effect at all, either of water flatting down and expanding or canvas rotation in a virtual gravity field (sheet upward or inclined), may be simulated this far on ArtRage, but after all, no tool can perfectly substitute any othe one, either in the real and the virtual world and whatever evolution ArtRage will have, its great, distinctive and unique features are that it's both a much natural painting software, reasonably similar to real painting, and the simplicity of its use not requiring an IT PhD to be used very profitably.

[Mike Severoff]

It would be nice to see the effect you desire to achieve. Or have already achieved by other means/media.
Yet: still water in a glass or waves in the ocean?

ps. Peter Pinckney paints the sea well, IMHO

[Noogins]

Yes there is a just water brush. It's in the preset list. I have used it and it may give you the desired effect you want. Hope this helps.

[willt]

Thank you very much. I will try this out and see what happens.

Regards,

willt

[Someonesane]

Could you post an example of the effect you're trying to achieve? It would help in trying to find a way to duplicate it.
Just so it's clear, "Just Water" is a preset for the Watercolor tool, and is not an actual tool on the tool panel. With the Watercolor tool selected, you'll find it listed under the Presets panel. Selecting it hikes the Thinners setting up to 100%, and puts the other settings for the tool back to the defaults. From my current understanding of what you're attempting, you'll probably want to push the Color Bleed setting down to 0%. It sounds like the opposite of what you'd want, but doing so increases how it blurs (rather the pushes) color, which will probably come closer to the edge I think you want. You'll likely need to swirl the tool in little circles to get it to work.

[royblumenthal]

1. Paint using your desired watercolour brush and pigments. (I find it doesn't matter what I use to lay down the colour... The 'Just Water' preset makes all the pigment behave like watercolour paint.)
2. Use the watercolour brush with the 'Just Water' preset. Pop the colour blend up to 100%. Choose a suitable ink colour, as it tints it just slightly.
3. Use this brush to push the boundaries of your colour, with the lift coming at the centre of the stroke.
4. Now use the 'Low Blending' preset to dab gently over the wet areas, to create the pigment buildup at the edges.

I *think* that's the effect you're after?

[Steve B]

Just to double-up on what Roy said-- yes, this works very well. Frankly, stupendously well. I've also found that using a stencil to develop a bit of granular texture can help out too. I've been very very pleasantly surprised at how well MrPaint's stencils of galaxies and stars works for WC bleeds. Same goes for stencils made from things like loose wool with "filigrees" and "tendrils" of material.