DESCRIPTION: Create a pretty gold necklace for Valentine's Day using PI's inbuilt stamps.

INSTRUCTIONS:

SAVE OFTEN as ufo file. Regularly drag your objects to your Easy Palette for storage.

1. Ctrl Open a new document 400x400 pixels.

2. Using the Linear Gradient Tool, choose a dark and light colour as shown to give a rich colour, click and hold diagonally to create the gradient as shown below. This will be the background for the necklace.

3. In the Easy Palette, go to Image Enhancements / Stamp and double click on Silver Ball to activate the stamp.

4. On the Attribute bar, change object scale to 80. Click on the little arrow next to the Choose a object mode button (don't these people know correct English?!?) and click on Single Object.

5. View / Guidelines and Grid / Grid.

6. Draw half a heart shape - slowly will give more control. Make sure bottom and top both touch the vertical line. (View / Guidelines and Grid / Grid to remove grid when done.)

7. If you're not happy with the silver, go to Photo / Color / Hue and Saturation, click on Colorize and Hue: -148 will give a nice rose gold. Use your keyboard up and down arrow keys to move slider.

8. Shift D to duplicate.

9. Click on the Transform Tool On the Attribute bar click on the Flip horizontally button.

10. Using your keyboard right arrow key, move the right side of the heart til it's in place as shown below:

11. Hold down Ctrl and click on both sides of the heart to select. Object / Merge as single object.

12. Duplicate.

13. Using the Transform Tool, resize bigger than the original heart by dragging on a corner of the bounding box. Use your arrow keys to move the outside heart into place around the original. Unlock the padlock to resize width or height if you need to.

14. Change the Hue (via Colorize) to make a pink (or another colour). Lower the saturation to make a softer tone. With the Pick Tool move the gold in front of the pink.

15. Select both parts, Object / Merge as single object. Photo / Focus to brighten.

16. Select your Stamp Tool again. In the Easy Palette, choose Diamonds this time. Draw a strand coming from the top of the heart, starting from the inside. Change the Hue (via Colorize) - I changed mine to the -148 I used before. Duplicate. Transform / Flip horizontally. Use the arrow keys to move the duplicate to the other side, making it symmetrical.

17. I merged all objects as single object and with Transform rotated the necklace. (I also added my initial using the freehand option for drawing the silver ball stamp.) To finish I added a shadow.

Thank you for trying out my tutorial :). I trust you've enjoyed it.

Hillie © January 2008