Digital Art
The Inkscape vector graphics program not only lets you work with pencil and ink lines, it can help you mimic the elegant brushstrokes of an oil painting. Our three easy-to-follow examples show you how.
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Nailia Schwarz, 123RF
The Inkscape vector graphics program not only lets you work with pencil and ink lines, it can help you mimic the elegant brushstrokes of an oil painting. Our three easy-to-follow examples show you how.
The first article of this two-part series [2] introduced the effects toolkit of the leading free vector graphics program, Inkscape. In this article, I'll show how to create some real artworks based on these techniques.
You can start by creating a slightly oriental, shiny pattern (Figure 1, bottom right), which is quite easy to do in Inkscape. For the intricate pattern, you can use a photo from a Persian wall mosaic [3] (Figure 1, top left), which you can trace with Inkscape's vectorizing tool and create the image you see in Figure 1, top right.
This image would end up having too many nodes to manipulate comfortably, so you should reduce it in advance to 1,000 pixels wide.
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Besides basic drawing functions, Inkscape provides sophisticated effects that can transform vector lines into soft, flowing brushstrokes or automate the drawing of paper-fine lines.
Printing firms currently market their services on the Internet and printing has never been cheaper. Linux provides two programs, Inkscape and Scribus, that together produce high-quality print artwork.
Would you like to adorn your letterhead with an attractive Celtic knot? Drawing one by hand is a laborious task, but Knotter provides a variety of functions to get the job done in a matter of minutes.
The plotutils package promises quick help to visualize numerical data in a variety of output formats.
The open source DTP software Scribus is back on the stage with a much improved import capability for file formats and many more functions for use in the professional realm. The beta version discussed here promises good things for the future.
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