Bring out the digital artist in yourself. Start with your digital images and create artful representations quickly and easily.

Last month I wrote a couple times about the Wacom pen tablets. Included in their software bundle is Corel Painter Essentials, a nice program for turning digital files into painterly looking art. If you haven’t invested in a pen tablet yet, there’s a free software available called Deep Paint that will do the same thing.

Both softwares let you start with an original image as the base and create a cloned image using various brush tools. Airbrushes, paintbrushes, crayon, chalk, and many more. Vary the size and strength using sliders to get exactly the effect you want. Let your inner Van Gogh come out and create some unique art.

The Help file is quite complete and will get you started toward your first art creation. Although you may find it easier to use a pen tablet, using a mouse is possible too. Play and experiment. You can always start over or save changes as you go along. Just have fun.

Although development on Deep Paint stopped in 2005, it’s still available as a free download from download.com. It’s a big file, coming in at over 50 meg, but well worth the download.