Created for the June 2021 issue of Photoshop User magazine, the following works are examples of using some careful selections and the Mixer Brush to create minimalist paintings. One of my ongoing areas of exploration is enabling painterly effects in Photoshop for non-painters. Rather than relying on filters and automation, I prefer to set up methods that allow the individual to use their own movements and instincts while creating something new from photographs. It's kind of like an advanced coloring book, where you get to choose your own lines and colors, and you can work from any image you like.
I started with Adobe Stock photos and chose my selections to be fairly minimal. This avoids having to deal with complex photographic textures and instead allows for more expression without getting hung up on realism. Depending on how the selections are created, the painter can opt for more or less variation. Saving the selection lets you turn it off and paint outside the lines, but still come back for more controlled or constrained painting.
Directionality and stroke control are very important to this technique, as they are with traditional painting methods. To get good control I paired my Wacom tablet with the Monogram Creative Console, a hardware controller that allows me to set things like brush rotation, hardness, paint mix, load, wetness, etc. all with dials and sliders. Since the technique is all about expression, why not map these features to something physical?
In the following example, I struggled a bit with choosing which part of the mountains I wanted to work with. Using the selection to copy the photo to a new layer let me blend and drag the pixels into a running, melting effect. There is a little color enhancement, but the main element here is turning off the active selections to pull the paint down along the canvas.
