Wow! It's been a while since my last post.

Unfortunately, I haven't had much that I've been able to talk about. I've been working on some top secret projects for clients lately. Hopefully there won't be much longer until I can reveal these new works.

In the meantime, I've had a little bit of time in between client crits to work on some studies. I've also started teaching myself how to use Corel Painter. I've had Painter 11 sitting in my dock for years now with the intentions of learning it 'one day'.  With the release of Painter X3 I thought I'd upgrade and sink my teeth into it.

So far I'm finding the program to be great. I love the range of 'traditional' media and the look that it gives my work. I feel like I'm going back to the time when I was only using traditional media, but it's digital! It's a great combination of a traditional media look, but without the mess. And that's one of the things that I didn't like about using traditional- I loved the look, but hated the mess... and the amount of time it took to mix the colour I wanted, not to mention the waste of paint when I couldn't get the colour 100% correct.

The only bad thing I could say about Painter is sometimes it's a little laggy when using big brushes. It's a lot a fast than Painter 11 though, I must say! Although I don't think I will ever give up on Photoshop completely, Painter has definitely become my tool of choice.

So, here's my first attempt at using Painter. A colour study using digital oil paints- photo ref by ioulex.com (with some differences).