Today I would like to share with you a few updates from me.
Many artists, photographers, and designers are asking me for a recommendation on an affordable graphics tablet. The Wacom Intuos Pro is the tablet anyone would be happy to have. I’ve worked with the Wacom Intuos line for years, and they are the best tablets for graphic designers and photographers. Here is my full review.
Are you an Adobe Dimension user? If your answer is yes, this video is for you. In these videos I show how you can create a unique design in Adobe DImension for any occasion.
The next update is for my readers who just started their journey in Adobe Photoshop. For you, I recorded a new “How to get started with Adobe Photoshop” video. Enjoy 🙂
Lastly: Spring is here! I love Springtime. Everything is blooming, fresh colors, warmer weather, and a lot of new inspiration is everywhere. This spring flower is for you.
Happy International Women’s Day, ladies! I wish all of you to be happy, strong, and love yourself. I love this day, and I was celebrating this day for as long as I can remember. Whether it was with greeting cards (made by myself or bought from the store), perfume, and flowers, a lot of flowers always were in the house on this day. My favorite flowers were yellow tulips. I still love them. Also, this day was associated with early spring. Today I want to share this day with you. I have news I want to share.
In celebration of International Women’s Day, I painted Frida Kahlo. Frida represents everything that I adore and respect in women. She combined a fantastic talent and beautiful artistic soul with incredible strength. She was a brilliant painter. Frida painted what she felt. She never thought about how to “fit into society,” not in her art and not based on what society believes how a woman should look. “Feet, what do I want them for if I have wings to fly.” She was a feminist, so am I.
I painted Frida many times. But I painted today’s portrait of Frida differently. I painted it in black and white (just like a picture of her that I saw). Look into her eyes, and you will see the beauty and the strength of her soul.
Painted in Adobe Fresco on Apple iPad Pro using Apple pencil.
Frida Kahlo
My other news for today, and I so proud and happy about it: Every year I mentor two girls for one year. During the year, I will build their knowledge in digital imaging. This program is free. The only requirements are: 1: a willing to learn 2: be from immigrant or minority community 3: be from a low-income family 4: have internet access I am doing this by myself, and I don’t have any support, so I can’t provide my students with the internet, iPad, or anything else. I hope one day I will be able to help with these requirements as well. P.S. If any of my readers want to help with anything, please let me know.
Now drum roll, please! I want to introduce my first student for this year – Tiffany Ferguson! She is 9 years old and a very talented girl. She loves working with Adobe Fresco, Adobe Photoshop, and traditional painting. We had our first two classes, and to be honest I am impressed with her progress and willingness to learn! I will be posting our progress every month.
Image by Renee L. Ferguson
Thank you Renee L. Ferguson for the behind the scenes images she took during our classes.
How to get started with digital painting in Adobe Photoshop
DATE: 02/04/2021 TIME: 5:00 PM ET
Do you want to start painting in Photoshop, but you’re not sure where to start? If your answer is yes, this webinar is for you. You will learn how to start your painting in Photoshop and how to customize your brushes and workspace. If you are a photographer and want to create your next masterpiece based on a photograph, I will show you how to do it. By the end of the webinar, you will be able to download a library with different backgrounds that you can use in your painting in Photoshop.
Part 1: Description: In this session, you will learn how to customize your workspace and brushes for your custom needs. Customizing your tools and workspace helps you to be more creative and making your painting process more enjoyable.
Part 2: Description: We all have different painting experience, style, inspiration, and vision. In this session, I will show you a few different ways to start your painting.
Part 3: Description: Colors play a huge role in painting. I would say that colors are the most powerful and important tool in any art. Sometimes when we just start our painting journey, blending colors could be challenging. In this session of the class, I will show a few ways of blending colors. You can choose the one you like the most.
Part 4: Description: I believe that we were born with an artistic soul inside of us. Most of us all want to paint. Creation is the primary language of the universe. I hear it all the time “I want to paint so much, but I can’t.” “I never painted before so I think I can’t paint in Photoshop.”In this session, I will show you how you can create your own masterpiece even if you’ve never painted before.
Part 5: Description: I believe that the most important aspect in any painting is to be creative and enjoy what you do. In the 21st century, we can combine both: the artistic and technical sides of our painting in Photoshop. The best part is that if we do it in a smart way we can pay more attention to the artistic side because the technology will do the rest. In this part of our class, I will show you how to do it.
We all want to have the freedom to create anywhere. Now with Adobe Illustrator on iPad and Adobe Fresco on iPad we can create art from anywhere at anytime. During this class you will learn how to get started in Adobe Fresco and Adobe Illustrator on iPad. By the end of our class I will provide you with a library of backgrounds that you can use in your next project.
Adobe Fresco on iPad
Part 1: Description: In this part, you will learn how to create a new document from scratch or how to use ready-to-go templates and how you can customize them.
Part 2: Description: Brushes play one of the biggest roles in a painting workflow. In this part I will show you the different brushes available for use in Fresco and how you can customize them to make each brush more unique.
Part 3: Description: Colors play a very important role in storytelling when creating art. In this part of our webinar, I will show you how you can use colors in Fresco, how to create new colors, how to use the same color across all Adobe applications.
Part 4: Description: The most common question people ask me is “how can I blend colors in digital painting?” In this part of our webinar, I will show you a few techniques for blending colors in Fresco
Part 5: Description: Live brushes in Fresco are incredibly awesome and fun to work with. I will show you how to use them, how to customize them and combine them together to create your next masterpiece.
Part 6: Description: How to start a painting and finish it using only one brush. How to use different brushes in one art piece. In this part of our webinar, I will show how to use different brushes, how to take advantage of different brushes in any painting.
Adobe Illustrator on iPad
Part 1: Description: In this part of our webinar, you will learn how to create a new document from scratch or use ready-to-go templates. You will get familiar with the beauty of illustrator on iPad, UI, and art tools.
Part 2: Description: I will show how to use the Pen Tool (you will never believe how easy and how much fun you can have to working with the Pen tool)
Part 3: Description: Colors are important. In this part of our webinar, I will show how to use colors in illustrator on iPad and how to use different types of gradients
Part 4: Description: Yes, we can blend colors in vector art and I will show you how.
Part 5: Description: How to create art in a smart way. In this part of our webinar, I will show you how.
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Hello everyone. Great to see you all here! Today is the day for many of you who asked me how you can convert your image into a painting if you are not a painter and don’t want to spend a lot of time painting. Topaz Studio is what you need. In just under 5 minutes, you can convert your photo into art. Let me show how. Open an image that you want to convert into a painting.
Click on Filter > Topaz Studio 2
Photoshop will launch Topaz Studio
Click on Add Look
Topaz will display a library with many different styles of painting looks (From Leonardo da Vinci to Pastel) that you can add to your image. I love many of them and I know you will as well.
Click on any look you want to add to your image. My favorite look is Cezzane so I will click on this look. After you specify the look you want, Topaz will display a slider that you can use to apply less or more of the painting effect to the image.
When we happy with a painting effect, we can click on Apply to apply this effect to the image.Now you can apply your personal touches to the painting to make it more personal and unique.
Click on “Impression.” Here you can change stroke, the number of strokes, and brush size.
From the Color and Lighting workspaces you can adjust colors and lighting in your image. I don’t use these features a lot because if I use Topaz as a plug-in in Photoshop, I prefer to adjust everything in my image before I launch Topaz.
Texture is my one of favorite features. Using the Textue workspace you can add texture to your image and the best part is that using Texture Strength you can adjust how much texture effect you want to apply.
After you are happy with everything you are ready to click on Accept and your image will return to Photoshop with an applied painting effect. This is how easy it is to convert a photo into a painting in just under five minutes.
Most of us feel better when we create. Some of us have painting experience, some of us don’t. Having no experience shouldn’t keep you from creating. I believe that all of us can create. Creation is our natural language and Topaz Studio makes our voices heard. If you wanted to paint, but never did before, today is the day. Start your art today with Topaz Studio.
I need your help. I started my new project that I have been thinking about for some time, “Art for support.” The purpose of this project is to bring positive emotions to child cancer patients. I will draw our favorite Disney’s characters and super heroes. But they will not be the “usual”look for these characters. All characters will have a bald head. I have been talking to many cancer patients and ALL of them were talking about how important it is to have positive energy and how important it is to understand and to feel that losing hair or any other visual signs of cancer is just a step to fight the illness. It’s the sign of your strength. If you ask me why the bald head? The loss of hair is the most common side effect of chemo therapy and of the cancer patient’s frustrations. Having our Disney and super heroes characters being bald means BEAUTY, POWER OF FIGHTING THE ILLNESS and HOPE.
Each character will be painted in my favorite applications: Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Photoshop Sketch, Adobe Illustrator Draw and I will be using Wacom tablets, iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. I am an artist, I believe in art, and I believe that art has a power of healing.
I will send the painted character to the child (who is beating cancer) with the child’s name on it ABSOLUTELY FREE. Also if any child want a specific character with his/her name on it, I will paint that character for that child. Again: THIS IS ABSOLUTELY FREE OF CHARGE.
I need your help. I am asking you to share this project and spread the word. Without your help, the children and their parents will never know about it.
Just like many of you, I LOVE and I’m a big fan of Star Wars. Because I am also The Photoshop Artist I decided to combine two passions into one to create fan art using the biggest passion in my life, Adobe Photoshop.
To bring inspiration to life shouldn’t be difficult
As an artist I find inspiration everywhere. Because we’re in the 21st century I don’t need to put my inspiration on hold because I’m away from my easel or computer. Now I can create from ANYWHERE at ANY TIME.
I love everything about Autumn. Inspiration is everywhere, in colors, in fresh air, in pumpkin flavor. So I feel that I need to create more and thanks to Adobe mobile apps I can create my art using my mobile devices.
Today I will share with you my Autumn collection I created using Adobe Illustrator Draw, iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. Where did the inspiration come from? From my yard where I am playing with my puppy, from the trees around the fence, from the fresh and beautiful colors of the sky.
Using Adobe Illustrator Draw I created a pumpkin. I spent probably about 20 minutes and my pumpkin was ready. Because I liked that pumpkin so much I decided to create another one.
Later on I was sitting outside with my puppy and our trees are already ready for the fall season so I decided to create another Halloween Art using Adobe Illustrator Draw, iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. I used the trees as an inspiration and created Halloween Village Art.
Using the same trees as inspiration I created a few leaves in Adobe Illustrator Draw, imported those files to Adobe Illustrator CC and created my new brushes out of those leaves. And now I can create any Fall art using my custom brushes.
The purpose of this post is to bring your inspiration to life. Don’t wait for the “perfect” time to create art. Whatever the inspiration is you will find it. You are able to bring it to life using your mobile devices and Adobe mobile apps. Don’t procrastinate…just do it…just create art anywhere at any time!
P.S. I uploaded all of my mobile Autumn Art to Adobe Stock and all files were approved for sale. Literally in 7 minutes after my files were approved, I received an email that I made a sale!!! Guess which file was sold??? My pumpkin!
My Wacom Cintiq Tablet Preferences.
Many of you have asked me to share my Wacom tablet preferences. In this blog I will share my preferences for my main Wacom, Cintiq 24HD.
I set up my preferences for easy access to the tools I use the most. These preferences help me to be more productive and speed up my workflow.
The Left Wheel:
I use the left wheel to Zoom In/Out my canvas. This option is very helpful in my painting and retouching workflow. With any selected/active tool I easily can zoom in/out my canvas without changing the active tool.
The Right Wheel:
I use the right wheel to increase/decrease the brush size. This method of brush size adjusting just perfect to my painting and masking workflow.
The Left ExpressKeys:
From the left to the right:
Modifier: Opt key
On Screen Keyboard (I use this option during my live stream or presentation to show my audience which key(s) I am currently pressing.
Scroll Up: Scroll the document up without changing the currently active tool
Scroll Down: Scroll the document down without changing currently active tool
Pan/Scroll: Scroll the document using Hand Tool without changing currently active tool (super helpful in my painting and masking workflow)
The Right ExpressKeys:
From the right to the left:
Back: Move the active layer down without changing currently active tool
Forward: Move the active layer up without changing currently active tool
Brush Panel: Activating the brush panel
Setting: Opening the current Wacom Cintiq Settings
P.S. With the Wacom Airbrush Pen workflow make sure that you have checked the “Transfer” box and switched to “Stylus Wheel” Control from Control Drop Down menus. It will help you to use in maximum power of Airbrush Pen.
. Because I am also The Photoshop Artist I decided to combine two passions into one to create fan art using the biggest passion in my life, Adobe Photoshop.
using 
Kylo Ren
and 
and 
. Where did the inspiration come from? From my yard where I am playing with my puppy, from the trees around the fence, from the fresh and beautiful colors of the sky.
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