openCanvas1.1 is a lightweight, versatile, and FREE painting program for Windows with some networking capabilities built in.  It's an awesome tool with an easy-to-learn interface, and it packs a lot of power for a free program. 

For the purpose of this tutorial, I'll assume everyone reading has oC1.1 on their machine and is acquainted with basic aspects of the interface.  If you don't have openCanvas, and/or need to figure out how to set it up, you can download it/troubleshoot it here.  If you want to see some really basic tips and tricks (many of which I am about to repeat here), you can check out my earlier tutorial on deviantART.

I am also assuming that all readers have access to a drawing tablet.  My own tablet is a medium-sized Intuos3. 

openCanvas is produced by PGN, and a full list of their products (including the most recent retail versions of openCanvas) along with community support is available on their website.  I am not affiliated with PGN or portalgraphics.net and have produced no official material for the company or their products. 

Note that a lot of what I will cover here is based on my own stylistic choices.  This is a tool with potential that is only limited by the mind of the artist!

Let's get started! 

1. Sketching

My canvas size is 3000 x 2000.  I've started sketching in light blue simply because that's my color of choice for sketches, but you can obviously use whatever color you feel most comfortable with.  My sketch is pretty basic, as I am comfortable with my ability to make snap decisions about details once I switch to my "ink" lines and therefore do not feel overly inclined to produce a detailed sketch.  I always prefer to work large, partly because it is easier to scale down than it is to scale up and also because the large size of the piece will help hide tiny imperfections. 

When sketching, I generally set the opacity of my sketch (blue) layer to about half.  I do this because openCanvas does not allow users to lock layers, and keeping my layers at different opacities makes it easy to spot when I am drawing on the wrong one (i.e. trying to ink on the sketch layer). 

2. Inking

To ink, make a new layer (separate from your sketch layer) and keep it at full opacity.  If you accidentally start drawing on your sketch layer at any point and your sketch layer is at a low opacity, your marks will appear light and you'll know you're in the wrong spot.  Clever, eh?  Here you can see my sketch layer (at full opacity just for the sake of this tutorial) with my main "ink" layer over it.

To ink like this in openCanvas, use the pencil/pen tool, turn off the brush transparency, and set the minimum radius size to 0. The maximum size can be whatever you want, but I find that a very large max. size can be difficult to control precisely.  You can see the exact brush I was using to do my lines in the above screenshot. 

Tips for making smooth-as-butter lines:  I make long, brisk marks across my tablet surface, and I often have to undo and repeat these many times before they turn out right. I prefer drawing marks rapidly because my they are less inclined to wobble with my pulse or relative to my caffeine intake.  I also think this bold, quick approach makes a drawing look more natural and gives it a subtle air of confidence.  If you're having a ton of trouble making your lines look consistent, open your tablet properties panel on your computer and bump up the hardness of your pen.  In my opinion, openCanvas has a tendency to soften the feel of the pen more than other programs, and this sometimes makes it difficult to get a consistent line width. 

My own artistic background happens to be based mostly in precise pen and ink work.  Depending on how much inking you've done in the past, it may take some practice to get your ink lines to look just how you like them.  There are also many different styles and approaches when it comes to inking, so be sure to check out the advice of other artists as well.

Erasing:  I never use the "eraser" tool in openCanvas.  It is rather clumsy to use, and instead I tend to opt for simply making my brush color pure white and painting over any part of a multiply layer that I don't like.  In this piece, I alternated between using my standard black pencil/pen (as previously described) and a white version of the same pen as an eraser. 

Symmetry:  If you look closely, you'll see that the primary feathers in the wings of the phoenix look the same.  I used a simple trick to copy one wing and flip it!  Here I will demonstrate:

Here, you can see I have a basic line drawing on one layer.  I duplicate this layer by selecting the layer and then selecting Edit > Copy Active Layer on the layers window.  I now have two identical layers stacked on top of each other. 

Now, select one of the two identical layers.  In the "layer" window, select Filter > Flip Horizontal (Active Layer).  If you are successful, you will now have a flipped version of your original image on that layer!  After I did this on my phoenix piece, I turned my sketch layer visibility off and merged the two separate ink layers back together.  Make sure you erase any parts of either layer that you don't want to show BEFORE you merge them, otherwise you're in for some tedious erasing later.

3. Inking, continued

My sketch layer is invisible now, and it will remain that way for the duration of my session.  I frequently create new ink layers for various parts of the drawing and then merge them back together.  The scroll, for instance, was originally a separate ink layer.  Merging can be dangerous, however, because oC's merge function will merge ALL visible layers.  This is a great reason to make your sketch layer invisible early - it can be disastrously difficult to fix if you accidentally merge it into your inks.  I often save my file under different names as my drawing progresses (i.e. phoenix-01.wpb, phoenix-02.wpb) to allow myself to return to an earlier version of my drawing later... just in case.

Here you can see I've added some detailed hatching lines to my drawing.  These are on a separate multiply layer, because yikes... can you imagine trying to erase those off my primary layer if I decided I didn't like them? 

Anyway, now the inks are done.  Hooray!

4. Color background

On a new multiply later, lay down a single color with the rectangle tool.  I've picked this color carefully to represent the overall feeling I'll want the drawing to have when it's finished.  I like to make my background color dark and then paint in lighter colors because I like the particular effect it makes, but this is personal preference.

5. Coloring, part 1

On the same layer as the background, I've started very gently painting in a light red with a large watercolor brush.  The light red circle is the color of my brush, so you can get a feel for how little pressure I used when you look at the wings.  I am also keeping the position of the red circle in mind as the approximate position of my light source. The red circle will remain on the canvas so I can easily reference it with the color picker when I need to use that color again. 

Here, I've added a new color and put a little more pressure on the red in areas illuminated by the light source.  Again, you can see that I've placed a dab of the "gray" onto the canvas so I can pick it up with the color picker at any time.

Adding another color, this time giving some thought to developing a smoky background.  Note that my pressure is still very low and my brush size is rather large.

Here is the basic colored version of the drawing... it will get more complex from here.  Note that I have only used 6 colors so far; the background + the 5 in my color palette (the circles).  At this stage, I feel fairly comfortable with my general color placement along with how I have begun to do the lights and darks.  When I blur my vision, I am able to procure a very general idea of how this piece will look when it is finished.

6. Coloring, part 2

Now that I've done the basic shading, I switch my tool from the paintbrush to a medium-sized pencil/pen.  I set the minimum size to 0 and turn the transparency ON.  Then, using the same color palette as I always have been, I start to gently paint in some highlights.  In this detail of my drawing, you can see that I'm trying to imitate some of the mark-making techniques I used to do the inks.

At this point, I am not afraid to switch back and forth between the watercolor tool and the pencil/pen tool.  I have finally added a new color to the mix, also - the bright red. 

Here's a shot that shows considerably more work done.  I went for a sort of stylized, burning outline around the drawing that makes the phoenix look like he's glowing.  If my colors get too intense, I can color-pick the background red color and paint it back into any areas that need to be softened or subdued. 

Here is what the whole piece looks like at this stage.  Notice that I've added in a blue in the background and that I've blended in a dark greenish/black/gray to the bottom of the canvas.  I have done this because by themselves, the reds, oranges, and yellows I was using were laying really flat with no complimentary colors to make them stand out.  Now that I've added some contrasting colors, the reds and yellows really pop. 

Note:  ALL of this coloring was done on one layer.  openCanvas does not allow you to do "normal" layers like Photoshop, only +, -, or x layers. 

7. Highlights and Lowlights

For the first time since I started coloring, I am making a new layer, and it's a - layer.  - layers can be tricky to use and understand, and the best way to get a feel for them is to just start messing around.  Basically, any color you have selected and paint into a - layer will seemingly be pulled out of the painting (or at least, that's my understanding).  I select my original background (dark reddish) color with the color picker and gently paint some choice areas of the - layer with a large watercolor brush, including the very bottom of the canvas and other areas in the background. 

You can see that the areas I've painted are now sort of greenish in hue. 

One of the last things I will do to my painting is add in some highlights on a brand new + layer.  You can think of + layers as highlight layers.  Whatever you paint on them will lighten any pre-existing area of your painting toward something that is more or less the same hue as your brush.  Anything painted onto a + layer will only appear in places where the overall painting surface is darker than white, and will not show up on white at all.  Above, you can see that I used a gold color and a watercolor brush to highlight various areas of the painting.

Above, I made two layers to demonstrate further how + layers work.  One is a basic multiply (x) layer with blocks of color, and one is an + layer with a simple wavy line painted on it with a watercolor brush.  The stripe is the same color as the gold block, and you can see how it interacts with the various other colors here.

To eliminate any glow or lowlight effects you may have painted onto your + or - layers, make the color of your brush black and paint over anything you don't like.  Black essentially acts as a transparency on a + or - layer, just as white acts as a transparency on a multiply layer.

The + layer is great for adding moody lighting effects to your painting.  Green highlights can provide objects in your painting with a sickly or otherworldly hue.  Gold is great for adding flame-like warmth.  Blue tends to make things seem cold or icy... you get the picture!

8. Finished!

After feeling content with my work on any piece, I like to allow a short reflection period and then look at it again later with fresh eyes.  Upon seeing this piece again today, I felt I had gone a little overboard with my highlights, especially on the scroll. I toned the highlights down on my + layer and made the red stripes at the bottom of the piece (colors multiply layer) more consistent in their behavior and appearance, which is another thing that had been bothering me. 

Here is a detail of the piece! 

9. Layer tips and tricks

Here are my layers for the completed phoenix piece.  It is useful to note that if you are making a brand new + or - layer, it is most wise to create them from the "Layer" dropdown menu instead of trying to convert an existing multiply layer (you can cycle through layer types by repeatedly clicking the +, -, or x icon on any layer).  The reason for this is because white is essentially treated as a transparency on a multiply layer, while black is treated as a transparency on +/-ion layers.  Strange things start to happen if you convert (for instance) an almost entirely white multiply layer into an + layer.

You can also see from this screen capture that I have an unused "Shadows" multiply layer.  The phoenix piece ultimately turned out very dark, and so I did not feel that it would benefit greatly from the application of shadows.  I have a quick demo of a shadow layer in action on this old deviantART guide (STEP 4) however, if anyone would like to see it.

10. Color tips and tricks
There is one rule I very rarely break when I'm painting:  DO NOT PAINT WITH STRAIGHT WHITE OR BLACK, UNLESS YOUR PIECE IS 100% B/W OR GRAYSCALE.  This is actually something my traditional painting instructor taught me back when I was learning oil paint techniques.  Light sources are almost never straight white, and shadows are almost never straight black.  Other tutorials may disagree with this advice, but I advocate shying away from black or white altogether in nearly all cases. 

The one exception to this rule might be in cases when you are working on a white background and attempting to achieve a "marker" or "watercolor" look, like this:

I did use white here and this IS an openCanvas drawing.  I never use white in any case when I am working on a backdrop color, however, as I did for the phoenix painting.

To achieve some other interesting color results in openCanvas, I recommend experimenting with painting complementary colors over one another with the watercolor tool.  Gold over a dark purple, for instance, can be really amazing.

11. Thanks for reading!
Thank you for reading my tutorial!  If you have comments, questions, suggestions or if this tutorial has helped you in any way, I would love to hear from you!  You can find my contact information here.  If there is demand for another tutorial of this nature, I will do my best to oblige.

While you're on the site, feel free to stop by my illustration gallery or check out my projects, including my popular hand-painted shoes!  You can also follow me (@Poj5) on twitter or on deviantART, or check out my tumblr blog which features something new almost every day!

Think I would make a fun addition to your company?  I'm currently looking for a job, too!