16 November 2007 Hi David – just writing to saying I’ve had a quick look over your site – omg – amazing – absolutely amazing. I’m taking up illustration and digital art and I love your work. I got this site address from your Cloner tutorial in Painter magazine. I write because I just need a touch of advice/help in the second one with the boat scene if I can! At the set up at the start, 04 – I selected the original picture as the clone source, but as I start painting on the watercolour yellowed canvas, all I get, even with watercolour cloners selected, is yellow paint. Its like I have the wrong source, but under File/Source, I have the original image ticked.Any ideas or suggestions?? Keep up the fantastic work! thanks Frank Bradshaw 

Thanks, Frank.  I’m glad you like my pictures.  It’s always nice to get such positive feedback. Now, the boats picture from the Painter tutorial.  It sounds to me like you have not clicked and made active the Clone Color button on the Colors palette (this is in addition to having selected the Clone Source under File/Source).  If this button is not depressed and thereby made active, the brush will just paint with the Main colour – in this case the cream colour. Come back to me if this doesn’t sort you out. David

5 November 2007 Hi David, I just found your website through the dpreview forums and I must say that you are an incredibly talented artist! Sadly, that is exactly what I am not ;-) I've always wanted to create beautiful drawings or paintings from photographs, but since I can't draw I decided to create a computer program that could. The result is a small freeware called FotoSketcher (www.fotosketcher.com). Having seen what you can do, my goal will be to try and improve FotoSketcher in order to get as close as I can to your art. Thanks again for your beautiful images. David THOIRON (Lyon, France)

David - thanks. I'm glad you like some of my pictures. I had a look at Fotosketcher. I can see where you are going with this. It would be good if there was an option to simplify the image before applying the line creation element. Sketches usually, though not always, simplify an image into a relatively few number of lines - often following contours. The best filter for creating line drawing that I know of is the buZZ Simplifier Photoshop plugin. In fact, all the pictures in my Artwork 8 gallery are hand drawn. Good luck with it. David

29 October 2007 David, I just had the pleasure of viewing you gallery and am so impressed with your enormous talent. I saw your work at the Painter Magazine website after I joined and fell in love with it. It looks better than the real thing. I aspire to work such as yours and thank you for providing such magnificent work for us to enjoy. Sincerely Leah Schmaman

Thank you, and thank you for visiting! I was beginning to worry I might never get any more visitors! I enjoyed your pictures on the Painter Magazine website. David

30 July 2007 Hello David, I have been looking at your gallery, and some of the work is simply breathtaking. Especially liked the new tulips (black and white) in New Artwork - well, actually, too many to mention, but I saw that one first of all. Just thought would let you know. Wish I could do a fraction of this! Regards, Sonya

29 June 2007 Hi David Cole,...Everything in ur site ie paintings, color choice, font very fantastic and eyeful. Some times i browse ur site, it's really cool. many thanks kamal T

17 May 2007 Hi David .. excellent Website and Everything on it …Well done .. good Body of Work scarletjames………

4 February 2007 Hello David, we have emailed some long time ago when I was so delighted with your work - at that time particularly the watercolour simulation, that I wanted to comment on it. I wonder if you could advise me. I note that you have said [in DPR] "synthetik, the people who make Studio Artist, have been saying a pc version "...is coming out this year" for at least the last 4-5 years. I gave up asking them!". I do use Macintosh and so that software is available to me, but it is rather expensive, and i wondered what part of Studio Artist interests you. I have, and I know you also use 'Painter 9'. Is there an element within Studio Artist that you have not been able to do in Painter? I don't want to double up on potential.
regards, Barry

Thanks, Barry. I am not at all familiar with Studio Artist and have no specific reason to want to try it, other than that I am interested to know what it can do - particularly: how far it can abstract colour, create watercolour simulations, and prepare photos for oil painting in Painter. If you can try a trial version for a few weeks that would be good. You can then compare attributes. I don't know if that is available. Best wishes David

27 January 2007 Dear Mr Cole, So sorry but I couldn't email you the other way. Your work is fabulous. Have you ever done any type of caricatures? I love them, just wondering. Laraine Stuart

Thanks. No, I've never done any caricatures. There's a first time for everything I suppose! David

2 January 2007 Hello David, I have been looking seriously at your site and I fell your art is really fantastic. What I like particularly are the portrait of SteveP, Charles (with the clear suit and red tie), Pete laughing and also I like very much the very strong drawing that you made of yourself. I also like the landscapes and still life but these protraits especially appeal to me.  It is obvious to me that you are a true artist. But certainly to acheive what you have done there are number of hours to refine the methods...a lot of hours certainly... Concerning watercolours, you may like to have a look at the book of Katrin Eismann Retouching.

I am currently working at improving the eyes, skin defects , general tones, colours etc. In the past I have done watercolour (with real brushes pencils etc) but I like taking picures with a camera. When I discovered your site it was very important to me because I felt that pictures (and protraits) had much more appeal when improved by Painter 9, buZZ filter etc. I also feel I will be alble to do this very well ...(after many many hours of learning and practicing)

Question 1: I would like to know if you feel I also need (immediately) the LucisArt software and the Digital imaging suite (from MS) which replaces the Photodraw (discontinued). Question 2: the Corel Painter IX.5 certainly comes with a manual.  There are probably good books that I could have in addition to the basic manual of Corel. Could you recommend such a book ? Or some sites that offer tutorials. Here I am just guessing that the manual of Painter is like the manual of Photoshop.;Question 3: I would like to know what kind of simple exercises you could recommend I would start with to use both the Painter IX and Photoshop CS2.; Question 4: How long will it take to more or less be able to use Painter IX? - 6 months?  If you can take a few minutes to help me with these questions, it will help me greatly. Thank you, With best regards. Bernard Pirenne

Thanks for your steer on the Eismann watercolour technique. It looks complicated but I’ll explore it. From my quick glance, I think I prefer the PS “Wow” technique. Here are answers to your questions: Q1: You do not need LucisArt or the other software you mention yet. Q2: Two good books on Painter IX: “Painter IX Creativity” by Jeremy Sutton (good on painting techniques), and “Painter IX for photographers” by Martin Addison (good on explaining technical side of Painter IX). Q3: Can’t really suggest any exercises. Main things are to practice and experiment, get to know the Brush Creator in Painter IX so that you can tweak your brushes easily, and study carefully, and as often as possible, real paintings in the style you want to emulate. If you are not familiar with the look of the real thing you’ll find it difficult to emulate it. Q4: How long to use Painter? Impossible to say! – we are all still learning Painter. To see what a real master digital painter can do, have a look Craig Mullins work at www.goodbrush.com. This is not done in colour clone mode. He uses both PS and Painter I believe. David

21 December 2006 I originally saw your post on DPReveiw and went to your website Your work is absolutely beautiful and exactly what I am looking for. Unfortunately l am having a difficult time converting an image to look something of an oil painting, very similar to what you did for titog at dpreview with the butterfly on the flowers. I was wondering if you might share a down and dirty technique for me to use it link to a Photoshop tutorial. Either would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks Houston Brown

Thanks, Houston. I can't remember the exact steps I took on the butterfly picture. Each picture evolves as it goes, However, broadly it goes like this: I prepare the photo in PS - simplifying where I think necessary with the buZZ Simplifier so that there is a centre of interest and not too much distracting detail. I will also usually increase colour saturation. Then I take the photo to Painter 9.5 where I brush the painting in Colour Clone mode. I try to use the biggest brushes I can. There is a lot of additional hand painting by eye where I change colours or tone values to suit my taste. I like the Artist Oils, Oil and Sargent brushes but I use mainly brush versions I have customised. Then I take the picture back to Photoshop to add a little sharpness and further colour saturation and usually also do some brush work to further refine the image. I use some of the Natural, Wet Media and default brushes - I also use a handmade bristle brush which has a dry brush look. That's it really. I have come to the conclusion that your final painting will only be as good as the photograph you start with. This may sound obvious but I do think it helps a lot to begin with painterly looking photos which have interesting lighting and shapes. Good luck. David

20 December 2006 Hi..I really like the way you did your web site.. I am working on doing mine.. also your work is fantastic.. I love your artwork expecially artwork3 because it is a people art.. I am just trying to learn how to do this as I was a portrait photographer..I looked at all your work ..very well done. Mike Winn

Thanks, Mike. I am glad you like my website layout. I recently had to remake it from scratch using Dreamweaver instead of Frontpage. It was just a question of learning as I went. My site is straightforward to use I hope. I do wish I could implement a simple feedback form for my Visitors' Book instead of having to ask visitors to send me emails. On artwork, I'm sure that being a portrait photographer you'll be off to a flying start on making paintings from your photos. David

21 November 2006 Love your new web pages and it's format.   As you suggested, I purchased both the Painter IX and J Lyons book. I have been attempting to apply the software and instructions they provide,, having fun.. having some success.. but still struggling to re-create some of your techniques..with so many options available and so many directions to go. If you can share and start me off along in the right path, using the major steps of how you created - for example:Tulips against the yellow walls - Art Work 2 .. I would be really appreciate it.. Photoshop? Painter IX, clones, water colors? oils..Best Regards, and thanks again... your art is really inspirational ! Barry

Thanks. That picture was done mainly in Painter I think. I can't remember which brushes I used but they will have been quite large as I was unconcerned with detail. It was done in Colour Clone mode and I probably used a customised Oils brush. I can't remember if there is a brush which approximates my own - basically it was made in the brush creator with a Static Bristle dab in Single mode, and using Grainy Hard cover with grain set at about 24%. The texture I used was Artists Canvas. The trick is to keep your brushes as large as you can - the smaller the brushstrokes the more detailed and photographic the final look. Good luck. David

30 October 2006  Hello, These images are fantastic, where can I learn to do them??  Also, do you know how I can make the outside of an oval vignette transparent so that it can be transferred on top of another image to show just the oval?  Thanks again  Stuart Garfoot, England

Thanks, Stuart.  Have a look at my response to Barry, USA on 18 October.  I recommend a couple of books there.  I'm not sure I understand your question - if you make the area around an oval transparent and transfer that rectangle or square on top of another image, you will see everything below except the oval in the middle. If you want to take a rectangle or square and cut out an oval in the middle and have it (the oval in the middle) retain transparency that is very easy in Photoshop. Assuming you have Photoshop, just select your image, duplicate it into a second layer, fill it with whatever colour you want, and use the elliptical selection tool to make your oval vignette.  Then just "Clear" the selection in the middle.  You will see the original image only in the oval window.  You may have meant something different, if so, let me know.  David

19 October 2006  Hello David - thanks for the new pictures. It was a treat to see your version of Ms. Cole's photo of the hilltop town on the water. Most excellent. Got to say you keep getting better. And its a lot of fun working through Photoshop and other plug-ins to try to emulate your success. Have you worked yet with digital art versions of any High Density Resolution (HDR) images, that became possible with Photoshop 9?  Hope you make millions of dollars through all this.  Take care, John

Thanks, John.  I haven't done too much in the last week or so because I am having to rebuild my (Frontpage) website as a result of Microsoft and my web host ceasing to support Frontpage Extensions - these are bits of software MS provide to make things happen on one's website. Frontpage is disappearing and being succeeded by something much more complicated.  So I am having to try to replicate my site in new software, learning the software as I go.  This is taking time and so far the only thing that will flummox me is that I cannot - do not know how - to reproduce this little visitors' book on my new website.  Should be easy but it's not.  So will probably have to just gather comments by email and type them in here as now.  Anyway, not much painting being done but I'm glad you like the New Artwork page.

I haven't used the HDR facility in CS2 because I think it requires a number of photos shot at various exposures.  Haven't got sufficiently organised to do this.  I have experimented with a plugin called Photomatix which can do the full HDR type process but also allows you do something like it using a single photo at 16bit using Tone Mapping.  Frankly, I find the Shadow/Highlight feature in PSCS2 pretty good for widening exposure.  David