Digital tools for traditional painters training: Krita (macOS guide)
For Windows users, see the Windows guide
Now that we have finished step 1 and installed our workspace preferences, we can move to step 2 and familiarise ourselves with Krita's interface.
To open Krita, move your mouse to the bottom of the screen and click on the below icon on the dock
To quit Krita, it is not enough to click on the red button - you also need to click on 'Quit Krita'
To create a new document, click this icon (the document, not the program, contains your work)
Whenever you stop to think, get into the habit of clicking 'Save' - otherwise, you might lose your work. The first time you save, Krita will ask you to name your file and where you would like to keep your file. The icon in the middle is how you can open an already saved document.
At the top of the screen, you will find your toolbar. Here it is, cut into three parts, left to right.
- Pick a color from the outer circle.
- Then pick the color's brightness and saturation from the inner triangle.
- Click on the 'drop down' menu to reveal sets of brushes (e.g. 'RGBA' for paints or 'DEEVAD' for David Revoy's brushes)
- Select a brush from the available brush icons
- Here, you can create new transparent layers to sketch and paint on.
- Use the
+symbol for a new layer. Reorder layers by dragging them above or below each other. - Temporarily 'hide' a layer with the 'eye icon' on the left of a layer.
- The 'padlock' icon temporarily locks a layer, so you can't accidentally alter it.
- Krita saves its work as a file using the
.krafile suffix. It also saves a 'back up file' in case of emergencies, so be sure not to open that one instead! - Don't worry about deleting your work on a layer. You can 'hide' the layer temporarily (using the 'eye icon') and decide later if you want to keep that layer.
- Painting with the eraser. You can 'sculpt' larger paint strokes by cutting off parts or making other details with the eraser as you would in the real world.
- You can also use the selection tools on the top right to 'cut shapes' using the
ShiftandAltkeyboard keys and painting into only that selected area.
- To zoom in and out, you can use the 'scroll wheel,' which is the middle button on your mouse. To zoom back, so that your drawing fits the screen once more, click the button 'Toggle Zoom Fit to Page' on the toolbar (see above).
- Once you have already laid colors on your canvas, you can choose from these colors using the 'eye dropper tool,' which looks like this, on the top right. It's useful for more painterly blending of your colors.
- Make use of David Revoy and others' brush sets. These people have tried to make digital work a less technical and a more easy going experience.
- Try 'locking the pixels.' Clicking this button will lock the layer, so you can't paint new shapes, but will be able to re-color your existing painting. The darker paint on th e'sculpting a horse' image above made use of locked pixels.
