Photos converted to truly paintable images, downloaded, printed then painted over.
An effective solution for creating your own artwork easily and professionally from ready made, or custom made templates from photographs, retaining the necessary detail of the original photograph to form a truly paintable image.
Essential help whilst learning painting
Website Versions
There are two versions of this site available. Click the appropriate link for your preference, but you should still be able to access the site contents by simply scrolling this text version.
Also please visit the new sister website Is a new website for anyone who has an interest or collects vintage & old postcards. |
Learn to paint photos efficiently by this quick and simple mehod - DIY artwork from snaps for beginner and skilled alike.
Simply visit the freebies section, download, print and paint the photo-graphic
Image 3 is the one which is printed on any printer-friendly artists medium, then painted over to the palette of image 2. Note the paler greyscale tones within image 3. These paler tones palette correspond to the palette of image 2. The rule being to start with the darkest shade first and complete all of that shade, then proceed and complete the next darkest shade, and so on. Note that the darkest area is deleted within image 3. All of the tones are within almost invisible contour lines so one can delete all the larger areas of any tone within the image 3.
See the guide for a detailed description on how to manipulate the picture templates and a quick and easy method on how to paint your own pictures like photographs.
Go create an arty snap
The images are in bitmap format and comprise of 2 parts, the image to copy from, and a paler image within contour lines. These are downloaded from this site, and the picture 2 can then be printed on any artists printerfriendly medium, and painted over using any suitable artist materials.
To keep things simple, and indeed the most effective end result, these pictures are geared around greyscale shades, but that is not the limit, after some experience is achieved, your pictures are designed to be altered or replaced with colour by yourselves at a later time. Or if you would prefer a different format, they can be converted to the familiar paint by numbers style.
After printing the paler picture on a suitable artists medium of your choice, the idea is to paint over the paler picture to the pallet of the original. And if mistakes are made, there are no worries, just print off as many copies as you wish!
Please refer to the guide section for extra tips, instructions and recommendations., there is also help for people unfamiliar with art packages, though the pictures are designed to print and paint immediately.
Please visit the freebies section for immediate downloads, for the use of good practice whilst you are learning painting, some easy and some more complex. These are all zipped bitmap image sets.There are plenty to choose from..
You can also submit via email me your favourite photos or pictures, you may wish to have converted to the format for painting over. Be it popstars, they really turn out well regarding the popart look! or loved ones, scenic, or pictures already painted before (digital please!).. See submit for more details.
There is also a selection of material for children, including a few cartoons, and are coloured in similarly to paint by numbers with the difference of colour coding instead of numbers. These can easily be converted to the paint by numbers style if you prefer. Also there is a selection of colouring books and games. Please visit the kids stuff .
Introduction
artysnap.com is a solution for creating your own artwork easily and professionally from ready made, or custom made picture templates from photographs, retaining the necessary detail of the original photograph to form a truly paintable image.
We have printed these on canvas, acrylic paper, watercolour paper, and various other mediums are available for printers, and then painted over using any suitable artist painting or drawing materials.
See freebies, Click on a thumbnail, to enlarge the picture, find one of your choice ( we recommend The Munsters to start) and click the download button, and a zip folder will be downloaded to a location of your choice on your computer, after unzipping it you will see that two bitmap files are contained within a folder like thes below. Click here for the Munsters zip download.
Quick Start
1.Unzip your zipped folder with your favourite archiver, and place pictures in a location of your choice, you will notice 2 .bmp files (bitmaps). Save them as other names for backups.
2. Open each by double clicking on them. You should have the 2 pictures same style as these.
3. The second picture is the one we shall look at for now, so close the other. We will presume you are using Windows Paint here .If you just wish to proceed and print your picture template, then go ahead, go into page setup from the file menu, and set scaling, or sizing picture to print 1 page only. Then go into your printing properties and select best possible printing, just greyscale for now and print. But take a look at the palette in the picture below first. The 'here' is the palette for the colours within this picture, note how the black colour is missing to save printer ink. The palette 'paint' is the palette in picture 1 above, recommended to paint.
It is recommend you test initial printouts using ordinary A4 paper first, you can use the A4 paper for painting practice. Paint all of the missing black areas first, then proceed to the next darkest shade and so on, it is very important to complete the darkest areas first, when painting greyscale. The reason being that where you have two similar tones, if you start lightest shade first, they very easily look very much alike. That is why the colours printed are always lighter than the colours to be painted.
To clear the larger areas of colour, or colour replacement
4.Click the magnifying glass tool, in the top left of the screen.
5. Move the rectangle to Hermans head and click., and you should see the large dark grey area of his forehead like in the left image below.
6. Click the fill tool to select the little fill can mouse painter, and move mouse to the part you wish to delete in the picture, and right click somewhere over the large grey area, and the image should look like the right image below. If an error is made, go into the edit menu and select undo.
Notice how the grey contour line is still there, this is useful for adding and taking away colour. The reason being, it keeps that colours borders seperated from its neighbours colour.
This technique can be applied to image 2 for compiling colour schemes. Notice the reddish area, sometimes it maybe necessary to break larger areas into smaller sections to replace your desired colours, simply add a line at your desired break point, and fill the area with colour as shown above.
7. Proceed as in step 3.
Creating a simple paint by numbers format for greyscale.
Open image 2, select the text tool, (see 'paints' help) and type number 1 in an area of the lightest shade of grey within the picture, then proceed to type no.1 in all of the areas you can find for that shade, and assign the no.1 to the relevant palette colour, and then proceed to the next shade of grey and so on until all of the areas possible are filled with numbers. Then when you are happy all of the areas have a number proceed as described in section 6. to delete the colours.
A quick lesson using a simple method for painting pictures
Of course its all about preferences. Being as this style is based upon signwriters pop art style graphics, I much prefer to use a signwriters type brush for lining or edging, an inexpensive lettering brush no.1 like Windsor and Newton is more than adequate for this task as no blending is required, and just two filling brushes will be just fine to fill in the paint for medium to larger areas. A hand bridge I find is essential to keep the hand steady. I use a homemade version which consists of a length of floorboard 30x10cm with a couple of little thin blocks nailed at either end to raise the underside of the board about 1cm above the painting surface. It is also wise to pad the bottom of the blocks to prevent rubbing and scratches etc.
I start lining the edges of a black area first. Lets suppose you are using acrylic paints, preparing that lining brush is crucial, wet it, then gently pinch it between some absorbant tissure paper, starting at the base of the bristles and keeping it slightly pinched wipe the excess water in a motion to the bristle tops, resulting in your brush being a damp slightly flattened blade. The consistancy of the paint applies to other types too. Dilute the paint slightly depending on your preference, but I find the paint being creamy in texture to produce clean sharp edges. Place your board in reach of your desired area and keep your hand steady to produce even pressure, resulting in an even line thickness. Line the whole area, do not let your brush clog up, clean regularly, then fill it in, and proceed to the next area. I advise you complete all of that shade in the picture before moving on to the next darkest tone.
Click a left link to see pic. and click zip link to download zip templates
Latest submission Coastline Kindly submitted by Andrew Grundstrom
A brief note from the webmaster
All material contained here within this section is within the public domain, meaning you are free to do with this material as you wish. Material that was here previously, referring to the sections Cult Tv, and Television have been removed due to the fact I have no power to state that they also can be placed within the public domain that I desire. I apologise for any inconvenience to anyone concerned. But I wish to keep this section free!
Submit your photo or picture
Click the submit photo link below, then type your message giving details, dimensions you would like the picture etc. then insert, or attach your picture and send. Please, send it zipped, or .jpg or .gif format, or any other archiving method will be acceptable.
I will then place your images here temporarily, and then place in an appropriate category, giving you full credit for the submission along with any information relating to your pictures, unless you request otherwise.
If you have any questions, you can also click the
Coastline - rar - Coastline is the latest addition, kindly submitted by Andrew Grundstrom
Welcome to the childrens section!
Colouring pages
Click link to see the book
Paint by Colours
These are similar to paint by numbers, colours instead of numbers. Included is a detailed contour outline template so you can convert to paint by numbers yourselves if you wish, also included is a simple colouring page. Click on each pic. to see examples
Games
Hi there my name is Pete Harne, I have just set up this web site. I will explain below what I have done, and doing at present, but first here is the latest addition to our family.
My sister Pat's grey kit, she calls him Mungo, but we all call him Patzkat or Munchkin, dont let his looks deceive you, he's half wild! and eats like a horse. He's a little bigger now, but still nowhere near 1 yet.
Well ! how did this venture get started? In the first place I started out being a signwriter, with lots of graphic touches being needed. Problems! problems problems. I really needed some sort of system for producing quick easy professional looking work, and me not being a natural born artist had extreme difficulty with
PROPORTION !!!!
Fortunately at the time homeputes were starting to become much more usable, and managed to grab me an old Amiga 500, which was then state-of-the-art -gear! Anyhow after much experimenting, and much grief all this began to surface, except in those days I had to print stuff all in A4 which was not much fun when someone needed a 10x10 foot angel on their shop wall. Had to plan everything in grids and fit everything together jigsaw fashion, and all traced by hand from the original printouts, like I said I had to do it this way because proportion was definitely not my strong point. Anyhow the system was just about perfected and guess what ! the 90's recession set in, and for me never recovered.
In recent years I have taken to art, pop art actually, as pop art was first created by signwriters thought it only fitting I should carry on what I was used to, and made much use of this system, so much indeed I thought it would benefit others, and so created my own website devoted to this system.
Petes Links Page
Click here for my current listings on ebay, and my ebay profile
Thanks for looking