Sidenote: Apologies to those who didn't receive any answers to the emails they sent me on Friday; blame Apple for inspiring me.
I can imagine that many people have done something similar to this in their high school art classes. It's an interesting way of using colour and shape to make something visually striking.
I'm by no means an expert on Photoshop, and this project requires only basic skills. It can be rather intimidating, and I've only provided basic instructions on how to render the pencil drawing on Photoshop.
If you would rather not touch Photoshop, you can just stop after step 5. The drawing itself is interesting and if you make a series of them they would be eye-catching wall hangings.
1. Decide on a shape to use as a guide. I used a circle. The center of this circle served as the starting point for all the slices, and it helped me keep everything parallel. Using a circle makes things a little more complex once you start in Photoshop, so rectangles would be really simple for those unfamiliar with the program.
2. Draw out your fragments. Again, this could simply be rectangles of varying sizes, overlapped to form interesting patterns.
3. Outline everything in ink.
4. Colour everything in, blending the colours where the fragments overlap. This gives a sense of depth and transparency to the fragments. I used artist-quality coloured pencils, but you could use practically anything. Mine is a little rough because I needed to make a quick and dirty guide for the digital version. The project up until this point will only take you about 45 minutes. Watercolour would work well, as long as you let the paint in each fragment dry before going over it with another colour.
5. If you want to leave it there, you're done! Put your graphic art into a simple frame and show off your handiwork.
6. If you're going on to Photoshop, label the fragments so that you have a guide for creating layers.
7. Scan the image and import it into Photoshop.
8. You can use the image as a template when placing lines in Photoshop, then, once you're done, you can simply hide the original drawing to reveal the digital version.
9. Using your guide, trace each fragment (two straight lines and a curved line) making sure that each line connects to the next. If you don't know how to draw curved lines, this tutorial is one of the best I've seen (http://www.agavegroup.com/?p=68). Merge the layers containing the three lines, and label them according to your guide. Do this for every fragment.
10. You can hide and reveal your guide layer as you work to make sure everything is okay.
11. Using the magic wand tool, select the interior of one fragment. For example, select layer "A". Click on the magic wand and select the shape. You should see that the shape has been selected. Create a new layer and label it "A colour". Chose the paint bucket and fill the shape with a colour. You now have a layer that contains the shape outline and a layer that contains the colour. In the layer drop-down box, you can adjust the opacity of the colour. Because the outline is on a separate layer it won't be affected. I adjusted the opacity of my shapes to between 50-80%. This will allow for colour blending.
12. Repeat this for every fragment, ensuring that your layers are kept organized.
13. In one version, I applied a film grain filter to the shapes to give them some texture.
14. Hide the guide. The Photoshop part of this project took me about 1.5-2 hours. Nothing extreme for someone with basic knowledge of Photoshop.
15. You can easily manipulate the colours in the wheel to create a series of images. I made mine blue/green/yellow, but you may want to create one that was red/orange/yellow and place them side by side.
16. It's easy to print these off on paper, but there are many other options as well. I'm planning on getting this design printed out on a tote bag and giving it as a Christmas present.
Posted by: Jean
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