sidewalk chalk

[Diane]

How can I make something something look like it was done with sidewalk chalk, using Impressionist or whatever.. Any ideas ?

[Kraellin]

hi diane,

almost all of the paint programs like photoshop, paint shop pro, corel paint and so on, have a 'chalk' brush or even a chalk filter. naturally, these are just simulating the look of chalk. and, if you've ever studied a chalk line and chalk itself, you'll notice that chalk is always pastel, meaning a color with a lot of light/white/bright added to it. and a chalk line is almost never completely solid. there are almost always holes, missing spots in where you've laid the chalk down on paper. in the paint programs, this is changed with a 'density' setting. the higher the density, the fewer misses you get.

now, the question i would ask here is, do you want to create something from scratch, or work on an existing image? the techniques may well be different. working from scratch you'd be using mostly chalk type brushes, where in working on an existing image you might be working more with chalk type filters.

Craig

[Diane]

I want to work on an existing image. I have tried using different chalk settings with impressionist plugin and photoshop but couldn't exactly get what I wanted to achieve.

[Kraellin]

diane,

ok. how bout posting something you've done and show us where you are with it and then, if you've got something as an example of where you'd like to get to, post that too so we can get an idea of where you are and where you want to go.

Craig

[Diane]

I want the soft
blurry drawn look but I was trying to get a rough background behind it too
with cracks in like the pic from link site of the woman leaning
forward...

http://www.pbase.com/savannahga/image/28279485

[Kraellin]

is this kind of what you mean?

Craig

[Diane]

Wow that is what I wanted ! How did you do that??

[Diane]

this is what I want to do a sidewalk chalk effect to if possible..
If you can share the techinque , so I can use it on other images.
thank you
Diane

[DannyRaphael]

Impressionist does a few things well, but "chalk" (IMO) isn't one of them.

A brush I like to use in Photoshop is "Chalk 36". I dunno if this is quite the look you're looking for, but maybe...

[NancyJ]

Heres my take on it - its a mixture of dark strokes, noise and sprayed strokes. The with a mid tone paving slab overlayed (hard light) on top.

[Bill M]

Here's my best interpretation.
Bill

[Diane]

much thanks for your interpretations of the sun ..all terrific !
Diane

[Alcar]

Just one more. Alan

[Kraellin]

masterful, alcar

diane,

the chalk effect was done essentially two ways. paint shop pro (psp) has a new 'art media' mode. in that mode is a 'chalk' brush. but, i found that a bit limiting. so, i went back to a simple brush, though not the default brush tip, and lowered both the opacity and density of the brush. lowering the opacity means you get the whole thing not as solid when you paint, and lowering the density means you get skips here and there. then, i used only pastels colors from the palette. so, that gives you the 'chalk' look.

but, i also made a separate layer for the background. on this layer i used a gray flood fill with a texture applied to the fill. i forget exactly which texture i used, but i just wanted to simulate a sort of concrete look. i just flood filled the entire layer. i then used a normal brush with a 'size' of about 4 or 5 and kept the same texture i'd used on the flood fill, only this time i set the tip to blackish color and drew a line across the fill layer. i then made the tip even smaller, like 2 or 3, and chose a whitish color and drew on the edges of the black line to give it some depth.

and that was pretty much it. oh, and in there somewhere i did duplicate the chalk layer and gausian blurred it a bit, as if someone had smoothed the chalk around a bit. i then used a blend mode on this layer to bleed it into the other chalk layer. this step would be optional depending on if you wanted a straight chalk or a smoothed chalk.

this technique shld work in most any paint type program. the tools used are pretty much standard tools.

Craig

[Panpan]

Here's my attempt at a chalk rendering.

Pierre

[Kraellin]

ok all you talented people, diane wants to know HOW you do this. so, post your techniques as well as your gorgeous renderings! (very nice, pierre! )

Craig

[Diane]

Wow , my jaw dropped on these latest renderings.. thank you to all who posted, for taking the time to do this and post it..
Diane