This week’s free Photoshop brush of the week is “Slip Genie” an ink brush with a tremendous width response range. Glide your stylus lightly across your work for a razor thin line or give it all you’ve got and it blooms out into a wide breadthed bristle brush. This was sketched without changing the brush size, the variations in stroke width were all achieved solely be varying the pressure of my brush stroke on the Wacom tablet.
I am getting so much interest via email to get them out into the shop so I am going to step up my efforts and I will try to get the first of them out by November. Thank you all of you who wrote in to ask me to hurry up, I love that you love these surfaces as much as I do! You can sign up to get an email alert when they are ready here: https://www.grutbrushes.com/art%20surfaces/#signup
I’m still working hard testing the splatter, spray and inky messes that will be included in the Inky Leaks Photoshop splatter and spray brushes and tools collection. Here’s one of the test blotters from the lab. If you look closely you can see the smears from a couple of mixer brushes in there as well as a finger print smudge tool. The collection is coming along well and I still expect to release it on August 30th but you can still pre-order it until it is released at considerable discount (The price climbs up a bit every week)
With version 1.2.1 of the GrutBrushes Photoshop plugin you can now save custom sets of brushes so that they don’t all have to be in one big set. In this short video I show you how to create a new set and how to modify which Photoshop brushes it contains.
If you have the GrutBrushes plugin already, you can download the latest one from your account page. If you don’t have it yet, the GrutBrushes Photoshop plugin is free for Photoshop CC 214/15 and you can get it here.
New! Create and Save Custom Sets of brushes and tools
Save a set of your favourite GrutBrushes
Save a custom set of brushes for a particular project
Save one set of brushes for painting and one for drawing
Download the latest version from your account page or get it here if you don’t have the plugin yet.
How to Save a Set of Brushes or Tools
Select “Create New Set” from the menu at the top right of the panel You can also access all menu items from the popup menu by right clicking anywhere in the panel.
It will contain the brushes from the set you were working with last. To add or remove brushes from your new set, select ‘Show/Hide brushes’ from the menu
From the list that appears, those on the left will appear in that set while those on the right will not. You can add or remove brushes from the set by moving them from one column to the other using the arrow buttons.
To switch sets, or load a saved set, just select it from either menu
Changes to the set you have loaded are saved automatically. Add, move or remove brushes from a set and it will stay that way even when you restart Photoshop
Cross Hatchers & Sampler Brushes updated for V1.2.1
Some brushes needed to be updated to work with the new plugin, namely the Cross Hatching brushes and a few of the brushes in the Sampler Set. If you downloaded those before June 25th and are getting an error when you try to load or use them you will need to download them again from your account.
Current ArtBrush members can re-download the full brushes zip from your account page. If you experience any problems with any particular brushes let me know.
Upgrading Photoshop to 2015.5
The latest Photoshop upgrade is a full installation, If you upgrade the GrutBrushes plugin to V1.2.1 before you upgrade Photoshop to 2015.5 you should find the GrutBrushes plugin already installed in version 2015.5 after you upgrade.
How to Upgrade the GrutBrushes Plugin to V1.2.1
Quick Start Summary: Download it from your account and extract the zip file. Then, in Photoshop, Select File > Scripts >Browse and select GrutBrushes_installer.jsx file. When it’s done, restart Photoshop.
You can also try dragging the jsx file into Photoshop or double clicking on it in Windows Explorer or Finder on Mac.
Detailed step by step plugin upgrade instruction
Download the latest version from your downloads page in your account page
Extract/Unzip the contents of GrutBrushes plugin v1.2.1.zip onto your hard drive (don’t just drag them out of the zip file)
Select File > Scripts >Browse and select GrutBrushes_installer.jsx file in the directory you just extracted it to.
When the installer is done, restart Photoshop. You will find the new version of the GrutBrushes panel under Window > Extensions > GrutBrushes
If you upgrade Photoshop and your brushes are missing from the GrutBrushes panel, try reloading them by selecting “Reload Cached Brush Files”
Updated Cross Hatching Brushes If you previously purchased the Cross Hatchers set, you will need to download them again from your account page
This week’s free Photoshop brush is “Chin Chatter” A very grainy natural media brush, with a messy medium spread in terms of grain size and breadth From gritty sand to small pebbles this brush sprays out particles like gravel from a wood chipper
It’s been a little while since I put out a watercolor brush so here’s a gritty one for you. ‘Sip Dream’ is a very grainy Photoshop watercolor brush with a tendency to pool paint in small sections. This brush has a Fairly wide range in tone with about a 70% opacity at the top range of pressure.
This week’s free GrutBrush is the Cana Plata Photoshop Ink brush, a viscous, freckled ink with a brushed shape but the texture of a lithographic print roller. This brush bleaches out at the lowest pressure and requires a few passes at the highest for a fully opaque cover. Get it for free all week on the free brush of the week page.
This week’s Newsletter freebies included this Photoshop paper template. It’s one of the many art surfaces templates for Photoshop that I’ve been working on since people started emailing me asking for the original canvas texture I used in a lot of early demos.
When you download the PSD file you can simply draw, paint or paste your own artwork into the green layer and the texture and lighting effects will be applied automatically.
Not getting the newsletter yet? sign up quickly, this will probably go out in tomorrows issue! Went out April 13th (and make sure email from info@GrutBrushes.com is not getting caught in you Spam filter and going into your junk mail folder) This sample was drawn with the Jam Wiggly brush which is this week’s free brush which you can still get until Sunday April 17th.
This paper texture is now available free for Art Brush members on the Photoshop freebies page. Want more Art Surfaces? Sign up below and I’ll be in touch when they’re ready.
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This week’s free GrutBrush ( grutbrushes.com/freebrush ) is a specialty brush which mostly means that it doesn’t quite fit perfectly into any of the traditional media categories like charcoal, ink, watercolour, etc. Nor does it quite fit into my catch-all category “Natural Media” where I normally place brushes that behave and look like traditional media. This is what I call a ‘Specialty’ brush. Tthey tend to have a look that is quite unique that makes them suitable for one particular tasks rather than general drawing or painting. you wouldn’t chose a specialty brush to take a message while on the phone or draw a map to your house.
Making this image
To create this drawing I alternated between black and white a lot (using the ‘x‘ key shortcut) and used the white to carve away at the black lines, sometimes shaping them into finer points than the brush weight allowed. When I was done, I turned the layer into an overlay, over the paper texture and toned down the white parts of my drawing using hue/saturation to the point where it is still just slightly visible, almost as if it’s a faint water stain, like wet sand off a shoreline. I then added a tetxured overlay of the paper on top of the black areas to give it a more ‘lived in’ look and integrate it a bit more with the paper backing. A flat layer of colour on a natural background always looks too artificial to even be a part of it’s own background, nothing in real life is one single colour or tone.
Having more fun with the brush of the week demo doodles
This drawing is also the start of a bit of a departure from the usual demo images, not in the content or style, which is my usual doodley sketch style, but in the rules I set for myself when creating it and it’s something I hope to be doing more of from now on. For the past year, I usually set myself pretty tight rules on how I present the demo images, I try to make sure I only use that one brush, ‘as is’, I don’t change the width, I don’t manipulate the appearance of the lines, I used to stick to only one that brush for the whole piece. In the beginning I even tended to restrict myself to black and white to present what I felt was the most accurate depiction of what the lines look like so that you know exactly what you’re getting when you download the brush. This year I am going to try (spare time permitting) to relax my self imposed rules and have a bit more fun with the brushes for a few reasons:
You can always click through to the brush page on the website and see all the technical details there including an animated preview showing exactly what it’s like to draw an unadultarated brush stroke in black on a white background.
It’s a free brush, so I am not sure why I feel like I’m doing a bait and switch just because I used an eraser to tidy up a splotchy area of one line or added a texture, or changed the line width. I realise that I shouldn’t shy away from showing unconventional uses of the brushes the point is to show you what you can do with an art tool, and part of that should be to get creative with it, I’m not making a schematic for a medical device!
The final reason is mostly for me. While following strict rules may be a reliable way to immediately showing what the brush looks like, that’s not very conducive to creativity or fun. I always tell myself “Just stick to using the brush as is, consider this drawing a product demo and then later you can have some fun with it and do something more creative” but in reality, later never comes. Making the brush of the week is often the only time all week that I actually do any doodling so If I don’t use the ‘free brush of the week’ in a creative and fun way when making the demo image, I may never get to it again! It does me good to remind myself that I started making these brushes was a way to add creativity back into a stressful work life, and I hope I can share some of the benefits with you.
So from now on I’m going to try to be a little looser with the brushes and play around a bit more. Hopefully I’ll take advantage of my relaxed rules and start having a bit more fun with the brushes, and Im sure you’ll forgive me if I add in a few flourishes with other brushes and take a few liberties with the technical details. I promise that the images will always be primarily driven and inspired by the brush I am giving away.