Snow and Tree (Digital Impasto)

Snow and Tree (Digital Impasto), a photo by randubnick on Flickr.

Tonight I used Painter to make this little digital painting, using the digital impasto oil brush, something I am trying to learn. The imagery is fairly easy, inspired by our recent snowstorm. But even with the easy subject matter, I was really struggling to control the brushes and the "digital paint". This is only the second time I have tried the impasto oil brush. (In Painter, each type of "digital paint" acts differently, emulating what would happen with the real life paint. So in digital impasto, the "paint" goes on thick at the beginning of the stroke, but then the color fades and blends with surrounding color, just like real oil paint.) Well, I was getting pretty frustrated until I realized that i needed to let go of the idea of control. This is a work in progress, not a finished piece. I plan to work on it some more tomorrow.