How you would go about achieving this abstract style

[Kit Holdridge]

Hello,

Long admirer and now proud owner of the software. I've always loved art but am a musician first and foremost whilst my sister was the visual artist. We both respected each other's territories so to speak !

I want to create something that looks like this (see below) I've already experimented a little (see further below) This was achieved by using the Oil Knife Dry 2 with the paint and mix setting and pigments enabled. Then using Quinacridone Magenta, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Titanium White and Paris Blue. Finally I used the smudge tool with the Flat preset and had a bit of a play around. I did this on a small scale and then enlarged it. I should say I don't think I'm close yet but

Just curious if anyone else has tried this style of scraping oil paints abstract work and if they could give me any tips. I'd like to try achieve the streakiness that you can see in the yellow area and the cyan area. I should say I know I'm not close more just if I'm along the right lines for what's possible with what I've done already.

Thank you in advance,
Kit

 

[2dpainter]

I deleted my post, because i did misread your post
thought it was about a directional blur effect
sorry

 

[Melampode]

Very cool that you're branching out from music into art, and you are indeed on the right track! You can use whatever brushes you like to apply the color. I encourage playing around with different ones, and laying them down in different ways--lines at different lengths or angles, wiggles, spots, splotches, spirals, whatever--to see what happens when you go to smudge them!

To get the streaky effect you're looking for, though, you'll want to use brushes that are more "broken up" instead of solid. In the Smudge tool section, the Spiky 2 brush would be the closest option. But, you can also use any brush set to Blend (if you want to avoid adding more pigment) to smudge things! Within the Oil brushes, you'll probably have some good results using the brushes under the Flat and Rake subcategories. But again, I encourage testing out other brushes as well, to see if any of them have cool effects that you enjoy!

Bonus note: enlarging things will blur, soften, and/or pixelate things. So working close to the final scale you want (or, if possible, larger) is the general practice, in order to preserve details like the fine lines of the streaks. That's just a general guideline, though--if you like the effect enlarging the image gives, you should do what you want. Art is play, and Rebelle makes playing with colors particularly fun!

Bonus bonus note: once you get a handle on Oil brushes, you should have a go at playing with the Watercolors. You can get somewhat similar color blending by using the Tilt function to let the water run in a particular direction. (You can also Pause Diffusion, put colors where you want them, make sure Tilt is at the angle you want, then unpause and watch the water go!) It'll be softer/more blended, rather than directly streaky, sorta like the orange-magenta sections. But you can also get texture from the active canvas more involved, and even swap between different canvases to get different textures (as the pigment keeps its texture when it settles), so it opens up a ton of possibility there. (And there's a separate Water tool, too, which you can also use on Oils to get them to run! Or any brushes, really, though the effect can be subtler on "dry" media.)

I hope that helps! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

 

[Kit Holdridge]

Hey Melampode,

Releases abound and though it'd be nice to commission someone I needed to make some cover art and it's long been my want to paint them myself a la Joni Mitchell.

I've since had the chance to play around with the different paint brush types with differing results. I think I was on to a winner with the first combination I tried as it happens but that's not to say I didn't like the other results. Markers were quite interesting for example I seem to recall.

Good to know I suppose the dirty brush setting and also fan and other such brushes that might not create solid lines of colour. Maybe making my own is something to explore or asking in the community ?

Ahh now that is most interesting - hadn't thought of that utilising blend that way ! Good results with Flat so far but I will try Rake also the next time I find myself in-front of Rebelle ! I think that's the thing it's just a matter of experimenting and that's part of the journey that can't be rushed !

Indeed though I will say love how it's handled - it never looks bad, if anything has been quite inspiring to use it as an effect if the paint has become almost transparent. I agree, it could just be my setup and the canvases that I'm working on but sometimes the smudge tool has a hard time keeping up. I suppose I work on a smaller canvas where it can catch up and then enlarge with Nanopixel Export ? That it is !

Indeed, seen some very cool videos on that and keen to try and follow along when I'm feeling inspired to !

Very much - thank you ! I'll keep you posted with my progress !

 

[Kit Holdridge]

p.s Here's some more recent attempts before I'd heard back ! New methods to come !