Painting Like a Pro

One of the services I offer for my clients is the ability to turn their portrait into a virtual oil painting with printing on canvas.  This was something I had been interested in doing for a while and I bought Corel Painter knowing that was the way to go but I found the software almost impossible to figure out for this purpose.  I was at a loss so I just put it on the back burner.

In September I attended the Photoshop World conference in Las Vegas and I registered for an additional half-day class with Fay Sirkis on how to use Painter to create digital paintings of portraits.  The class was fabulous and well worth the money to me.  Stylistically I differ from Fay.  The people in her portraits still look very photo-realistic while I make an effort to show "brush strokes".  And while I'll print a paper proof on art paper, when I print the final version I always print on canvas.  I use a totally different approach for my digital watercolors (that's one for another day).  For high-key photos Fay will call her painting a watercolor, will soften the edges, and print on art paper. 

If you want to learn Fay's technique you can attend the upcoming Photoshop World where she'll again be teaching her photo painting technique.  If you can't make it to the conference, don't worry as she has also put her workshop on DVD!

Here's a sample of a "painting" I'm currently working on...

This is the photo that the mother selected for "painting"  This version has the eyes of the baby enhanced and the skin smoothed in both children to prepare for the painting step.

The first pass at painting.  The background has been textured, and both children have been painted.  Now I'll go back and refine the painting.

A detail of the painting.  Notice theh brush-strokes in the hair and face.   When ready for printing I'll print this on Epson PremierArt Canvas, varnish it to protect it from the elements, and mount it so it is ready to frame. 

Comments

[stacey]

When you do this, do you print on your own ink jet printer? Also, can you tell me briefly what you use in Photoshop? Is it done by hand or with a filter? It's very cool! I'm eager to try it out.

Thanks