Core skills: Rebelle

Martin Hanschild shows how the painting program’s watercolour brush works.

Simulating traditional methods can be a challenge, especially watercolours. Over the years I’ve tried several techniques and many custom brushes to achieve that distinct watercolour look, and sometimes the final results were pleasing.

Yet how I achieved these results didn’t feel right. The workflow lacked the natural and organic feeling of the paint, didn’t properly replicate how colours diffuse across the canvas, and the effects achieved by blending colours together looked ‘off’.

With Rebelle, the painting process feels real, colours soak into the paper and blend together smoothly, and the program mimics the real-world experience. Note, however, that the watercolour effects are simulated on the canvas in real time, so you have to have patience. You also need to manage and dry the canvas to control the painting’s development.

The settings for the Watercolor brush are straightforward, with fewer options compared to other painting programs. But you can still affect the final result using options such as canvas texture, canvas wetness, tilting the canvas, switching between wet and dry surfaces, using a Fast Dry layer or a Dry layer option, and more.

In this month’s instalment I’ll introduce you to the basic tools and steps that you need to take, to maintain control over your watercolour work. But don’t forget to experiment and find your own way of working in Rebelle.