Week One: Introduction to Painter and the Brush Engine
An overview and topological exploration of the Painter GUI. The first step in learning Painter is becoming familiar with its interface and how to navigate it. Students will learn to understand and manage the many palettes and how to maintain optimal canvas accessibility for their painting experience. In the first week, students will set up a digital painting environment if they do not have one. Discussion will take place on the Wacom digital tablets and how they support the distinctive properties of the brushes which leads into the introduction of the wonderful brush-engine within Corel Painter.

Exercises, in week one, will encourage exploration and experimentation with the default brushes to familiarize the student with the various characteristics of the different categories. Examples of artwork from Ballistic's Painter volume, and other art sources, will provide inspiration and demonstrate the painting capabilities of the program throughout the course.

Week Two: The Mutable Brush - Brush Anatomy 101
Week Two focuses on looking at the anatomy of a brush within Corel Painter. The power of the Corel Painter brush-engine is in the amount of controls you have for defining your brush. This is also one of the more overwhelming aspects because there are so many variables. While Painter provides a wealth of pre-made brushes, the more you understand how the brushes work and what determines how the brushes paint, the more you can vary them to attain more customized brush strokes.

Exercises, in week two, teach the students to safely make brush variants using donors from their prebuilt library. They will build and save their own library of customized brushes that will grow as the class continues.

Week Three: On the Surface - Paper Grain
One of the more alluring and interesting aspects of Painter is that you can work with paper grain and there are a number of brushes that interact as you paint. Students will learn how to work with Papers in Painter and create their own from a variety of sources. Scanners and digital photography, as well as creation through Painter and other image editors, will be explored as a means of developing a surface for your work. Knowledge of how Painter's brushes work with paper grain will give insight into the selection of sources you might otherwise not think to consider.

Exercises, in week three, focus on brush interaction and the creation of customized paper surfaces through tiling and other methods.

Week Four: Soak It All In – Watercolors
Whereas the week prior's brushes empahsized scumbling the surface and adhering to the underlying texture, watercolor brushes reveal theirs by soaking into the grain and virtual crevices which pool the pigment. Painter watercolors are unique in their application and ability to diffuse and pool and interact with a variety of surfaces from subtle to heavily textured.

Exercises, in week four, will have the student investigating the two types of watercolor categories available to them from the Painter brush-engine: watercolors and digital watercolors and how each differs.

Week Five: The Big Buildup – Impasto
Impasto is the application of thick layers of paint onto a surface. This week will look at the dimensionality of Impasto brushes from soft, feathery strokes to quick build up texturizers, goopy brushes and loaded palette knives. The most common medium which comes to mind for impasto is oils, but we will also look at acrylics and the ability to add depth to almost any medium.

Exercises, in week five, present the student with opportunities to express their work with the two watercolor categories and the many types of brushes within them.

Week Six: Chalk it up to a bit of fun - Pencils, Pastels and Chalks, Oh, My!
All the soft stuff - square chalks, soft pastels, blendable oil pastels, soft pencils, vine charcoals - and some of the hard stuff - conte sticks pencils in harder grades. We will continue to develop the paper library we started and probe deeper into the effects that these tools can produce with an overall texture and how selective use of paper grain in precise areas can add textural variety to your paintings. We will also analzye the use of live interaction and application of texture after the fact.

Exercises, in week six, allows the student to scrutinize the wide range of categories that this week encompasses. From quick sketches to full illustrations, this grouping of brushes offers many experiences.

Week Seven: The Virtual Inkwell - Inks and other media that cover
Liquid Ink, Gouache, Sumi-e and Tinting are among the wonderful brushes capable of stark or delicate imagery. From the look of turn-of-the-century posters to the bold power of inked illustrations to the beauty of japanese brush painting, students will learn the versatility of this week's grouping.

Exercises, in week seven, delve into the diversity of graphic approaches within these brush categories.

Week Eight: Thinking Outside of the Box - putting it altogether and more
In this last week of the course, emphasis will be on how to mix media that cannot possibly coexist on the same canvas in the real world. The use of brushes, papers and other tools within Painter will be evaluated and the student will be asked to push the envelope of the brushes through experimentation.

Exercises, in week eight, encourage students to showcase the papers and brushes they have created.

Level of Ability
Students of all levels of ability are welcome to enroll in this course. Students need to be familiar with web navigation and browsing, as well as email. Students need to be familiar with using a bulletin board system (such as CGTalk.com).

Software and Hardware Requirements
Students must have access to a machine (PC or Mac) with the necessary hardware to run Painter software.

A web browser and internet connection is required. Broadband is not required but highly recommended for the amount of high quality images to be downloaded.

Resource Requirement
Although not a requirement, it is recommended that students purchase the book Painter from Ballistic Publishing and the Painter IX Wow! Book by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis . This book is highly recommended as a companion to the class, as well, for its abundant reference information on Painter.

Extra Details
Corel Painter IX.5 is on special until September 30th.
*Painter IX.5 Box for $279 USD (SAVE 35%)
* Painter IX.5 Upgrade $149 USD (SAVE 35%)