How to create cliparts from scratch

Suppose we need for the next OpenSource project a fancy looking Emperor penguin. The first step is to search for a realistic picture which is already there for example at Wikipedia Commons. Even the JPEG file looks great it isn't a clipart and it wasn't created by us. No problem, we can open the original file in GIMP and create a second layer on top of the first one. To get a smother linedrawing for the outline it is always a good idea to scale the whole picture up, at least to 2000 pixels width. Making the image smaller for exporting is always possible but for the painting process we need a lot of space. The best way to follow the outline is by hand with the pencil tool. Thanks to the layer we only need to paint again a line which is already there.

The reason why it is so easy to follow the contour lines has to do with two powerful features in GIMP. At first the undo tool and secondly the zoom. With both it is easy to create in a reasonable amount of time a well looking copy of the original image which can be filled with colors.

Tools for selecting the area are helping a lot to fill the colors exactly until the border, which produces a well looking penguin:

The resulting JPEG file is 43 kb in size, and can be seen as the own creation, that means the author has all the copyrights and can post the image everywhere. It is an artwork, created from scratch in an all-digital workflow.

Digital painting 101

The number of publications about digital painting is surprisingly small. Even experts like Craig Mullins are not mentioned in a simple Google search. So it is time to bring the development a bit forward and provide some introductory tutorials. One misconception about digital painting is to compare it with digital art. In both cases a computer is used, but digital painting has the aim to replace traditional painting technique like oil painting. Let us start from fresh.

The first what we need is gimp. It is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The version shown in the screenshot is outdated (version 2.8.22), newer versions of GIMP have more colors and better brushes. But as starting point the software is well suited. It has more features, then even expert painters ever need. So what can we do with gimp? In a classical sense, the software is recognized as a photo-editing tool for improving pictures taken by a digital camera. That is only one feature and will be ignored in the following tutorial. The more interesting scenario is to use GIMP as a painting tool for creating art which is not already there in reality. We are starting with some basic trials to bring colors on the screen.

What we see in the next image is a special tool, called “Smudge tool”, it helps to soften the transitions between two areas. It is known from normal art and allows to create special effects.

This tool can used more and results into a fast drawn picture. It looks similar to an abstract painting which was created offline but this time it needs less time. The above picture was created in under 5 minutes. It has a high-resolution and can be printed by a inkjet printer to any size. That means, a single artist can produce on one day not simple one image, he can generate hundreds of them. The most important function in the gimp tool is perhaps the CTRL+Z key. It allows to take back the last step like in a word processor. Such a simple function allows an amateur to get the same quality like a professional. That means, it is not necessary to be able to paint, it is enough to want to learn it.

But something is missing. Apart from abstract painting sometimes it would to have also realistic paintings, for example we like to have a SUV car. No problem, we are painting one from scratch, adjusting the colors and insert it into our artwork:

Sure, such a piece of art can be also created with the well known offline workflow. It is similar to what artists were doing all night long. But, digital painting has the advantage that is a lot of faster and can be handled by non-experts. That means, a super-realistic painting is not something which is done by professionals who have 20 years experience, it is something which the students are able to do after a two week training course. A pipeline around digital painting is comparable to a mixture of speed painting and concept art. And like a scientific document which was created with LaTeX it can be printed out and reach a much better quality then a normal artwork.

At the end some improvements were made on the picture and the result is:

Printing on poster format

Perhaps the most interesting question is how to print out the JPEG file on real paper. So called copyshops have a service called poster-printing and fine art printing. The idea is to use large format inkjet printers to print on 120 cm x 80 cm. Such a print produces costs of around 50 US$. The resolution should be at least 150 dpi which is around 12000 pixel x 8000 pixel (round about, the example is 255 dpi because 12k/47inch=255). The feature of poster printing has a longer tradition. It was used in the past to print out photographs and reproduce artwork which was created in the past, for example by Van Gogh. But, future artists are able to create the pdf file by it's own. And this pdf file can be copied on usb stick and printed out.

Like in the old style to paint, the quality of the paper and of the ink is important. And were are not talking about simulated colors, but about real ones. The new thing is, that the workflow is separated. Creating an image with gimp can be done without real sheet of paper, while printing it out is something which is different from it. I would guess, that in the future we will see lots of artists, who are working with an all digital pipeline. That means, in the art exhibition the original painting was printed out on an inkjet printer. It is not a copy of another drawing, but it is the original. That means, if the art exhibition doesn't want to show a printed copy of a picture, it is not possible that the painting of the artist can be shown. He has no other master copy somewhere in the basement, he has only the JPEG file stored on his laptop.

New art is focussing on output

On the internet there are two kinds of art tutorials available. The old one with a classical style and more modern oriented tutorials which are digital. What is the difference? The old style of teaching art is oriented on understanding art, or to be more detailed the idea is of reproducing the past. That means, the artist is taking a sheet of paper, has oil-colors, and is painting like van Gogh and others. In most cases the tutorial are grouped around the teaching of certain skills, for example to see the objects right, to understand the idea of perspective, to be familiar with imagination and so on.

Somebody may argue, that this way is the only one and is equal to THE art. But it's not. The new digital oriented tutorials have a different focus in mind. Here is the aim not to reproduce a certain workflow or a understanding of art, he is the focus on the result of art. In most cases, a painting is created with a purpose, for example the artist want to paint a flower. How this can be done is not important. One option of creating the result is simply put a photo on a copy machine and press the button. Another option is to copy and paste a jpeg-file which is already there. All of these techniques are valid pattern in creating art because they resulting into an output.

What new art is investigating (and what is described in the tutorials) are different ways to generate art in a productive way. Apart form simply using a photocopier it is also possible to start the GIMP software and draw the image with a tablet. The technique is not important. Instead of a tablet a mouse would work too and instead of GIMP another tool for example a vector drawing software is possible. What the artist is focussed is not a certain workflow or a certain understand of art, but he is guided by the results. He has certain conditions, for example an image created from scratch which shows flowers, and then he takes a technology which is helping to produce this output.

Stereotypes

The classical description of art was separated between online and offline art. Offline art is equal to painting with oil colors on paper, while online art is equal to digital art which is grouped around electronic photoediting. The gimp software was introduced as a classical photo-editing software tool. That means, a digital camera is producing the image and the gimp software is for making minor adjustments.

But, this clear distinction disappeared. Because Gimp is more then only a photoediting software, GIMP is a full blown electronic art-studio which allows to paint directly on the screen. The new better workflow is to use gimp for replacing classical painting. That means, the content is created nativly for the web, and is printed on demand, for example to present the work in an Art exhibition. The result is, that there is a difference between physical painting and the creating of the painting. It is possible to draw a picture without printing it out. The advantage has to do with costs. It is possible to create with GIMP much more images in a short amount of time, and without the need to buy oil colors for concept works.

In classical old school painting both working steps were made at the same time. While using the brush, the artist decides about the image. He can not paint without paint. Painting was about physical painting. In the improved workflow, the artist can create a complex oil painting without using real colors. He moves the mouse on the screen and using virtual tools like a brush, a pencil and so on. But, the old technique of using physical colors is still available. Because it is possible to transform any jpeg image with an inkjet printer into a real painting. In context of creating art, a normal desktop printer is not enough. There is a need for special A0 inkjet printers which provide a high-resolution quality. Such printers are available in photocopier studios.

What is the result of printed art? The result is mostly a higher productivity. Artist how are using a digital workflow with GIMP plus inkjet printers are not only drawing 2 images in a year, they are producing 100 images in a huge format. And they get printed out many thousands time. On the first look it seems, that not a single artist but a huge group of designers is behind the images, but it was a single person. He has optimized the workflow and is able to create any image the customer likes from scratch. What he has done is to replace a normal offline brush with computer hardware.

Resolution

One explanation, why computers are not very often used for paintings has to do with the limits of technology. The first painting programs were available since the 1980s and Andy Warhol used the top model for creating art. But, the output wasn't comparable to real art made with a brush, because the Amiga 1000 computer had a limited amount of main memory. If somebody is drawing on early homecomputers an image it will look like computerart but not like a real painting.

Let us define some preconditions to use the computer as a serious tool. Suppose, somebody want's to create a normal sized image which can be printed out in 40 inch by 40 inch (1 meter x 1 meter). A sufficient quality amount would be 300 dpi, the number of pixels is 12000x12000. Reducing the number of pixels isn't a good idea, because this result into a rastergraphics which can be seen with the normal eye from the distance. The key question is: how does look a computer like, who is able to process 12000x12000 pixels? And this is the bottleneck, the early computers in the 1980s were not capable of doing that. Even expensive workstations from that area are not suitable. The amount in Megabyte is 400 MB, that means, computers before the year 2000 were simply not powerful enough to handle this data.

Digital Painting and the revolution in art

The term digital painting sounds like a revolution. It can be compared with the term Open Access which is describing a new form of book publishing. The shared identity of both is the digital only idea. That means, it is a new technology which is grouped around computers and desktop publishing.

Before I want to explain digital painting, let us first define electronic publication. Electronic publication means simply to not print out a manuscript, instead it is a file on the computerscreen and is created, improved and read entirely on the screen. Instead of using mechanical typewriters and Linotype printing devices more modern technologies like the PDF fileformat and LaTeX is used to generate the output. The content itself, for example a manuscript about a scientific topic remains the same. That means, an electronic PDF paper has chapters, a bibliography index, and words written in English, like his offline ancestor.

Now, we can introduce “digital painting”. In contrast to electronic publication, digital painting is even more advanced. That means, that even progressive artists may never heard about the term. It means simply to not print out an artwork or use a traditional studio, but take advantage of modern computer technologies like a graphictablet, the JPEG fileformat and the GIMP software. Digital painting should not be confused with digital art. Digital art is a very traditional form of art, because the computer is the subject. A possible installation would be to use computer monitors in a art exhibition to explain to the public what technology is. Another example of digital art is the early homecomputer scene on the commodore C-64 which has programmed so called intros and demos. In both cases, the computer made a new form of expression possible.

Such digital art is not the subject here. It is something which doesn't contradicts the self-image of a painter who is producing an oil painting. That means, an installation which is using an arduino micocontroller can coexists to a normal 1x1 meter painting. This can be seen as a state-of-the art example and is widely excepted in the art system todey. The more radical form is to use computer technology to replace old kind of art.

An early form of this technique is called speed-painting and can be realized without using the GIMP software. The idea behind speedpainting is, that the artist is using normal materials like a pencil and colors but with a certain motivation. The aim is not only to produce a painting, but with the constraint of using not more then 10 minutes. So the artist is focussed on the output of his work. He is taken a stopwatch and he must be an expert for different painting strategies. He can't figure out how to draw while he is doing so.

Comparable to speed painting is digital painting. Here the pencil is replaced by a computerprogram and the idea is to produce a certain picture. Like in speed painting to, environment constraints like time, money and effort are very important. One example of GIMP and other tools is, that the artist has only a restricted amount of colors, for example 16.7 million of them and he can't use more of them. Also, the number of brushes is limited. If he need a certain type of the blue color which is not available in GIMP but only as a offline color he has a problem. Because the color is not available in the software and he must find an answer to the problem.

Let us investigate what Craig Mullins is doing. He doesn't program algorithms to generate a picture. This is called fractals. He doesn't scan in a picture with a scanner in 600 dpi and upload it to the internet, he doesn't use oil colors in the real world. On the same time he is painting pictures, but he is focussed on tools which are available on the computer. For example, he has a digital pencil and draws with it an artwork. Why he is doing so? Because he is not interested in the painting process itself, for example to work with oil colors, but what he want's is a result. The typical workflow of Craig Mullins is, that a customer needs a portrait and Mullins has to deliver in a certain amount of time. How exactly he is generating the image is not important. He is perhaps using photoshop, or he is using GIMP. That means, the aim is to generate a JPEG File which is 100 MB in size, and how exactly this image is produced is not important.

Defining art

... is surprisingly easy, because there is something available which is the opposite. This is called science and is structured into subjects like mathematics, physics, biology and chemistry. The idea behind science is to use the rational mind for recognizing the nature. The good news is, that everything in the world fits in one of these categories. It is either art or science. In general, art is creating something from scratch which was not there and results into a cultural history, while science is per default true and bans everything what is not science. The best example to make the difference clear is a perpetuum mobile. From the perspective of physics it is a failure and equal to non-science. It is something which violates the laws of nature and people who are trying to build such a machine are pseudo-scientists. The same device (a perpetuum mobile) is from the perspective of art a valid contribution. That means, it is possible to paint such a machine in oil and it is possible to make a video about it (which is fake, of course).

Painting is easier then expected

How does art work? It is mostly a mystery. The normal non-artist is imaging that doing art is something which depends from a certain person. That means, he has discovered early his skills to draw images, and over the years he become better and better. So it is a long and demanding journey, right? No it is not. Painting is very easy and can be mastered by everybody.

In a previous blog-post I explained the usage of gimp for tracing the contour of an image. The idea itself was the right direction, but the technique needs a bit improvement. In the previous blogpost I explained, that on the left screen the user should make the original visible, while on the right side he opens up the GIMP drawing software with the purpose to trace the lines according his eyes. There is a feature inside the GIMP tool which is extreme useful, called layers. Here is the tutorial for the absolute beginner.

Step 1 is to ask the google image search for an painting which is already there. That can be a certain motive, and it can be realistic. Step 2 is to open the jpeg file in GIMP. As default it will be opened as layer0. Step 3 is to create a second layer which we call “trace”. With the window menu it is possible to switch between the layer and make it visible or invisible. And now comes the trick. After creating the new layer, the menu asks us if want a transparent background. Sure we want. On step 4 we have both layers above each other and drawing the contour of the original image with the pencil. That is surprisingly simple, even without using advanced input devices. A normal mouse or trackpad is enough. In the last step we are filling the trace with some colors which can be similar to the original and exporting our layer as a new jpeg file.

Let us reflecting the technique a bit. According to the description, painting is equal to drawing contour lines of an image / photo which is already there. And the GIMP layer tool is the perfect choice which allows even for beginners to create his own masterpiece in under 5 minutes of work. No it is not a joke. The image from top of this posting was created in under 5 minutes and without much effort. Is it art? I don't know, probably yes.

Somebody may ask if trace back the contour of an image is not painting it is simple to create a bad copy. So what is the difference between tracing back the lines and making a photo? There is a huge difference, because our copy looks completely different from the original. If we are not telling the public what the template was they will never ever recognize it. And there is a trick available. Suppose, we want not to trace back a real photo or a real image but want to create everything from scratch. There is also a way to go. All what we need is a smaller puppet, made for artists. The puppet gets clothes and a photo is made. Now we are tracing back this photo. And voila, every part of our image was created really from scratch without copying anything. But to be honest, even this painting technique is a copy, because the workflow has always to do with open the original in layer0 and making the trace on layer1.

Impress the non-artist

If we are looking into some art schools and books about painting we will never find a similar explanation about the workflow. That means, the artist who are painting real images are not telling, that they are simple trace back images with the layer-feature of gimp. Question 1 is, are they doing so? And question 2 is, if yes, we they are not telling so? Answering the questions is easy. If everybody is able to create art, nobody will need artists anymore. And it might be also the case, that in former times it was not recognized widely that painting means always copying something. What in most art-schools of the past was teached is a certain type of copying. For example, the students are sitting in room and painting all together a flower which stands on a table. But painting has nothing to do with this situation. Because, in the example are many elements which are not important for the creation of the image itself. At first, it is not important to paint in a group, if somebody is alone in the room with the flower he will get the same result. The second aspect is, that an art school is also not a precondition. And the last point is, that a real flower is also superfluous. What I tried to describe in this blog post is some kind of minimal artist setup. This is a workflow which results into art, but is using a minimal set of ressources. The workflow consists of:

- in gimp layer0 is the original image, which can be a painting or a photograph from a puppet

- in layer1 of gimp, the artist is drawing the contour line and fills the colors with the aim to copying the original. He can add some noise to make the difference more obvious.