I have Corel Painter and Adobe Standard Design CS3 software … no one knows everything about their software and in today’s busy world, using our software the way we know how to accomplish things or not knowing and not finding out can be common pitfalls of living in the Houston Metro area – long daily commutes, important projects that spill over into after business hours thinking and planning … those are just a couple of the things that keep intruding in our not-at-work time.
During this work layoff / looking for a new job time, I decided to make sure to spend at least 1 hour each day either learning something new or practicing an existing rusty skill in my creative software … Corel Painter, Adobe InDesign, Adobe PhotoShop and Adobe Illustrator.
I have several books that I bought and have read but never had the time to practice some of those new skills. For example, because I had been using Corel Draw at the day job instead of Illustrator & PhotoShop, I had forgotten about being able to straighten images while also cutting them out of photographs in PhotoShop … very handy and fast way to do things …. but after not doing it for several years … one forgets about little time savers like that and it is good to refresh one’s memory and skills … that is just one of the reminders and new skills I have had the pleasure of being a part of my life recently. I am looking forward to going back to work and meeting new challenges using old and new skills … I enjoy working … I enjoy making a difference … and a Technical Writer makes a big difference in people’s lives … our job is the difference between the light bulb going on or remaining off many times.
Yesterday, I worked with my Corel Painter X software … I had not created my own patterns or papers or added any extras from the CD to open so I had not worked with the selectors until yesterday. It was quite interesting to see how easy it would be to create my own textures for unique paint surfaces. Digital painting is exciting with all the techniques available to combine watercolors with oil and pastels or chalk for example.
Today’s project is more Corel Painter X … painting on textured surfaces with brushes I do not use very often … chalk! Today is a rainy day in Katy so it would not be a day to go outside and use chalk on a sidewalk but being at the computer … chalk becomes a marvelous artistic tool with no dust associated with it.