Digital Painting | Rural Landscape with Red Barn

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With this tutorial we're going to create a rural landscape scene that looks like it was painted with oil paints on canvas. This is not a "tube" painting and I strongly encourage you not to use any tubes or clip art! To achieve this "hand-painted" look everything will be painted using the brush tool and manipulated with the push tool. Tubes and clip art may be used as a guide to sketch the buildings, but copying/pasting of clip art images into this painting will defeat the "hand-painted" effect. We also won't be using any selections, preset shapes, pattern fills or filter effects! Just "paint"!

This project is intended for those who have made a few tube paintings and now want to create something a little more challenging. If you're a beginner or were really looking for a tube painting tutorial, go to my Hillside Farm Tube Painting tutorial and try that style of digital painting!

The only items needed to create this image are Paint Shop Pro and a frame for your finished painting! Instructions are written for PSP 7, but any version of PSP should work!

[Note: This tutorial was originally written in 2001 and was written for versions of Paint Shop Pro that do not have the new Art Media tools.]

You should be prepared to spend a little time and a lot of creativity on your masterpeice!! Don't expect to finish it all in 10 minutes....enjoy what you're doing! Take a lot of breaks and spread it out into more than one painting session!! Creating this painting may take a bit of time, but there are not a lot of complicated instructions to follow. I've found that creating the painted look is easiest if we concentrate on just using the Brush Tool and the Retouch Tool (a few other tools may be used here and there). We'll be spending most of our time adjusting and re-adjusting the tool settings and a lot of these decisions will depend on your own personal style.

Color Swatch

You may copy and save this swatch of color samples to assist in selecting the colors for your painting...or use your own selection of colors. There's no hard and fast rules here....make the painting "your own"!

Most people find that painting is easier on a larger canvas, but you can start with any canvas size you prefer! Again, no rules....this lesson is 90% your own creativity and imagination!! I'm just going to provide some tips along the way!! ;-)

If you use a large canvas, you'll be using a lot of memory....so don't forget to empty your clipboard frequently and occasionally empty the command history. Just don't empty command history until you're sure you won't want to UNDO any more up to that point.

Open new image with 16 million colors. Use a monitor sized canvas, such as 800x600, if you want to make this painting into wallpaper. Use a smaller canvas if you do not have a lot of RAM.

Use a soft gold color for background fill. It will be easier to see what you're painting if the background is not white. As you push 'paint' pixels around, you may notice some tiny gaps in your brush strokes where the golden background color is showing thru. This is OK...it will give your painting a warm golden glow!!

Sketch Your Composition

Create new layer to sketch some guidelines to follow as we paint. Name this layer SKETCH and don't put anything else on this layer except guidelines.

Line tool, size 1, antialias on, color black stroke solid, fill null.

With a single solid line, hold shift key down and draw a straight, horizontal line across the canvas, about 1/3 the way down. This establishes the "horizon" for the painting.

Even though it may get covered with trees and we can't see it...all objects in the painting should relate to the horizon (the perspective vanishing point). The subject of perspective can get very involved and it would take more than one tutorial to explain everything...so I won't even attempt it here. If you're interested in learning more, there are a number of tuts on the subject of perspective available on the web. If you can't find any...write, and I will try to locate some links for you.

Switch to freehand line with same settings and sketch in a general loose shape to represent some background trees.

Roughly sketch an S-shaped line indicating the road going from foreground to barn. Also rough-in a bush in the right foreground, and a fence on the left side.

Add Buildings

Create a new layer to sketch buildings...name this layer BARN. Because drawing buildings is usually more difficult, adding a new layer will allow you to erase and make corrections to this part of the drawing without effecting the lines for the background sketch you've already done. On this layer, draw a barn and a shed or other outbuilding. Create any type of barn you wish...see 'Drawing Tips' below. Also sketch a large shade tree in the foreground, on the left.

Next, go back to the previous SKETCH layer. To minimize any confusion in your sketch, erase any lines that cross thru the buildings, i.e. the horizon line, background tree lines, etc.

Now turn off visibility for your gold background fill color. Merge Visible the 2 sketch layers. Rename the merged layer SKETCH. This SKETCH layer should remain the TOP layer throughout this session as a guide for placement of objects in the painting. You can turn visibility for SKETCH on and off as needed for reference.

Drawing Tips

Try copying the building and tree shapes I've sketched. If you really don't think you can draw the tree, barn or shed freehand, you can trace one from a photo. Paste "inspiration" photo onto a new layer. Resize this drawing or photo as needed to fit the size of your painting. Create another new layer to trace an outline using the line tool. Don't fuss with detail....see how my sample sketch just shows a loose ellipse shape for each clump of leaves rather than an exact shape. It may be easier to trace if you reduce opacity for the clip/art photo layer to about 60%. This will make the lines you are drawing stand out a little better. After you've finished tracing, delete the photo layer (or hide layer visibility).

Painting the Sky

Create new layer, name it PAINT. This new layer is above gold background layer but below SKETCH layer (remember! SKETCH layer is always on top). All painting will be done on this PAINT layer.

The sky is a blend of at least 3 shades of blue, plus the clouds. Start painting the upper sky area with the settings shown in 'Brush Settings' below. These settings should give a "slippery" feel to your brush, much like real paint. Just slide the brush around in short, horizontal strokes, roughing in the sky.

Start painting with a medium sky blue along the top of the canvas...paint about 1/3 of the sky area. On the color wheel, select a slightly lighter tint of the same blue and paint another 1/3 of the sky. Lighten the blue a little more and paint all the way to the tree line. The light sky blue and the dark sky blue are in the color swatch, but the color in between is not...so pick it from the PSP color wheel! The very lightest color in our swatch is for the clouds.

Brush Settings

These settings are only a guide. Throughout this tutorial you will have to judge for yourself, by trial and error, when you need to reduce the size of the brush to add detail or increase brush size to add 'looseness' or reduce opacity to blend some colors. Everyone has a different touch and a different way of working, so it is difficult to say what will work best for you. The Brush and Retouch Tool are the 2 main tools we'll be using, so the only thing you have to concentrate on is size and opacity....everything else should pretty much stay the same.

Brush type: Custom brush, Paintbrush.
To select a custom brush, click on small brush icon in the upper right corner of the Tool Options palette for Brush Tool.
Use default settings for hardness, density, etc., except change size of brush to 20. 'Build up brush' should be checked.

Once you've got the sky colors painted in down to the horizon, start blending with the Retouch Tool (see settings below). I prefer to use the "Push" setting, but you should experiment with both "Push" and "Smudge" to see which you prefer. They appear to work very similar...but are a little different!

Use 2nd tab of the Tool Options palette for Retouch tool and select "Push" or "Smudge", your preference, or switch back & forth using a combination of the two.
Brush size 5-30, hardness 2-15, Opacity 5-30, Step 1, Density 100
Start with size 12, hardness 5, opacity 10 and adjust as you go until it's comfortable for you!

Blending

Begin on the one side of the canvas and work your across canvas to the other side making a row of small circular strokes to loosely blend colors. Do another row the same way, just below the first, then another and another until the sky looks blended....don't overdo! We could have flood filled the sky with a linear gradient....but it would not look "painted"...it'd be too perfect! Using Gaussian Blur to blend the sky could also ruin the painterly look. Just keep pushing the paint around until there's a gradual, loose, blend of dark to light in the sky. You can soften it a little with the Gaussian Blur, but only use settings 0.1 to 0.5...no more! Brush strokes should be visible but not harsh.

Adding Clouds

Select the lightest...almost white... color from our color swatch as stroke color. Use paintbrush to paint in some small circular strokes to block in some cloud shapes. Then take the Retouch-Push Tool and soften/blend all edges of the clouds except about 75% of the top edge. Push some blue from the sky into the clouds to add some shading. Use the same settings for the tools we've been using, except use a smaller brush size (whatever is comfortable for you....try 15). Keep changing brush size and opacity for different parts of the clouds....experiment!

Background Trees

Select the purple-gray color from the top row of our color swatch as stroke color. Use paintbrush to block in a row of trees along the horizon by painting a wiggly line to represent the tree silouette. Follow the guideline you sketched but don't try to stay exactly inside the lines ....just use it as a guide.

Now turn off the visibility for your sketch layer so you can see the treeline better.

se the paintbrush to mix some gray-green (from 3rd row of color swatch) into the purple-gray area. Vary the opacity and use push tool to soften some areas.

It's OK if some of the blue from the sky gets mixed in, it'll soften the green. Also, you should be able to see some blue sky between the trees! As one of my favorite art instructors would say: "Leave some holes for the birds to fly through." The coloration and shape of trees should be random and irregular. We're just trying to give the illusion of a distant clump of trees. Add a little bit of the lighter green randomly for highlights (see above screenshot for close-up). Use blue from the sky to paint some more holes in the trees. Use push tool to lightly blend these highlights and sky holes in with the other colors....you don't want anything to stand out too much!!

Painting the Grassy Field

Turn the visibility for your SKETCH layer on....but continue working on the PAINT layer.

Starting at the horizon line, block in the field color by scribbing some wiggly horizontal strips using alternating rows of the various shades of yellow, in no particular order....some here...some there. Add some yellow-green as you move closer to the front.

In the shadow of the buildings use the darkest gold. Push and blend these colors together using the push tool and short vertical brush strokes and varying the opacity.

The strokes can get a little larger as you move toward the front. If you have trouble keeping the horizon line straight (where the field meets the background trees) you can correct the line using the Line Tool. Set line size to 3 and re-establish a straight horizon line using a iight yellow.

The image to the right is a close-up of the blended field colors.

Barn and Shed

Paint the barn and the shed following your sketch lines. From our color swatch, select the lighter red for the front and the darker red for the shadow side. Use a combination of beige and brown to paint some shingles on the roof. Don't forget to add the cast shadow on the roof from the cupula. If you prefer, your barn can have a tin roof instead of shingles.

You can use the Line tool (size 1) along the edges of the barn and roof to get crisp, straight lines. You can also use the Line Tool to draw in a just a hint of the barn boards in the darker red...but don't make stripes!! Use Push Tool to blend some of the colors to break up the straight lines.

If you want to paint some white trim on your barn....don't use pure white! Use a very light gray! White will contrast too much!

After the barn is painted, use Push Tool (100% opacity, size 1 brush) to pull some of the grass color in short upward strokes to indicate some tall grass around the barn. Don't try to paint these weeds in, just "pull" the pixels up with the Push Tool. Also pull some weeds along the edge of the barn shadow.

Road and Fence

Use the various shades of brown in the color swatch to paint in the road and fence. If you use horizontal brush strokes for the dirt, it will help make it look more like a 'flat' road. The area closest to you should be the darkest part of the road. Again, use Push Tool (with varying opacity and size) to blend and overlay colors in the road. Use the Push Tool to pull up some weeds along the edge of the road ...the same way you pulled some grass into the barn area. (Remember, keep changing size and opacity of brush to suit the size of area you're working in!!

Use the darkest color on the swatch to paint the barbed wire on the fence. Size 1 paintbrush or line tool, 100% opacity. Draw a freeform line for wire and add evenly spaced specks of wire color to give an illusion of barbs. You could paint wood boards instead of wire, if you prefer.

Use the Push Tool to pull some more weeds up around the base of the fence posts (size 1, 100% opacity, for the weeds!). Don't forget to add the shadows that would be cast by the fence posts!

Tree and Shrubs

Use all the shades of green and brown in the color swatch to paint the tree and tree trunk....don't forget to use SKETCH layer as a guide and don't forget to let some sky show through the leaves! After you have the color on, use the Push Tool to spread the pixels around and do some blending! Add a shadow across the road that is cast by the tree.

Use the darkest shade of green to block in a silouette of a shrub in the lower right corner. This bush is just some scribbled brush strokes! Now add some medium green brushstrokes to paint some highlights on this bush.

You can turn off the visibility for the SKETCH layer now, you shouldn't need it any more!

Add some flowers or berries to the bush using whatever colors you want!! Just make some colorful, random paint blobs!

That's it! You've created a masterpiece!! Getting the painterly effect is just a matter of constantly changing the size and opacity of the brush until the pixels act like real paint!

Finishing Touches

When touch ups are all finished, you can merge all layers. IMPORTANT: Make sure visibility for SKETCH layer is off or delete that layer first!!!!!

Whether to add some canvas texture, filters or a frame to your finished painting is entirely up to you. Paint Shop Pro has a canvas texture than can be applied to the finished painting. There's also a number of filters that will give you a canvas texture (such as Texturizer).

Now add a frame to your painting and you're done!!
In PSP7 your frame choices are under Image > Frame. Don't forget to sign your masterpiece!

Save and export your finished painting as an Optimized Jpeg!

Hope you enjoyed this tut!   Gosh!   You didn't even get any paint on your hands!!  LOL

Happy Trails!   
K.D.   

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