From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)
768 Painting a free-form mandala pattern
From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)
768 Painting a free-form mandala pattern
- Hey, gang, this is Deke McClelland. Welcome to "Deke's Techniques". Today, we'll be looking at mandala patterns, and that's how they're pronounced, by the way, not like Nelson Mandela, which is spelled differently, but mandala. Now, mandala patterns enjoy a rich history as spiritual symbols. That's not what we're talking about at all. We're talking about their recent history, as wildly symmetrical brushstrokes inside Photoshop CC 2019. Now, as you can see, the final artwork is quite intricate, but we're going to start things off very simply. Here, let me show you exactly how it works. Alright, so let's take a look at how you might go about creating a mandala pattern here inside Photoshop. And I've got three examples open, just so you can see the variety of options that await you. All these are pretty unconventional by mandala standards, but of course you can research how to create conventional mandala patterns on your own if you like. Now, I do want to stress that you'll need Photoshop CC 2019 or later in order to pull off these effects. In which case, go up to the File menu, and choose the New command, because after all, we're going to be creating a pattern absolutely from scratch. Notice that my unit of measure is set to inches, and I've dialed in a width value of 19 inches, and a height of 13 inches, which just happens to match the paper size that I want to print to. The resolution is 300 pixels per inch, I definitely recommend that you set the color mode to RGB, and finally, notice that my background contents are black, and that's because we'll be painting white brushstrokes against a black background. Alright, so I'll go ahead and create that document, and then, I'll create a new layer, by pressing Control-Shift-N, or Command-Shift-N on the Mac, and I'll call this guy mandala, and I'll click OK. Alright, now I'll go ahead and grab the brush tool, which you can get by pressing the B key, and next, I want to set my foreground color to white. And notice, in my case, I'm seeing my default colors, which means my foreground color is black, and so I'll type the X key in order to swap 'em. Alright, now what you want to do is go up here to this butterfly icon, again, you're only going to see it by default anyway, inside Photoshop CC 2019 and later, then go ahead and click on it, and choose mandala, like so. Now, at this point, you can choose how many axes that you're creating, which can be as low as three, and as high as 10, as things stand now. I'm going to set my value to six, and click OK. Now, Photoshop gives you the opportunity of moving your axes to a different location, in case you don't want everything to be centered. You can also scale the axes, which is not actually necessary, and if you like, you can move your cursor slightly outside of this transformation boundary, and you can drag, in order to rotate the axes. However, I want it to appear as it does by default, so I'll press Control-Z, or Command-Z on the Mac, to undo that rotation, and then I'll press the Enter key, or the Return key on the Mac, to accept those axes like so. Alright, now what you want to do is right-click in the image window, and then twirl open General Brushes, and assuming that you're working with a drawing tablet, as I am, then you want to select hard round pressure size, right there, and that way, the brush will respond to your pressure-sensitive stylus. At which point, I'll press the Enter key, or the Return key on a Mac to accept that change. A couple of more changes I want to make, go up to the Window menu, and choose Brush Settings, in order to bring up this panel right here, which includes this spacing value. And notice, when you're working with that preset brush, that the spacing gets reduced to five percent, which is too tight, by the way. It is going to give you nice smooth brushstrokes, but it'll also mean Photoshop will have problems keeping up with you. So I'll go ahead and raise that value to 10, and then I'll hide that panel, and next, I'll go up here to the Options bar, and I'll change the smoothing value right here, to 50 percent, so that we end up with some extremely smooth brushstrokes. Alright, now I'm going to press Control-1, or Command-1 on a Mac, to zoom into 100 percent, and then, notice as I begin to paint, Photoshop goes ahead and repeats the brushstroke. And because I'm working with the mandala setting, and I have a total of six axes, Photoshop is repeating the brushstroke a total of 11 times, which is to say that I'm actually drawing 12 brushstrokes simultaneously. Alright, now I'll zoom out a little, so that I can take in more of my artwork at a time, and I was telling you, it's not necessary to scale your axes, and that's because even if you paint beyond the axes, as you're seeing me do right now, Photoshop will go ahead and repeat those brushstrokes. Alright, now, if you take a look at all the examples I drew in advance, they include the year, 2019, repeated over and over again, here, a little bit too obviously, I think. But I like what I came up with in this case. Alright, so I'll go ahead and switch to my artwork in progress, and I'll zoom in, let's say, over in this region right here. Now, it's a little difficult to paint text at an angle, so notice even if I try to make it cursive right here, it gets a little crooked-y. And so, if you'd rather paint on the horizontal, then click and hold on the hand tool, down here at the bottom of the toolbox, and switch to the Rotate View tool, which you can get by pressing the R key, and that'll allow you to rotate your view of the artwork on the fly, and then, you can go ahead and switch back to the brush tool, and in my case, I'm going to go ahead and draw that year once again, this time, not quite so cursive. But notice that I am able to keep those letters in line with each other, and I could even add an underline, and an overline, if I like. Alright, now I want you to see that even though I'm zoomed in nice and tight here, if I press Control-0, or Command-0 on a Mac, to take in the entire image, I am repeating those years over and over again. Alright, so assuming that I want to make my image perpendicular once again, I'll just tape the Escape key, to un-rotate my artwork. Now, when you're working in a non-square image, like this one, that is, to say, it's rectangular, in my case, it's wider than it is tall. You have to be careful when painting to the edges of your artwork. So let's say I go up here to the top, and I add a few lines that appear to go all the way to the edge of the artwork, as we're seeing right here. However, if I were to press Control-0, or Command-0 on the Mac to zoom out once again, you can see that my lines are petering out pretty early over here on the right and left-hand sides of the image. And so you just want to keep an eye out for that. And so, rather than undoing those brushstrokes, I'll just go ahead and zoom in on the right-hand side, and I'll paint a little bit of a curly brushstroke, like so. And I'll add a few additional brushstrokes, as we're seeing right here. And you can see that I'm going all the way past the edge of the artwork, and so now, if I were to press Control-0, or Command-0 on the Mac, you can see that I'm painting all the way to the top and bottom edges as well. Alright, one more thing I want you to note, I'm going to zoom in more or less tight to the center of the artwork, and I'm going to add a few more brushstrokes, like so. And I'm painting back and forth along this axis right here, so that I'm crossing my lines, but I don't necessarily want to see the axes, because it's kind of getting in my way. In that case, you would click on that butterfly icon once again, up here in the options bar, and you would choose Hide Symmetry. And that way, even though those blue lines disappear, Photoshop continues to paint multiple symmetrical brushstrokes. Alright, now I'm going to press Control-0, or Command-0 on the Mac, to once again zoom out. So now we're going to fade forward to some additional brushstrokes that I've drawn off-screen. And that is at least one way to draw, in my case, a very unconventional mandala pattern, here inside Photoshop CC 2019 and later. In the next episode, I'll show you how to draw these pressure-sensitive dotted lines. Now, if you're a member of LinkedIn Learning, then I have a follow-up movie in which I show you how to create these pressure-sensitive dotted lines right here, which is an awful lot of fun. It does require the possession of a drawing tablet with a pressure-sensitive stylus, such as a device from Wacom, and incidentally, that's how the company's pronounced. It's not wack-'em, it's not a mole, so it's mandala, Wacom. If you're looking forward to next week, I'm going to show you how to take our black and white artwork so far, and we're going to render it in full living color. "Deke's Techniques", each and every week. Keep watching.
Practice while you learn with exercise files
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- 669_custom_QR.zip
- 670_more_QR.zip
- 671_hidden_circles.zip
- 673_shade_panels.zip
- 672_more_rectangles.zip
- 674_cafe_wall.zip
- 675_skewed_walls.zip
- 676_magic_checkers.zip
- 677_magic_dots.zip
- 678_reverse_illusion.zip
- 679_illusion_decor.zip
- 680_more_gizmos.zip
- 681_connect_gizmos.zip
- 682_wifi_symbol.zip
- 683_bluetooth_logo.zip
- 684_trajan_color.zip
- 685_trajan_AIcc.zip
- 686_stylistic_PsCC.zip
- 687_stylistic_AIcc.zip
- 688_grad_molecules.zip
- 689_sharper_moles.zip
- 690_smart_cules.zip
- 691_explore_cules.zip
- 692_blend_cules.zip
- 693_high_pass_cules.zip
- 694_cell_pattern.zip
- 695_hemoglobin.zip
- 696_edgy_cells.zip
- 697_springy_cells.zip
- 698_accordian_letters.zip
- 699_skew_blends.zip
- 700_cross_blends.zip
- 701_slice_blend.zip
- 702_blend_distort.zip
- 703_dynamic_roughen.zip
- 704_fish_twist.zip
- 705_dynam_bgnd_1.zip
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- 707_quieter_art.zip
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- 710_mask_ashes.zip
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- 720_AI_adjust.zip
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- 737_puppet_shortcut.zip
- 738_pentagons.zip
- 739_reinhardt.zip
- 740_kershner.zip
- 741_james_pentagon.zip
- 742_rice_pentagons.zip
- 743_stein_pentagon.zip
- 744_15th_pentagon.zip
- 745_tessellate_15.zip
- 746_pentatiles.zip
- 747_mod_pattern.zip
- 748_complement_tiles.zip
- 749_image_pattern.zip
- 750_pattern_fit.zip
- 751_candy_keeper.zip
- 752_keeper_text.zip
- 753_monster_movie.zip
- 754_mono_halftone.zip
- 755_word_haunted.zip
- 756_cheat_letters.zip
- 757_alt_adjust.zip
- 758_scuba_mono.zip
- 759_backscatter.zip
- 760_sample_outside.zip
- 761_Ps_vector_logo.zip
- 762_trans_shapes.zip
- 763_photo_logo.zip
- 764_high_res_snow.zip
- 765_enhance_snow.zip
- 766_snowflake_bokeh.zip
- 767_mandala_ps.zip
- 768_mandala_pattern.zip
- 769_mandala_dots.zip
- 770_mandala_color.zip
- 771_mandala_final.zip
- 772_AI_trim_view.zip
- 773_AI_presentation.zip
- 774_global_edits.zip
- 775_global_control.zip
- 776_freeform_grads.zip
- 777_freeform_lines.zip
- 778_freeform_gotcha.zip
- 779_great_white.zip
- 780_sharper_shark.zip
- 781_vibrance_sat.zip
- 782_vib_sat_sharp.zip
- 783_hedcut_action.zip
- 784_action_actions.zip
- 785_color_lines.zip
- 786_combine_lines.zip
- 787_clip_to_group.zip
- 788_color_outside.zip
- 789_flip_horizontal.zip
- 790_white_walker.zip
- 791_walker_begins.zip
- 792_digital_shave.zip
- 793_deep_wrinkles.zip
- 794_deep_brows.zip
- 795_pale_lips.zip
- 796_glowing_blue.zip
- 797_lifeless_pupils.zip
- 798_cold_gloomy.zip
- 799_brittle_flakes.zip
- 800_trans_shapes.zip
- 801_range_mask.zip
- 802_flip_photo.zip
- 803_actual_dream.zip
- 804_augment_dream.zip
- 805_smart_distortions.zip
- 806_blend_distortions.zip
- 807_star_negative.zip
- 808_star_pattern.zip
- 809_shaded_stars.zip
- 810_grad_pattern.zip
- 811_pattern_fade.zip
- 813_gobstopper.zip
- 814_gobpattern.zip
- 815_galignment.zip
- 816_etched_lines.zip
- 817_blend_pattern.zip
- 818_cubical_holes.zip
- 819_grad_pattern.zip
- 820_iso_arrows.zip
- 821_position_tips.zip
- 822_fill_gaps.zip
- 823_cartoon_teeth.zip
- 824_triangle_eye.zip
- 825_add_windows.zip
- 826_perfect_tessellate.zip
- 827_triangle_tunnels.zip
- 828_triangles_pattern.zip
- 829_colorful_triangles.zip
- 830_recolor_triangles.zip
- 831_rainbow_blends.zip
- 832_pattern_blends.zip
- 833_imposs_trident.zip
- 834_shade_trident.zip
- 835_opposing_grads.zip
- 836_trident_shadows.zip
- 837_impossible_hex.zip
- 838_impossible_lattice.zip
- 839_Joan_Miro.zip
- 840_watercolor_wash.zip
- 841_Miro_signature.zip
- 842_Photoshop_Miro.zip
- 843_enlarge_Miro.zip
- 844_Miro_Peele.zip
- 845_color_Us.zip
- 846_red_rorschach.zip
- 847_finish_Us.zip
- 848_CAF_fails.zip
- 849_turkey_2019.zip
- 850_trace_hand.zip
- 851_articulated_hand.zip
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- 853_paint_fingernails.zip
- 854_paint_turkey.zip
- 855_turkey_feathers.zip
- 856_drop_shadow.zip
- 857_Ps_iPad_1.zip
- 858_Ps_iPad_2.zip
- 859_Ps_iPad_3.zip
- 860_iPad_Sidecar.zip
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- 862_Fresco_halftones.zip
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- 874_fill_gaps.zip
- 875_posterize.zip
- 876_paint_bucket.zip
- 877_nonD_poster.zip
- 878_dynamic_poster.zip
- 879_filmstrip.zip
- 880_awful_awesome.zip
- 881_rembrandt.zip
- 882_recolor_freeform.zip
- 883_recolor_group.zip
- 884_over_under.zip
- 885_dev_over_under.zip
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- 887_heavy_metal.zip
- 888_wonder_poster.zip
- 889_wonder_displace.zip
- 890_wonder_woman.zip
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- 892_edit_metadata.zip
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- 898_blend_vignette.zip
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- 916_lantern_type3.zip
- 917_blend_steps.zip
- 918_blended_blends.zip
- 919_reverse_order.zip
- 920_pattern_colors.zip
- 921_blend_pattern.zip
- 922_polygons.zip
- 923_equil_triangle.zip
- 924_mercedes.zip
- 925_star_ring.zip
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- 928_basic_shapes.zip
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- 937_primitives.zip
- 938_zig_zag.zip
- 939_dynamic_hilight.zip
- 940_reptile_scales.zip
- 941_shade_eye.zip
- 942_variable_shade.zip
- 943_dragon_eye.zip
- 945_single_thumbnail.zip
- 946_ai_home.zip
- 947_unlock_object.zip
- 948_unlock_icon.zip
- 949_line_tool.zip
- 950_broken_candy.zip
- 951_candy_rhino.zip
- 952_wrap_pattern.zip
- 953_ice_shadows.zip
- 954_illustrator_ipad.zip
- 955_pencil_points.zip
- 956_ipad_blob.zip
- 957_ipad_pen.zip
- 958_grads_repeats.zip
- 959_color_grading.zip
- 960_grading_tricks.zip
- 961_blend_balance.zip
- 962_font_height.zip
- 963_camera_profile.zip
- 964_JPEG_raw.zip
- 965_match_detail.zip
- 966_Ps_line_tool.zip
- 967_troubleshoot_line.zip
- 968_blend_vectors.zip
- 969_curve_line.zip
- 970_point_glyphs.zip
- 971_area_glyphs.zip
- 972_snap_glyphs.zip
- 973_snap_letterform.zip
- 974_glyph_shape.zip
- 975_glyph_pen.zip
- 976_playing_cards.zip
- 977_scale_shape.zip
- 978_card_suits.zip
- 979_enhance_path.zip
- 980_power_symbol.zip
- 981_huge_artboard.zip
- 982_new_artboard.zip
- 983_triceratops.zip
- 984_pen_tricks.zip
- 985_round_corner.zip
- 986_draw_round.zip
- 987_reshape_round.zip
- 988_AI_brushed.zip
- 989_AI_rivets.zip
- 990_blend_grad.zip
- 991_binoculars.zip
- 992_blue_halo.zip
- 993_bi_aberrations.zip
- 994_hide_shapes.zip
- 995_subwoofer.zip
- 996_deep_cone.zip
- 997_gradient_frame.zip
- 998_hex_screws.zip
- 999_thats_all.zip
Contents
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767 Mandala patterns in Photoshop CC 20191m
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768 Painting a free-form mandala pattern9m 5s
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769 Painting mandala-style dot patterns6m 56s
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770 Coloring your mandala pattern7m 48s
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771 The final full-color mandala6m 27s
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772 Illustrator CC 2019 new preview mode1m 1s
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773 Illustrator CC 2019 presentation mode3m 21s
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774 Global edit in Illustrator CC 20196m 30s
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775 Applying a global edit from the control panel4m 8s
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776 Freeform gradients in Illustrator CC 20198m 29s
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777 Freeform gradients: Points versus lines8m 10s
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778 Freeform gradient limitations6m 29s
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779 Crop and develop a great white shark8m 54s
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780 Sharpening your great white shark6m 11s
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781 Low vibrance and high saturation9m 3s
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782 Vibrance, saturation, and sharpness9m 11s
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783 Actioning a full-color hedcut in Photoshop1m
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784 Recording an action to play all actions9m 37s
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785 Draw something, color the outlines8m 46s
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786 Combining multiple works of line art7m 3s
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787 Group your line art, clip to the group4m 9s
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788 Coloring outside your line art in Photoshop6m 32s
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789 Flip horizontal view in Photoshop CC 20191m
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790 Creating a White Walker in Photoshop1m 59s
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791 The White Walker begins9m 25s
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792 Giving a guy a digital shave in Photoshop3m 58s
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793 Carving deep wrinkles or scars into skin8m 37s
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794 Shading the White Walker’s deep-set brows6m 21s
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795 Creating pale, lifeless lips in Photoshop5m 57s
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796 Giving your White Walker glowing blue eyes10m 46s
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797 Adding some creepy lifeless pupils6m 40s
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798 Adding a cold and gloomy background12m 18s
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799 Adding cold and brittle snowflakes6m 25s
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800 Using the Transparency Shapes Layer option5m 29s
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801 Combining a radial filter with a range mask8m 35s
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802 Flipping a photograph in Camera Raw6m 20s
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803 An actual dream effect, in Photoshop14m 37s
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804 Augmenting your Photoshop dream8m 45s
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805 Applying distortions as Smart Filters6m 37s
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806 Combining distortions with blend modes10m 5s
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807 Drawing a 24-sided star in negative space12m 48s
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808 Making your star a repeating hex pattern8m 27s
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809 Shading your star pattern in Illustrator6m 57s
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810 Creating a gradient pattern in Illustrator4m 31s
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811 Making one pattern fade into another6m 23s
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812 Welcome to my seamlessly repeating summer1m 35s
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813 Drawing a cubical gobstopper in Illustrator14m 55s
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814 Creating a pattern of gobstoppers7m 23s
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815 Aligning your many gobstoppers5m 54s
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816 Blending line textures in Illustrator12m 58s
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817 Combining object blends with a pattern8m 40s
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818 Carving cubical holes into cubical objects9m 52s
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819 Nesting gradients inside a pattern5m 36s
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820 Drawing 3D isometric arrows in Illustrator7m 33s
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821 Positioning the tips of your arrows7m 17s
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822 Filling in the gaps in a repeating pattern8m 50s
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823 Drawing cartoon teeth aligned to the hair5m 50s
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824 Drawing a triangular cartoon eye8m 6s
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825 Adding windows to the houses pattern10m 46s
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826 Creating a perfectly tessellating pattern4m 32s
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827 Op art experiment 4: Triangle tunnels6m 58s
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828 Expressing your triangles as a hex pattern7m 18s
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829 Adding color to your triangle tunnels7m 55s
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830 Recoloring your triangle tunnels3m 20s
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831 Creating rainbow gradients with blends6m 18s
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832 The downside of using blends in patterns3m 35s
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833 Drawing an impossible trident in Illustrator9m 49s
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834 Shading an impossible trident with gradients4m 3s
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835 Painting paths with opposing gradients13m 51s
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836 Adding impossible shadows in Illustrator6m 42s
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837 Drawing an impossible hex object14m 8s
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838 Creating impossible latticework5m 46s
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839 Painting like Joan Miró in Adobe Sketch9m 46s
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840 Painting a watercolor wash background8m 23s
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841 Signing your artwork like Joan Miró4m 17s
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842 Opening your Sketch artwork in Photoshop9m 1s
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843 Enlarging your Miró to poster size11m 5s
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844 What if Joan Miró had met Jordan Peele?14m 10s
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845 Coloring your terrifying Miró/“Us” scene11m 47s
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846 Painting a Rorschach background9m 22s
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848 What to do when Content-Aware Fill fails?10m 4s
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847 Finishing your “Us” artwork in Photoshop10m 35s
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849 Hand turkey 20191m 56s
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850 Tracing your actual hand on an iPad10m 6s
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851 Drawing a highly articulated hand9m 50s
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852 Adding color to your hand-drawn hand12m 33s
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853 Painting your hand-drawn fingernails9m 3s
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854 A hand becomes a Thanksgiving hand turkey9m 6s
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855 Painting the turkey’s tail feathers13m 30s
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856 What’s wrong with this drop shadow?11m 14s
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857 Introducing Photoshop for the iPad13m 6s
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858 Photoshop for the iPad: Part 29m 13s
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859 Photoshop for the iPad: Part 310m 17s
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