Charcoal is an artistic medium that is preferred by some artists because of its capability to

produce stunning drawings despite how simple it is to work with. It is often used when creating black-
and-white illustrations, or those with limited color variations, on paper or on canvas.

Throughout history, artists from all over the world have been using paper and canvases to draw their
masterpieces on, and we can now see them hanging in galleries all over the world. Today, thanks to
computers, art is no longer limited to canvases, art galleries, and museums. Nowadays, you can create
digital charcoal drawings. In this lesson, you will learn how to emulate painting media like charcoal,
water color, acrylic, and oil using Adobe Photoshop.

Drawing in Charcoal
Using a pen and a tablet has its advantages over a computer mouse because the latter does not have
pressure or tilt sensitivity, which is necessary to easily drawing darker and thicker strokes, as well as to
easily change opacity, color intensity, and other brush settings. It also feels more natural to use a pen
to draw, compared to using a computer mouse.
Before making your first pen and tablet sketch, first get a feel of using your device by making a line,
some shading, a shape, or whatever else you want. You can also play around with density using a
shading technique called hatching, which is commonly used when creating charcoal drawings. The
following are some types of basic hatching patterns (Heaston, 2013).
NOTE
There are several brush points in the Brush menu, and to access these click on the down arrow button
beside the Brush Type option in the option bar. Then, click the Gear menu located in the upper right
corner of the brush window display, which will open a list of preset brush pattern types. Click Reset
Brushes, then click OK, to replace the current brushes with the default brushes. Click on the gear icon
again and click on either the Small
List or the Large List.
From the stroke examples above, what is a nice brush point that would give a stroke similar to that of
a pencil’s? Chalk 11 pixels or 17 pixels, Dry Brush Tip Light Flow, Watercolor Small Round Tip or Oil
Medium Wet Flow? Take your pick.

Now that you know what brush point to use for your pencil sketch, start a new drawing or, if you like,
use a photo. To use the latter, put the photo in a new layer, give it the name Photo, then decrease its
opacity. Make another layer, place this new layer on top of the photo layer, and then draw on this new
layer.
It is possible to create a black and white drawing from a colored picture. Use your own, colored picture
while following along with the example pictures that follow. To start, open your photo in Photoshop,
duplicate the photo layer and name the duplicate layer Duplicate1.
Click the adjustment layer next and choose Hue/ Saturation. Leave the hue as it is, but bring the
saturation all the way down to -100% to make the colored photo look black and white. Then, change the
blending mode from Normal to Color Dodge to create greater contrast, then make the light tones dark
and the dark tones light by using CTRL + I. This is called inverting, and it produces and effect similar to
the negative of an old-time celluloid-based film camera. Another way to invert a layer is to go to Image
under the Application bar, scroll down to Adjustment, then scroll down to Inverse.
With the image now inverted, go to Filters under the Application bar, scroll down to Blur, then scroll
down to Gaussian Blur. Select a radius of 1.9 pixels to retain the finer details of the image.
Refer to the image on the right. At this point, it should start looking like a pencil sketch. Duplicate the
background layer, place it on the very top and name this new layer Duplicate2, then go to Image in the
Application bar. Scroll down to Adjustment, then desaturate. (You can also do this by pressing CTRL +
SHIFT + U.) With that done, go to Filters in the Application bar, scroll down to Stylize, then scroll down
to Glowing Edges.
Adjust the filter settings for the pencil outlines as follows: Edge Width to 1, Edge Brightness to 4, and
Smoothness to 5, then click OK. The image should have turned dark, so invert it again by pressing CTRL
+ I, then change its blending mode from Normal to Multiply to make the black pixels visible. In this case,
the black pixels are the pencil outlines.

To create shading, again duplicate the background layer, position it on top of the other layers and again
desaturate it, then name this layer Duplicate3. A different filter will be used to shade this layer, so under
Filters, click on Sketch, then Charcoal. For the settings, use a Thickness setting of 1, a Detail setting of
4, and a Light/Dark Balance setting of 48. Click OK, and your image should now look something like the
image on the right.
Note that some of the details were erased by using the Charcoal filter, so the next task is to make the
details resurface by making a layer mask on the Duplicate3 layer. Note that when you paint using black
on a layer mask, the pixels that are selected are hidden, and in the case of the picture you are working
on, this will hide the charcoal filter.

Start by pressing on the Add layer mask icon at the bottom part of the Layers panel near the adjustment
layer icon. Note that the foreground color should be black; if not, press X to invert black and white on
the layer.
Your image is almost fully edited. Make a new layer and, using the pencil stroke type brush you selected,
add some lines as finishing touches to make the drawing stand out. Then, create another layer, set the
foreground to white and then paint white on areas that draw focus away from the subject. Your finished
image, when placed side by side against the original, should look like the image you see on the left.
Sketching and Coloring in Watercolor
You will now be creating watercolor-type images on Photoshop, and the brief discussion below will give
you a greater appreciation of how creating an image with watercolor effect relates to watercolor
painting in the real world.
There are actually four wet and dry techniques used in real-world watercolor painting, namely: wet on
wet, wet on dry, dry on wet, and dry on dry. Wet on wet means applying wet brush bristles on wet paper,
and with this technique the paint would spread on the paper. This kind of technique can be duplicated
on Photoshop using the following brush points: fuzzball, water color loaded wet flat tip, and airbrush.

Wet on dry refers to using wet brush bristles on dry paper, and this can be duplicated on Photoshop
using the following brush points: watercolor small round tip, and oil pastel large. Below is an image of
the wet on dry technique. Notice the paint was unable to spread because the paper was dry.

Dry on wet refers to using dry brushes on wet paper, and at least four brush points can duplicate this
technique: airbrush dual brush soft round, rough round bristle, oil medium wet flow, and charcoal large
smear. The picture below is an example of a dry on wet technique. Notice that the paint was able to
spread a little on the paper, but not as much as it did using the wet on wet technique simply because
the brush bristles were dry.

Dry on dry refers to using dry brush bristles on dry watercolor paper, and using this technique is a
challenge, as watercolor needs water for the colors to come out. In Photoshop, at least four brush
points can duplicate this technique: dry brush, dry brush tip light flow, hard pastel on canvas, and chalk.
Combinations of the brush points noted can also be used, and working with different blend modes,
filters and tools can make the image look better. You can now make a watercolor painting from a photo
using Photoshop, and can follow along with the picture used as an example.
First, open the picture in Adobe Photoshop. The background layer has to be unlocked first, so hold the
ALT key then click the lock to do so. Name the image Base, then make a duplicate layer and name it
Smart Blur.
Go to Filters > Blur > Smart Blur. Adjust the radius to 10, the threshold to 20, the quality to high and the
mode to normal, then click OK. If your photo has a face on it, it should now look smoother.
Now, duplicate the Base layer again, name the new layer Pencil Lines, and place the layer on top. To
create the pencil lines, again follow the path of Filters > Stylize > Glowing Edges, and adjust to the
following settings: edge width to 1, edge brightness to 15, and smoothness to 15. After clicking OK, the
picture will become black, so Invert it, the same way you did with the charcoal image earlier. Then,
desaturate the image and change the Blend mode from Normal to Multiply.
Next, select the Smart Blur layer, duplicate it and name the new layer Brush. Invert this new layer, then
change the Blend mode from Normal to Color Dodge, making sure that the foreground color is black
and that the background color is white.

Now, click the Brush tool, pick Dry Brush from the menu, then reduce the opacity to 10%. Increase the
brush size to 200 pixels. Open the gear icon again and choose Wet Media Brushes, choose Watercolor
Textured Surfaces, then press Enter to close the panel.
Increase the brush size to 300 pixels before brushing on areas of the picture, then observe the area that
you just brushed on. You should notice a watercolor effect in the picture. You can now work on other
areas of the picture by increasing or decreasing your brush size to bring out more color and contrast.
If there are some unwanted pencil marks on the image, make a layer mask in the pencil layer by clicking
Add Layer Mask in the Layers window. With the layer mask created, increase the opacity to 80% and
then start brushing lightly over the pencil lines to either lighten or remove these.
Once that is done, deactivate the pencil layer by clicking on the eye on its layer, then select the brush
layer by using CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + E. This will make a composite snapshot of the image. A composite
layer is a layer that combines all the active or visible layers into one layer on top without flattening the
image (flattening means reducing all the layers into a single layer). With the composite layer activated,
go to the levels window. That done, drag Input Darks to the right until it is at the point where the
histogram starts to rise, then click OK to make the pencil lines layer visible.
Finally, go to Filters in the Application bar, scroll down to Texture > Texturizer > Sandstone. For other
adjustments, scaling must be 100%, relief must be 2 or 3 and the light must be from the top; and once
these have been selected, click OK.

Your picture should now look similar to the example picture in that, from afar, it may still look like a
colored photo, but if you look more closely you should see several brush strokes that look like these
were done using watercolor.

CONNECT
A layer mask is a way to make a layer, or parts of a layer, invisible or visible, and can be used for both
regular and adjustment layers. The colors black and white are the default colors of layer masks, and in
the two previous activities, black was used to hide the charcoal filter in the drawing image and pencil
lines in our watercolor painting.
Since masking layers is a way to make a layer or parts of a layer disappear, you can also use this as a
kind of eraser. For example, you want to put another background in the picture for our subject but do
not want to erase a portion of it (keep the original picture intact, in other words). Just add a layer mask,
then paint black over the areas that you want to have vanish. With that done, you can now make a new
layer under the layer mask and either fill it in with a different color or place another photo there, one
with the background you want.

The Basics of Oil and Acrylic

The beauty of Adobe Photoshop is that both oil and acrylic techniques can be used; and because layers
are used, it does not matter what element of the painting is worked on first. Moreover, certain effects,
such as Blur, Smudge, and Dodge can be used, along with filters like Smudge Stick and Texturizer.
Open a new document with a width of 9 inches, a height of 6.5 inches and with a resolution of 300.
After making the new document, pick the brush called Brush Heavy Flow Scattered. Make a new layer,
name it Sky, and pick various tones of blue and start painting the sky. Note that you can start with the
blue sky or a white cloud; it makes no difference.
Keep the same brush point, make a new layer and name it Mountain1. Mountains from afar look a bit
dull and dark, especially if it is cloudy, so pick a dark color for your mountain, but also add a lighter
shade of green to create the impression that there are trees in the mountain. Erase some of the clouds
with the Eraser tool to make it appear like there is fog on the mountain.
Add another layer and name it Mountain2. This second mountain should appear nearer than the first
mountain, so add more green and more brush details.
After making the second mountain, make a new layer and name it Fog. Use a grayish color to draw the
fog, then decrease its opacity to make it look like real fog. Note that, once you have created a good fog
effect, you can duplicate this layer and put it in another area.

Next, do the foreground. Make another layer, name it Foreground, and paint a green field. Use several
green tones and use the smudge tool to create the blades of the grass.
Note that you can use brush points not only for brushing but also for other tools and effects like
smudging, erasing, and the like. For smudging the foreground in the image above, a rough dry brush
was used.
The next layer to created is the middleground, which is where the trees will be located. Create a new
layer named Trees, then start painting the dark tones of the trees first, then the mid tones, and then the
light tones. With that done, create texture by smudging using the rough dry brush.
Once done with the trees, save the file as .psd so you can have a copy of the layered file you created in
case you want to continue working with it later. Now, flatten the image by going to the gear icon of the
Layers window and scroll down to Flatten Image. Before saving the final version of the file, first go to
Filters > Texture > Texturizer. Click on Canvas, then click OK to make it appear as if the drawing were
done on canvas. Click Save As... and change the format to a jpeg file. The completed image should look
similar to the one below.

Adobe Photoshop can be used to create different artworks that can look like charcoal drawings,
watercolor paintings, and oil or acrylic paintings using special brush points, different filters, numerous
blend modes, and various tools. Layer masks can be added if something in particular needs to be
hidden in the image.
Visual art is a medium of expression that can take so many forms. As mentioned earlier, drawing,
painting, sculpture, and installation art are but a few examples of visual art. Each of these forms has
evolved over time. Even just drawing and painting, the main focus of this course, have utilized various
types of mediums through the ages.
Ever since computers have become widespread, artists have been using computers to create digital
art. Digital drawings and digital paintings fall under this category, but so do other styles. In this lesson,
these other styles of digital art will be discussed. In addition, basic exercises on how to draw abstract
and realistic drawings will be explained later on in the lesson.

The Different Styles of Digital Art

One popular digital art style today is 3D art or three-dimensional art. 3D artists create 3D art by editing
polygon meshes using software like Maya and 3D Max. With it, specific geometrical forms can be
molded into polygon meshes that form various shapes. Some movies today use 3D art in animation.

Drawing is also considered a digital art style because drawings can now be done using digital devices.
Photoshop has several different tools that can be used for painting and airbrushing, such as the brush
tool and the gradient tool. As a result, digital mixed media is now also possible. An artwork is created
using at least two digital art forms, such as digital painting and airbrushing, or digital drawing, photo
manipulation, and fractals.
Fractal art is a new style of media art that started in the 1980s. It makes use of fractals, or shapes that
are created using an iterative numerical mathematical formula. The drawing produced, which uses
shapes and colors repetitively, can sometimes reveal a recognizable subject but can also be purely
abstract.

Pixel art is simply artwork that is made up of pixels; Adobe Photoshop creates pixel art. PAC-MAN is
an example of a character made using pixel art, and while he appears rounded, closer inspection will
reveal that the character is actually made up of several yellow squares, or pixels, that are joined together
in such a way that these form a circle.

Photo manipulation is when two pictures are combined to make it appear that the combination is just
one image. It is often used when superimposing an object onto a different background, or when
combining two different images that have similar textures. It is also possible to modify only one image,
performing edits such as transferring specific elements from one part of the picture to another.
Photographs are usually the sources of the images that are manipulated.
Text art is like pixel art, but instead of using colored squares, or pixels, to form a character or subject,
colored fonts or letters are used. Typography is a related form, dealing with arranging, modifying, and
designing letters. It is important in advertising, merchandising, publishing, and information technology.

Vector art is created with programs that work with vectors, of which Adobe Illustrator is one. Vector art
uses points, lines and curves which are connected to each other in various ways, so that, if ever the size
of the image is increased, it will not appear pixelated. Vector art is often used for logo designs because
they can be used in big advertisements like a billboard as well as in small corporate material like
letterheads. The same logo can be used for both, then shrunk or increased in size as needed, and it will
still be clear.

There are other categories of digital art, but these just discussed are the most common digital art styles.
You can practice drawing using your pen and tablet or make a digital mixed media art from scratch. If
you have pictures from a camera in your computer, you can try manipulating them to create a
completely different picture. You can also try stylizing the alphabet to create your own typographic art.
Experiment on these styles using the Photoshop skills you have already learned.

Creating Abstract Art

Abstract art, as discussed in an earlier lesson, is an art style that involves the distortion of an image to
varying degrees. One of the most famous abstract artists, Pablo Picasso, created his own version of
abstract art called Cubism by presenting an object from many different angles and laying down all these
perspectives into a two-dimensional space. Abstract art also takes other forms, such as the complete
replacement of a certain object or idea into another very different image.
The example artwork that will be done in this section is a step-by-step process of how to create a Cubist-
style abstract artwork, similar to something that Pablo Picasso might create.
Open a new document in Adobe Photoshop, and since Picasso used a lot of squares and abstract cube
forms in his paintings, start by adding some cubes and squares in the background. You can use a
polygonal lasso tool to make a selection and filling it in using the Brush tool.
After having finished doing the background, make a new layer and name it Guide, as this will be the
guide for our subject—in this case, a man playing the electric guitar. Draw the man out, either with a pen
and a tablet, or with a mouse. Refer to the following example as your guide.

Create a new layer, on which you can break the guide drawing down into various shapes and forms that
you can work on. Start with the head, body, and upper right arm of the man, using a combination of the
Polygonal Lasso and Elliptical Marquee tools to make the angled shapes and the oval shapes,
respectively. With these shapes created, color inside these as you see fit, then shade and contrast as
needed.
Next, work on the arm of the guitarist and the body of his guitar, using the various tools you have learned
in previous lessons. Refer to the guide layer when making the shapes, and always confirm the contrast,
i.e. if part of the subject is light in color, then make the background darker, and vice versa. With that
done, you can then complete the strings and knobs of the guitar, and then the hand that is playing the
chord. Once you are done, feel free to sign your name on the lower right.
This is an example of the finished digital abstract artwork. You can then add textures, such as Canvas,
if you want.

Realistic Painting Using Adobe Photoshop

Compared to abstract art, the creation of pictures, drawings, and paintings that portray things as they
are in real life has a much longer history, going all the way back to the cave paintings, as discussed
before. The only major changes in these drawings are what kind of objects they depict, and how realistic
they are.
For this next exercise, you will be creating a digital painting of a concept car. Use as a reference a digital
picture or drawing of a car. Note that an example car will be used for purposes of illustration and
demonstration in this exercise, and this will most likely not be the same as your reference.
This object will require a lot of airbrushing, so start by changing the present brush menu to the default
ones. Then, open a new 9x6.5 document with a resolution of 300 dpi, make a new layer, and paste on
it the reference photo or drawing you have. If the image is smaller than the workspace, click Edit >
Transform > Scale. To preserve the proportion of the image, press SHIFT + CTRL + ALT, left-click using
your mouse or pen, then drag outward until the size of the car is the right size to work on.

Make a new layer and name this Car Body. Use a selection tool to select the body and fill it with a solid
color such as bluish gray, like the one used for the example. Then, make another layer and name it Car
Glass. Using this new layer, select the glass part of the car and paint it with a dark color, preferably
black.
The example car has two visible car wheels that can be worked on: the front and the rear. Make a new
layer and name it Outer Front Wheel. Select the front wheel then color it light gray. The resulting wheel
will look flat, so to add some depth you need to create a smaller version of the wheel with a different
color. To do this, duplicate the layer and rename it Inner Front Wheel. That done, go to Edit > Transform
> Scale or Skew, size the wheel so that it is now slightly smaller than the original, then change its color
to dark gray. Make sure it conforms with that of the larger wheel on the Outer Front Wheel layer by
scaling and skewing it as needed.
To create the rear wheels, duplicate both Inner Front Wheel and Outer Front Wheel layers, then move
these both to the right side using the Move tool to position them just on top of where the rear car wheel
of your image is. Scale and skew the wheels both down until they are exactly the right size. Once done,
rename them to Outer Rear Wheel and Inner Rear Wheel, respectively.
This is the drawing of the concept car so far. You will notice there are four layers for the wheels, a layer
for the body, and a layer for the car glass. You can create a new group for the wheels by clicking on the
New Group icon, which is located between the New layers icon and the New Adjustment Layer icon.
Name the new group Wheels, then select the four wheel layers and drag them all into the Wheels group.
After, drag the Wheels group just below the Car Body layer, making Car Glass the topmost layer.

NOTE
There is a downward arrow in between the Wheels group eye and the Wheels group folder. Clicking on
this will hide the four wheels layers, and you can once again see those four wheels layers by clicking on
the arrow that points towards the Wheels group folder.

Make a new layer and name it Car Glass Mid Tone, since you will now be creating a reflected image on
the glass. Using the selection tools, select the reflection part of the car glass and give it a flat and dark
bluish gray color, then make another layer and name it Car Glass Highlights. With the selection of the
Car Glass Mid Tone still on and the Car Glass Highlights layer activated, set a bluish white color for the
foreground, then use the airbrush brush tool to brush over the top portion of the selection; 100 pixels
should be good for the brush size.
Next, create the car glass dark tones to make the car look more three-dimensional. Make a new layer
and name it Car Glass Dark Tone. With the selection of Car Glass Mid Tone still on and the Car Glass
Dark Tone layer activated, set a dark blue color for the foreground and air brush some parts of the
selection. Once this is done, make a copy of all three reflection layers (Car Glass )
There Glass Reflection1 layer activated, pick the Blur tool in the Tools panel and blur the edges of this
layer. The concept car image should now look something like this.

Make a new layer between the Car Glass layer and the Car Glass Reflection1 layer and name it Car Glass
Reflection2. With this new layer activated and the selection of the Car Glass layer on, use the airbrush
brush tool to make some colored tones and tints in the remaining part of the car glass, preferably using
red, orange and some other dark colors to make the car look more three-dimensional. Then, make
another new layer, name it Car Glass Minor Details, then add a few lines across the hood of the car.
That done, create a new group, call it Glass and put all the glass layers in it. The image should now look
something like this.

Work on the gradients of the body. Start by making a new layer and naming it Car Body Shadows. Pick
out the parts of the body that you want to put some shadows and dark midtones on, then start filling
these in with the colors you desire, making any necessary adjustments using the Blur and Smudge
tools.
Make another layer and name it Car Body Dark Areas. Select one of the dark areas of the car (such as
the front) to work on, then Feather it by pressing CTRL + ALT + D. Select 1 pixel radius, then click OK.
Fill in the selection with a dark color and repeat the process to create the dark parts of the car.

Now, for the finishing touches. Create the Finishing Touches1 layer, which will be for the highlights, and
a Finishing Touches2 layer, which will be for lighting or shade effects. Place the Finishing Touches1
layer above the Car Body Shadows layer and the Finishing Touches2 layer beneath it. Then, create a
group called Body and drag into it the five following layers, in this order: Car Body Dark Areas, Finishing
Touches1, Car Body Shadows, Finishing Touches2 and Car Body. This will then complete the three
different groups of the image, Glass, Body, and Wheels, which will make it easy to identify where specific
layers are located.
Activate the Finishing Touches 1 layer, select the parts of the image that you want to highlight, and
highlight these accordingly using the Blur, Smudge, Burn, and Dodge tools. Activate the Finishing
Touches2 layer, then create shade effects on the side of the car.
By now, your image should now look something like the following.
There are still some more finishing touches to make. Make a new layer and name this Car Body
Highlights and place it on top of the other layers. It is on this layer that you can create the highlights
that will add depth to the car.
Additionally, you can also put a layer mask in the Car Body layer because, as you put some colors on
top of the other colors, these might not go so well with the dark base colors on some of the lower layers.
To use the layer mask, make sure that the Car Body layer is activated, then click the Add Layer Mask
icon. This will put another thumbnail beside our car body layer, where you can then see there the layer
mask that will be created. Place a black color to hide the bluish gray color behind the concept car and
also the lower portion of the side of the car.
That done, activate the Car Body Shadows layer and activate a layer mask for it, then fill up different
areas on the side and the back of the car. Again, the Blur, Smudge, Burn, and Dodge tools will be very
helpful in creating effects once the selections have been colored.
All of the other details that can be put underneath the Car Body Shadow layer will be created in the
Finishing Touches2 layer.
Even as you work on the drawing, you should always observe and analyze it as a whole to see what
else is missing. Notice as well that the layers are categorized in groups for ease of organization, and
the groups are themselves organized.
Once you have worked on the layer masks and layers, the finished body of the car should look
something like this:

The only things missing now are the tires and the shadows. First, select the two outer wheel layers and
use the Dodge and Burn tools to give these a metallic finish. Next, create an effect on the inner wheel
layers so that they will appear that they are concave by first selecting the two inner wheel layers, then
use the Radial Gradient under the Gradient tool.
Now, make two new layers under the Wheels group and name these Front Tires and Rear Tires. Place
these two new layers at the bottom of the four layers in the Wheels group, then use the Elliptical
Marquee tool and create the tires on these layers. Use Scale and Skew to get the position right and use
the Blur and Dodge tools as needed, and once finished, darken the background behind the tires.
The very last layer in this image is for the shadow of the car on the ground. Create a new layer and
name it Car Shadow. Make a selection using the Rectangular Marquee tool, and then apply a high
feather value to create a blurry edge around the shadow (a 5-pixel feather radius should be fine).
Fill the layer with a dark color, and the finished image should look similar to the following.