Southeast student hosted Digital Paint Shop

Southeast Missouri State University senior Kim Wells hosted a Digital Paint Shop on Wednesday, Nov. 16, in the Heather MacDonald Greene Multimedia Center.

Wells said she wanted to try something different with painting, instead of its traditional usage. Now she wants to teach her skill to fellow students at the university.

“I always want to challenge myself, and digital paintings were another way to do so,” Wells said.

Wells said there will be another digital paint shop on Nov.30 in the Heather MacDonald Greene Multimedia Center, for those who missed the first session.

Well said believes that everyone can have a different styled Photoshop painting because she says “It depends on artistic art style.”

Well said she strives for realism in paintings, She does support those who make painting with unrealistic qualities.

“I’m inspired from pictures online to do my painting,” Wells said.

Like many artists, she gathers her inspiration from other pictures for what she will paint next.

During the workshop,a women’s picture was used for the colors and an outline impression for her features.

From there workshop attendees used the eyedropper tool and selected the colors of her skin and filled the outline with a 30-percent opacity of that color in the same general spot as the original.

Texture of the skin would slowly form over time after several overlays of the paint brush, making and building a portrait painting of the women.

“If a student is looking to learn Photoshop skills this can come in handy.” Kim Wells said.

“I thought this was interesting and we learned shortcuts on Photoshop.”senior, Bridget Bingham said.

Many students gain the knowledge not only of painting the portrait they had that day, but also that there are many shortcut keys they can use in Photoshop that are kind of like macros. (keys that are programmable to make certain things easier to use.)

Wells even learned the ALT key instantly switches you back and forth from the eyedropper tool when the brush is selected.

If the student doesn’t have a computer at their disposal, the digital paintshop has MacBook Airs the students can use. Wells encourage more students who want to learn a digital technique to painting to come to the next workshop.

“I’m hoping to see how Kim does what she does and learn more about the program we’re using,” Bingham said.