Painting in SL?

Hey, y'all!

Please fogive me if this is an often asked question or covered in a FAQ somewhere, but is it at all possible to paint in-world? I am setting up as an artist and I began to think that instead of just uploading my stuff created in RL tht I would like to create my art in SL, itself. I've seen a tool on SLExchange that allows you to draw in the air, but I would like to actually set brush to canvas somehow. Is this at all possible? Are there examples people can point me to? I'd much appreciate any help on this.

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can i ask why ? when u have photoshop and other programs but ok...

u can do smt like hmh....make particle script ...set large number for particle die ...put in one object(cube) then that cube link with one/two tiny 10 meter prim , and attach on your hand ...with a little practice u can draw
also u can make that script to change colors, and size ..of course u can set different shapes etc, but thats only temporary solution ...

drawing on "paper" is not possible for now

That's an interesting challenge. The quick answer is "No," you can't paint in SL. Any texture you apply to a prim has to be created elsewhere and imported.

That answer really only acknowledges a narrow, traditional definition of "painting," though. You can certainly create collages by assembling carved prims and sculpties, each with its own texture, and you can play with color, shininess, bumps, and transparency to modify textures in novel ways. Your "canvas" in SL is a 3-D one, too, so you can think about ways to texture things that are not flat rectangles. You can also script prims so that any of their texture parameters vary or, as Ivan points out, you can emit particles for a different dynamic look.

I suggested an in-world painting tool a couple years ago when I was at SL Views. The idea was you paint a texture on a surface in the viewer, locally. While the work is in progress, you're the only one who sees it. Then when you're done, you hit the Apply button, and the image file saves, uploads, and is applied to the prim. In theory, something like that shouldn't be terribly hard to implement (I think).

The Lindens looked at me like I was smoking crack. It wasn't something that had ever occurred to them (at least not to the ones present at the time). A couple of them did seem to be intrigued and excited by the idea, but I think it's safe to say it's not something we're likely ever to see from LL. The open source community would probably be where it would come from, if it ever happens at all.

The Lindens looked at me like I was smoking crack or Salvia Divinorum
anyway nice idea..

With HTML on a Prim coming, it may be possible, with clever scripting in both LSL and PHP.
If you were to use the concept outlined by Ivan, and send the same information to a PHP script, the script could draw, according to the wand movements, and send it back to the prim texture using the llParcelMedia commands.
I don't think the current implementation of ParcelMedia will do it, but the potential is there.

Maybe check this out, it's kind of more what you're asking for, using llDetectedGrab, but it requires alot of prims, and the ink is temp rezzed. Free though.

Thanks for the info and input, y'all! I guess I'm a little disappointed that plain ole applying paint to surface isn't possible in SL but I guess it makes sense since just about everything exists as a prim.

But I'm not giving up. Part of being an artist is learning the limitations of your media and trying to to find ways to work around and with those limitations. I'm going to try to expand my definition of plastic art and attempt to utilize some of the ideas you good people have given me here and explore some new ways of "painting". If I come up with anything worthwhile, I'll be sure to show and tell it all right here.

Thanks again, y'all!