In the beginning - an artful journey

This begins a sharing of my artful journey in digital painting and graphic design. 

I hope you will find inspiration, resources, tips and tricks, and ideas for your own digital journey.



The digital painting I did of the Siamese cat above, was inspired during a class I was taking from DAA (Digital Art Academy) with Karen Bonaker, using Corel Painter software. 



The inspiration for my cat painting, was on the screen of one of the class videos. The cat painting shown on the class video screen, was not covered in the class. But, it really struck me as a beautiful painting. It looks like Karen used a pallet knife for the cat, but that's just a guess. Could have been a Sargent brush.



I was going to request that she might have a class on that technique, and then I thought, well, let's give it a try without a class.



I didn't use a pallet knife or a Sargent brush. I went another direction, which often happens when you are an artist.

The above image was my inspiration. I know our paintings look nothing alike, but the point is, of course, the inspiration.



First I needed an image of a Siamese cat to use for my reference. I like to use morguefile.com to find reference images. This site has over 350,000 free images you can use any way you choose, including for commercial use.

The above image was available for free download and was perfect for me.

I used the Schmid luscious, Sargent womc and expressive oil brush included in the class and a couple of Karen Burns brushes in the background around the cat. The Karen Burns brushes are from an online class I took with her. 



I'm pretty happy with how the image from morguefile.com turned into the painting I did and it only took about 30 minutes to paint.



Thanks for looking!