November 5th was our last meeting for 2005. While there were fewer people in attendance than October, we were on par with our usual attendance numbers. This was good to see as we head into the holiday season.

Since this was our last usergroup meeting for 2005, J. Schuh did a “look back on 2005”. Among our accomplishments:

• Built relationships with a number of companies and organizations
• Set up the Educators subgroup
• Set up member discounts on industry books

This is just the start of what will be a great venture for us at GUILD, those that attend our usergroup meetings, and for those we work with.

We did something different this month. Instead of having a guest speaker and a separate demonstration we had a guest speaker do a demonstration. Dorit Rabinovitch (doritart.com) shared her experience and knowledge creating amazing paintings that look like something you would see on canvas at an art show, but are actually done using Corel Painter! With a tablet in hand and an idea in mind she creates images with this non-mainstream program. She often creates these paintings for magazines, newspapers, and books, but also creates storyboards for a variety of clients.

About 16 years ago Dorit came to Dallas from Israel, where she was a classically trained artist. Six years ago she was introduced to the Painter program. She tossed aside her classical painting tools and hasn’t looked back! Dorit explained that Painter was very intuitive for her and with her background in classical art she can translate the program into terms she knows and is comfortable with. She seeks out ad agencies for clients and gave us some advice.

• After finishing school put together a really good portfolio
• Use the internet to locate ad agencies and get information on them
• Avoid small agencies especially when you’re just getting started
• Make cold calls and ask for the Art Director personally
• Polish your speaking skills: good grammar
• dry and to the point
• show respect
• don’t treat the situation as if you are talking to a friend
• Work on a formula for your initial approach to a potential client - don't ad lib

Corel Painter v7 (Dorit's preferred version) is a raster based program with limited vector tools. She uses the tools as if she were really using brushes on canvas, allowing her to create a somewhat different look and allowing for quick changes when the client makes a last minute request (that *never* happens right?). The file format .riff is specific to Painter. Painter v9 is the current version with more advanced tools and features, and more efficient memory usage, but a very different interface. So if you have used a prior version there may be a significant learning curve.

Dorit only uses brushes and has no need for chrome or other fancy effects. With Painter she is able to take a “pencil” and a “brush", combine them and create a completely different look than either tool could do separately! Other cool functions are “scripts” that capture brush strokes. If you lose your work, you can play back the script to recreate the strokes you made. You can create your own custom script or even save created images to generate a movie! At the end of the meeting Dorit did a few sketches on a small tablet that we provided and it was amazing to see her work.

• Tablets that allow you to use a “pen” for drawing purposes come in sizes of 4x6, 6x8, and 8.5x11.
• Dorit does her work on an Apple G5 with a 30” monitor… yes a 30” monitor!
• Painter is priced from $250+ and often can be purchased with a Wacom tablet package.

J. Schuh pointed out that educators don’t want to teach digital fine arts. Maybe the GUILD can be a force for change in this area? hmmmm….

We want to thank Dorit for her presentation, and Steve Gonopolsky who assisted with the technical side of Painter v9. There is a potential for Corel Painter classes and we look forward to bringing those to you. Thanks to everyone that was able to attend this meeting and we’ll see you Next YEAR!!

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You can reach Dorit at doritart.com
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