Create a Seamless Fantasy Floral Pattern in Adobe Photoshop


Final product image
What You'll Be Creating

Ever wanted to sleep in bed sheets designed by your own hand? Or to sew a dress from fabric with an absolutely unique pattern? Then pick up your stylus pen, and let's make a beautiful, flowing, fantasy floral pattern in Photoshop. 
The first thing we want to do is to work out the style we want to use for this pattern. I decided on a bold graphic treatment and a soft pastel palette to make the piece feel summery. 
Play with some flower designs and roughly sketch out one or two blooming branches. For the sake of variety, it’s best if you draw a mixture of buds, half-opened flowers, and flowers in full bloom. Your sketch can be light and rough, since you will be inking over it soon.
You can start by taking your favorite flowers for reference, but your pattern will turn out more fun and surprising if you forget about botany and make up some weird, lavish blooms. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Initial Sketch

Scan your sketch at 300 dpi and open it up in Adobe Photoshop. Set your file size to at least 5000 x 5000 px to make sure you have enough image quality to work with. 
Pick a nice, natural-looking hard brush and start to draw over your sketch, fleshing out the shapes of your flowers. Let the petals twist and fold, and make sure your flowers have some volume, so they're not lying too flat on the page.

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Digital Inking

Once you've inked over your sketch, you can discard the sketch layer and assess whether your lines look balanced. It's good to have some unfinished strands branching off from your main piece, so you can easily add new elements to the pattern later on. 
This is also the best stage to make sure your flowers look as three-dimensional as you'd like. As you can see in the image below, even though I'm only using a single line color at this stage, you can tell which flowers are facing towards us and which are facing away by the way the petals are curving and folding. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Finished Line-Work

Once your lines look good, lay in some finer detail. Start to add the heavy shadows under folded petals, or in the deep places where petals meet or overlap. Add some grooves to the leaves, and some veins to the petals and stems. 
Adding hard shadows helps your flowers come to life, because they give the illusion of volume.

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Line-Work Details

When you're happy with your lines, select them by Control-clicking the line-workLayer thumbnail on the Layers panel. Now create a new layer above and paint in parts of the selection with a Hard Round Brush Tool. I decided to make the petals a different color to make the blooms more striking. 
You don't have to use more than one color on your line-work, but making sure the line color complements the fill colors of certain sections of the design will make those sections seem more cohesive and help them stand out against each other. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Line Colors

We will be using the elements we've made so far a few times over, so before we start duplicating them we should first apply the colors we've chosen for the piece, so we have less coloring work later on.
Create a new layer under your line-work layers and start painting in your base outer petal color. My recommendation is to set the layer color through the Overlay function (click the Fx button on the bottom of the Layers panel, choose Color Overlay, and then set your color). This helps you to always know which layer you are on, because the color you chose is locked to that layer. No more accidental painting on the wrong layer!  

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Base Coloring

On a new layer, set the color to a slightly darker tone compared to the outer petal base color, and paint in some shadows with the Hard Round Brush Tool. You can also use a softer or textured brush if you prefer a more painterly look. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Initial Shading

Paint in the inner petals with a gently contrasting tone. When choosing a color palette, it helps to keep the overall number of colors low, but it's also important to represent cool, warm, and neutral tones alike. 
I've chosen to keep the stems and leaves of the flowers in neutral beige tones that don't stand out too much from the background, while the blooms have cool blue outer petals and warm pink inner petals, for more impact. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Inner Petal Color

Now we'll add one more color group for the pistil of the flower—I chose a chartreuse green to preserve the balance between warm and cool tones. Browns, greens and purples can often walk the edge between warm and cool tones. 
Since we've already shaded the pistil with the line-work color, we can add a yellow highlight to it to give it more dimension. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Pistil and Leaf Colors

To make these flowers even more fun, let's give their outer petals a sweet polka-dot pattern. Use the Hard Round Brush Tool to draw evenly spaced polka dots on the outer petals. 
If your polka dots have crossed over the edges of the petals, select the petal base color layer by Control-clicking its Layer thumbnail on the Layers panel, and then click Control-I to invert the selection, and delete any excess dot parts.

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Outer Petal Pattern

Now we need to make our polka dots blend in a little better, by giving them shadows in the same places where the outer petal base is shaded. 
Control-click the outer petal shadow Layer thumbnail on the Layers panel, to make a selection. Then, without releasing the selection, duplicate the polka-dot layer by using the command Control-J
Now you have a new layer that contains only those parts of the polka dots that overlap with the petal shadow areas. Change their color to a darker tone to make them match the shadows. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Polka Dot Shadows

Paint in any remaining details, like highlights on the leaves or a faint shadow layer behind all of your other layers, to help the flowers and leaves stand apart from the background. 
I suggest you always paint in the shadow instead of using Photoshop's Drop Shadow option. It will take a little more time, but the results will look far more natural.

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Final Coloring

Now we have created a lovely branch of flowers, so let's see how we can get it to repeat in a seamless pattern. 
First let's combine all of our pattern layers except the background, by using theMerge Layers option. Then we'll use the Free Transform Tool to rotate our blooming branch to a random tilted position. Click Control-J to duplicate the branch, and then use Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal on the copy, to create a reflected version. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Tackling the Repeat

Move the new reflected version of your flower branch below the first one. Play around with its placement, testing out what looks best. You can try overlapping sections or rotating them further until you find a good flow between them. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Aligning Motifs

Now that the two branches are in place, fill in the missing gaps and details between them so they flow seamlessly together. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Bridging Gaps

Now you have a combination of two branches that look good together, and you're ready to start working on your vertical repeat. Merge all your layers together once again and click Control-J to make a new copy. 
Move the new copy down while holding Shift to ensure you're dragging it in a perfectly straight line. Find a place where it seems to overlap well with the bottom part of the original copy. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Vertical Repeat

If the overlap point feels more sparse than the rest of the design, draw in some new buds and leaves to flesh it out. Ideally you want your pattern moving in such a way that it doesn't leave major gaps when repeated sideways. If there is something sticking out on the right side, you want to have a similarly sized dent on the left side, so those two things can fit together. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Fleshing Out the Repeat

Touch up all the loose branches so that every branch and flower connects smoothly into the design. Once everything fits neatly, delete the bottom copy you used as a guide. 
Now we're ready to create the vertical repeat, so drag a Guide from the horizontalRuler and place it randomly somewhere in the top third of your design. Drag the Rectangular Marquee Tool over the part of the design that's sticking out above the Guide
When you feel it stick to the GuideShift-drag the selection straight down until its top edge seamlessly aligns with its bottom edge. Your vertical repeat is done!

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Vertical Repeat Completed

Now our pattern repeats vertically, like a ribbon. But we want to create a free-flowing, all-over print, so let's keep moving. 
If you've created any new layers, merge them all into one again, except the background. Now make a copy of your artwork using Control-J, and Shift-drag it in a straight line over to the right, until its far left edge meets the far right edge of the original artwork. 
Slide the copy left and right until you find the place that feels like the best fit. If you've managed to keep your artwork balanced (i.e. things sticking out on one side are balanced out by equal-sized gaps on the opposite side), you shouldn't have many gaps to fill. Add a small leaf or bud here and there to make sure everything flows. 
Be sure that, if you're adding new elements, you merge them all with the original artwork, and not the copy you were using as a control. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS - Horizontal Repeat Test

When you're happy with how your original artwork is matching up with the copy, delete the copy. 
Now merge all the remaining layers once again, without the background, and drag a Vertical Guide randomly somewhere into the right half of your design. Drag the Rectangular Marquee Tool over the part of the design that's sticking out to the right of the Guide
When you feel it stick to the GuideShift-drag the selection straight left until its right edge seamlessly aligns with its left edge. You've now successfully folded your pattern into a seamless pattern tile!

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS

Use the Zoom Tool to inspect the pattern closely and make sure things aren't overlapping where they shouldn't be. Check for small glitches and omissions before you drag the Rectangular Marquee Tool around your tile to select it. Then go to Edit > Define Pattern, name your new pattern, and save it. 

Seamless Fantasy Floral in PS

Isn't that really pretty? 
You’ve made a beautifully flowing seamless fantasy floral pattern. You can use it by clicking the Paint Bucket Tool, changing the little drop-down menu option from the default Foreground to Pattern, and picking your pattern from the menu. 
You can use your new design as digital paper for your scrapbooking projects, or you can test out how it looks on a bunch of great products and put it up for sale on Print on Demand sites like Society6 or RedBubble.
You can also have it digitally printed on fabric at a place like Spoonflower and use it in your DIY sewing or home décor projects! Thinking up all the potential uses for your patterns is half the fun. Be sure to share what you make!

Final Result

Use Color Theory for More Creative Control in Your Photos

Color theory can be confusing for many people. We all learned about "primary" colors, but why are those specific colors dominant in culture over any of the others? In this tutorial we'll demystify the science behind color theory, specifically additive and subtractive color, and show you how you can put this knowledge to work in a practical way.
Strictly speaking, color theory is a set of practical guidance for mixing colors with the goal of creating color harmony. I could go on forever listing all of the nuances that fall within this category, but let's cover the two most popular versions.
The first principle is that like colors will go with each other, which makes complete sense. Designing an all-red room? The deep reds and the orange-reds will go together. Designing a blue room? The deep royal blues and the sea blues will all go together. If you're designing an all-blue room, however, and throw in one neon pink chair, it will clash, and you lose the harmony of the room.
The second principle is that complementary colors (colors on opposite sides of the color wheel) will go together.


Color wheel
As much as I'd love to take credit for these simple yet brilliant observations, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe beat me to it by over 200 years by creating this in 1810.

Take a look at almost any sports team, and you can see these two principles in action. Seattle Seahawks? Blue and green are right next to each other on the color wheel. Denver Broncos? Blue and orange are across from each other. Green Bay Packers? Yellow and green are next to each other. My alma mater, the University of Washington Huskies? Purple and gold. You get the idea.
Let me burst your brain. There is no such thing as white light. "But if there's no such thing as white light, what are we doing with white balance?" Technically, the color of light is defined by the wavelength of that particular spectrum of light. There's red light, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. When you look at a color wheel it rolls back into red. So where is white? When you see a light that appears white, what you are seeing is an equal mix of all the other colors.


Additive color of light
This is what colors look like when you project red, green, and blue light.

How do you get the color black? With additive color, black is simply the absence of light. You get different variations of colors by mixing different light wavelengths, and when they get equally mixed, you end up with white. This model is exactly how your monitor works. It's also why we all edit photos in RGB color space. Our content is going out on the internet, viewed on computers phones and tablets, and even our print shops do digital printing, so RGB makes sense as a color standard.
If you take a closer look at that color wheel above, hopefully you'll think that it conflicts with everything kindergarten told you about primary colors, and you would be right. We all learn early that the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. We were taught the only way to get green is to mix yellow and blue, when actually, green is its own wavelength in the color spectrum. So how did we get all mixed up thinking about primary colors?
Welcome to the RYB (red, yellow, blue) color model. For centuries, painters considered red, yellow, blue, and green to be the four primary colors. When you look at the camera raw panel, it makes a lot of sense.


camera raw panel

Under white balance, you have blue and yellow on one slider, and green and magenta (pretty close to red) on the other.
Isaac Newton, famous for everything we know about gravity, did experiments with light and prisms, and determined that red, yellow, and blue can be mixed to create all other colors. He was a pretty smart guy, and this theory has now become dogma, which is taught in our primary schools, despite the mountain of evidence that it's wrong. Sticking with the RYB color model would yield an even smaller color gamut than any other color mode we use.


RYB Color chart by George Field 1841
RYB Color chart by George Field, 1841

This chart is the main reason we teach that red, yellow, and blue are primary colors. Anyone else see a problem with this color chart? The name of each color is misrepresented. The blue is actually more cyan. The red is actually more magenta. Take a look at the inner petals. You very clearly see red, green and blue. And most importantly, the middle is black, not white. Which brings us to...
Unlike additive color, which is all about light, their respective wavelengths, and combinations of wavelengths, subtractive color is all about the light that isn't there. A screen shows you an image by creating light in a specific color. A print shows you an image by creating a surface that absorbs all of the lights of various wavelength spectrums except the one it reflects, which is what you would call that color.


Venn diagram showing intersection of CMYK colours
In this color model, the more substance of light-blocking material (ink) you add, the less light gets reflected, and the closer toward no light (black) you get.

The RYB color space may be awful, but its cousin, CMYK, is incredibly useful. Red ink works to bring us a red image by absorbing every other light spectrum and reflecting the red one. The basics for this model are cyan, magenta, and yellow. (The "K" stands for black.)
Because this works by blocking the light with substrates like paint or ink, this is the preferred color space for most printers. With photo labs that print digitally, even if they are still calibrating and looking at your photo in RGB, then there is some under-the-hood CMYK conversion happening to get you a final output.


One of the first color photographs by Louis Ducos du Hauron 1877
One of the first color photographs by Louis Ducos du Hauron, 1877. You can see the color filtering process on the edges to create a full color photograph in the middle.

Tired of looking at color wheels? Me neither! (Just kidding.) Let's look at how you can use this knowledge practically.
You can apply additive color theory when you are using multiple lights with gels. Think about how the lights will mix with each other, and you can create a whole room of colors from just a few lights with deliberately placed gel combinations.


Photographer using gel combinations to create red and blue lighting in a room
Photo by Kevin Conor Keller

Likewise, you can use subtractive color theory when you are making those gel decisions. Don't have a Rosco gel pack with millions of choices? (First of all, you should, because it's only $10.) You can get a lot more choices out of your gels by overlapping them to create new colors. The one downside to this is that you will lose power as you add more gels. Need a green background, but only have yellow and blue gels? Finally, I'm glad kindergarten taught me something.


Various gel mixtures on a white background
Various gel mixtures on a white background. Photo by Terriseesthings

Inside Adobe Photoshop, you usually don't have to worry about adding light or blocking light. But knowing color theory can help you get better colors.
Here is a rough outline I did for a composite I worked on last year when I was in Hawaii. As you can tell, each photo has a color cast, but the color cast for each is different. If I'm going to create a cohesive piece, these all need to have the same colors.


Collage of underwater photos with different color casts

If you have the Info panel open in Photoshop, then it will show you the RGB values (or CMYK values, if you work in that color space) for any particular area of an image. 
I picked one photo that looked as if it had the right color cast and made that my "control image". I looked at the RGB values in the Info panel and tweaked each of the other images using Color Overlays until I was seeing similar RGB values in my new photos. You can do this by going to Layer > New > Fill Layer, and choosing a color that is on the opposite side of the color wheel from the one you are trying to correct for. Then lower the Opacity until the RGB values read the same.
By understanding how all the colors work together, I was able to adjust every underwater photo to match the control image. Once everything matches, then it's just a matter of blending using layer masks and a brush, and applying creative color adjustments on top.


Finished underwater composite photo with colors matching

In this tutorial you've learned the basics of color theory. You now know how additive and subtractive colors work, and you've seen some examples of how you can use this theoretical knowledge to create better photographs.
When has a deeper understanding of RGB and CMYK helped you in your photography? I'd love to know in the comments.

Meet Tuts+ Reader Rose Pajaroja

Name: Rose Pajaroja 
Location:  Manila, Philippines    
Topics of Interest:  Graphic Arts, Data Visualization, Presentation Design  
Occupation: Freelance presentation and instructional designer
Welcome to the latest Tuts+ community story, in which we meet Rose Pajaroja from the Philippines and hear about her long and sometimes painful journey towards making a living as a freelance designer.

Tuts reader Rose Pajaroja
Tuts+ reader Rose Pajaroja

Rose started her interest in visual arts when she was just a kid. Inspired by her father, she enjoyed pastel and watercolor painting, as well as entering a lot of drawing and poster-making contests in school. One day, her grandfather told her that her talent would make her rich some day. 
"That time, I already knew what I wanted to do when I grow up," she says. 
However, things didn't happen quite as smoothly as she'd hoped. When she was choosing which course to take for college, her initial choice was Fine Arts or Architecture. But she did not come from a well-off family, and her parents told her that they couldn’t afford to buy all the materials that she would need if she took Fine Arts, so she had to take a different course.
After that, she didn't hold a paintbrush for years. She worked as a Customer Service agent and became a trainer and instructor eventually, but the dream of a design career never left her. She spent a lot of time working on training aids and materials when she was a trainer, and the experience of designing those visual materials reminded her of what she really wanted to do.
Rose left her job and decided to work from home as a designer. She put profiles up all over the internet, trying to get a decent job online that would support her and her family. 
Eventually she got her first client, who asked her to design a presentation for him. But things did not go well. 
During the middle of the day, he asked me if he could see it, so I sent him what I had done so far. Then I got, “Please stop working on it.” It really hurt.
Such a bad response from the very first client would have been enough to make many people give up. But Rose says she used it as motivation. Instead of trying to forget it, she has always remembered that first client and what he said, and challenged herself to keep improving her skills so that she was able to do a better job for future clients.

Presentation design by Rose Pajaroja

But the problem was that she had limited time and money to invest in training. She had experience with drawing and painting, but no experience with new programs like Adobe Creative Suite. Online learning provided the answer.
I came across Tuts+ when I was searching for free courses on design online. It was probably a couple of years ago or less. Taking an actual Graphic Design course would take a lot of my time and money, so it was really a treasure found when I started using Tuts+.

Presentation design by Rose Pajaroja

Rose says she learned most of what she knows about using Adobe Creative Suite from Tuts+ courses and tutorials. She's also learned a lot about typography and print design. 
After a lot of hard work, Rose is making a success of her career as a freelance designer. She focuses on designing PowerPoint presentations, guides and user manuals, using Adobe Illustrator to design the elements for them, and also gets jobs designing documents, logos and eBooks once in a while. She has a roster of regular clients who come to her to get their work done.

Presentation design by Rose Pajaroja

Next, Rose plans to keep focusing on building her career as a freelance designer. She wants to build PowerPoint templates that she can list and sell in Envato Market, and she also wants to develop her own short course. 

Presentation design by Rose Pajaroja

What words of advice does she have for people who want to pursue a career in design?
Love what you do and don’t stop learning. Working for the money is the wrong motivation. I realized this after more than 10 years of working a job I didn’t like.
If you want to connect with Rose to talk about freelance designing, online learning or anything else, you can reach her in the following places:
Or feel free to leave a comment below, telling us what you thought of Rose's journey. I'm sure she'd be happy to hear from you!

Create a Flat-Style Vegetable Poster in Affinity Designer


Final product image
What You'll Be Creating

Being healthy and active means eating healthy food. Greens and veggies are our best friends! Let’s motivate ourselves and create a beautiful poster in a trendy flat style, depicting a bowl full of various vegetables. We’ll be using simple shapes, operations and Mask Layers, drawing each vegetable in Affinity Designer. Let’s do it!
Avocado is actually more like a fruit, but people often prepare it as a vegetable, so let’s include this green guy in our composition. 
First of all, create a New Document in Affinity Designer of any desired size (for example, 600 x 600 px), make sure that you have the Draw Persona selected by default, and let’s start.
We start by making a 180 x 180 px circle with the Ellipse Tool (M) and fill it with pale-yellow color. Then click the Convert to Curves button in the upper context toolbar (the area below the Persona selectors) and select its upper node with theNode Tool (A). We drag it up a bit, extruding the shape, making it look like an egg.

make a base of avocado from ellipse

Add another egg-like shape beneath the first one (Command-C > Command-V), make it a bit larger, and fill it with rich green color.

Add another egg-like shape

Now let’s add the inner part and the seed. Form a smaller circle inside the yellow part and fill it with pale-green color. Select the yellow base and the circle and Align Horizontal these two shapes to Centre from the upper context panel. Form a brown seed above the pale-green circle and put a tiny highlight on top of it.

add the seed and align the objects

Now we’ll create a shadow. Copy (Command-C > Command-V) the lower dark-green shape and place it on top in the Layers panel. Fill the shape with light-beige color and in the Layers panel lower down the Opacity to 50% and set the Blend Mode to Multiply. 

create a shadow in multiply mode

We need the shadow to cover only the right part of the avocado, so let’s take theVector Crop Tool and cut off the unneeded part. As you may notice, in the Layerspanel, the Mask Layer was applied to the shape after cropping. This is a non-destructive way of cutting the shapes, which means you can always use the Vector Crop Tool again to edit the shape or to undo the cropping completely.

use  Vector Crop Tool and cut off the shadow

Great! Our avocado looks just like it should look in flat style. Let’s move to the next vegetable!
Again we start forming our carrot from a circle of 170 x 170 px size, filling it with bright-orange color. Convert to Curves, select the bottom node with the Node Tool (A) and drag it down, forming the base of the carrot.

start forming our carrot from a circle

Let’s add a green fluffy top to our carrot. Make a green circle of about 85 x 85 pxsize. Add two smaller circles on both sides of the first one, forming a group and connecting them to the carrot base by drawing three curved lines with the Pencil Tool (N). Head to the Stroke panel to make the lines thicker, setting the Width to15 pt. You can change the Stroke color of the lines to green in the Colour panel.

form the top of the carrot from circles

Use the Order function to rearrange the objects, placing the green part beneath the carrot base. Otherwise, you can do it manually, dragging the green group and dropping it under the carrot in the Layer panel, as shown in the screenshot below.

rearrange the objects in the layers panel

Let’s add a semi-transparent shadow to our carrot. Group (Command-G) all parts of the carrot and duplicate the group (Command-C > Command-V), and thenUngroup (Command-G) the parts of the carrot copy. We ungroup the parts because otherwise the Operations panel won’t function. 
Now, keeping the ungrouped parts selected, head to Operations at the top of your context panel and click the Add button. This way you merge all the parts into a single shape, creating a silhouette of the carrot. 
Set the Opacity of the silhouette to 50% and the Blend Mode to Multiply, as we did previously. Take the Vector Crop Tool and cut the shape, making it cover the right part of the carrot.

create a shadow on the carrot

Let’s add some smaller details to our carrot to give it a completed look. Carrots usually have those thin lines and notches on their surface. Use the Pen Tool (P) to add a few of them, setting the Stroke color to darker orange and the Stroke Widthto the same 15 pt as we had for the green lines.

add strokes to the carrot

Our last step here is hiding the unneeded parts of the notches, which are outside the carrot. Group the notches and in the Layers panel drag the notches group under the carrot shape. You will see a blue line appears right under the carrot (check out the screenshot below) and the notches will be placed inside the carrot shape, like inside the mask.

hide the unwanted parts into the mask layer

You can modify the existing notches and add more of those for both parts of the carrot.

add more strokes to the carrot

As before, we start forming our radish from the even circle of a bright pinky-red color.Convert the shape to Curves and drag its lower node down. Then, keeping the node selected, head to the upper context toolbar and Convert the node to Sharpcorner. Select the upper node and squash the top of the shape a bit by dragging it down.

make a radish base from a circle

Let’s form some green leaves for the top of the radish. These are quite simple. Create three green circles, each one smaller than the previous one, and place them one above the other in a column. Add a straight line using the Pen Tool (P) with a thick green Stroke, dividing the leaf into two equal parts. Add a gentle shadow to the right part of the leaf.

make a green leaf from circles

Add a couple more leaves and place them on top of the radish. Then form the bottom part of the vegetable. Make a light-yellow ellipse, overlapping the lower tip. In the Layers panel, select the ellipse shape and drag it beneath the red radish base, placing it inside the shape, so that the unneeded parts are hidden.
Finally, finish up the radish by creating a shadow.

add the bottom part and the shadow to the radish

This time we use the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a 30 x 55 px shape for the base of the bell pepper. Make the corners of the shape 50% rounded from the upper context toolbar.

create the pepper base from rounded rectangle

Convert the shape to Curves and let’s make the bottom of the shape narrower. Select the lower left node with the Node Tool (A) and either move it to the right with the right arrow key or use the Transform panel and type -2 next to the X horizontal position value, this way moving the node 2 pixels to the right.
Do the same for the lower right node, but moving it to the left. To do so, type +2 in the X box, moving the node to the left.

move the lower nodes in the transform panel

Copy the shape, make it darker, and place it behind the initial shape. Then add another copy and Flip it Horizontal from the Transforms panel on top, forming the basic bell paper shape.
Now let’s add the green top to our pepper. Form a green ellipse and use the Pencil Tool (N) to draw a curved stem on top. Use the Stroke panel to adjust the Stroke Width (in my case it is 4 pt, as I’ve made the whole pepper smaller, but you can set any other Width value to make it fit your shape). At the bottom of the Stroke panel you can find the Pressure options window, which helps to manually set a custom width to each part of your line with the help of the graphic. In our example, we made the top part of the stem wider than its bottom.

add more copies to form the bell pepper

Add two red shapes in the back, creating the final form of the bell pepper. Let’s add a subtle shadow to finish up the pepper. Copy the three front shapes and merge them into a single silhouette. Set the Opacity to 50% and the Blend Mode toMultiply. Finally, use the Vector Crop Tool to form the shadow. Add a smaller shadow to the inner green part of the vegetable as well. As for the background parts, you can just make the red color of the right part darker—no need to place an additional shadow there.

add more details and shadow to the pepper

Maize consists of a bunch of small yellow kernels. Let’s start by forming a group of yellow circles of 11 x 9 px size and placing them one beneath the other in a column. You can duplicate each new circle and use the Transform panel to move the object along the vertical axis by typing +10 in the Y field, thus moving the corn-piece down by 10 px. I’ve created a darker-yellow base under the set of kernels to make it easier to shape out the corn cob.


To form the detailed shape of the corn, let’s just copy the first column and place two copies on both sides beneath it. Make those a bit darker. Then create two more copies and add them beneath, moving them farther from each other, making the maize shape wider. This way we have seven columns in total.

add more corn particles to the cob

We don’t actually need our maize to be as long, because its lower part will be covered with some leaves. So we can delete the unneeded particles in each column and then make the bottom particles in each column wider than the top ones, giving the maize a conical shape.

shape out the maize

Now we’ll form a leaf. Make a squashed vertical ellipse of about 40 x 95 px size and fill it with dark-green color. Convert to Curves and make the upper corner of the shape Sharp.

form a leaf from the ellipse

Create a shadow on the right part of the leaf and make three more copies. Finally, decorate our maize with leaves, placing two in the front of the corn and two in the back.

attach the leaves to the corn

Broccoli reminds us of a tree—it consists of a branchy stem, which looks like a tree-trunk, and a fluffy green top. Form the stem with the Rectangle Tool (M), making a narrow green stripe and then moving its upper nodes closer to each other, so that the top looks narrower. Add smaller branches and rotate them, placing them on both sides of the main stem.

form the stem of the broccoli from rectangles

Let’s form the top of our broccoli. Start by making a row of dark-green circles, covering the top of the stem. Add three smaller circles on top, forming a nice bushy crown. Add some dimension to the shape by placing smaller green highlights on top of the bushy shape.

form the top of our broccoli from circles

Finally, add a subtle shadow to the stem and to the top of the broccoli to make it look complete.

add a subtle shadow to the stem and to the top of the broccoli

Let’s make another leaf so that we have enough minor elements for our poster. Form the leaf base from the egg-like modified ellipse, and add a lighter-green vertical line for the stem. Use the Stroke panel to vary the Width of the stem and play with thePressure value, making the bottom part of the stem wider.
Add thinner lines and rotate them, placing them on both sides of the stem.
Don’t forget to add a shadow to our leaf.

form a leaf from circle and strokes

Now let’s make a funky flat cucumber. We start by forming a narrow rectangle and make its corners Rounded by 50%.

make a cucumber from a rounded rectangle

Convert the shape to Curves, make the top narrower by moving the nodes closer to each other, and add a short rounded stem on top. 
Duplicate the created cucumber base, fill it with lighter green color and make it narrower, placing it in the center of the basic shape by Aligning both shapes to theCentre. Use the Ellipse Tool (M) to make a group of tiny circles for the bumps of our cucumber.

make the top part narrower and add details

Last but not least, create a copy of the base, place it on top, and set the Opacity to50% and the Blend Mode to Multiply. Use the Vector Crop Tool to make a half-side shadow.

add shadow to the cucumber

Start forming a tomato from a 160 x 160 px circle of a ripe red color. Then add another, lighter circle inside for the flesh of tomato.

form a tomato from a circle

Now we need to form those cavities, which contain juice and seeds. To make this, add another darker-red circle on top of the previous two. Form a narrow vertical stripe with the help of the Rectangle Tool (M), crossing the circles in the middle and dividing them into two halves. Fill the stripe with the same light-red color as the middle circle to make them blend nicely with each other. Finally, form two small circles in the center of our tomato and place them in the center.

form the inner part of tomato from circles

Now let’s make a simple yellow seed for the tomato. Make a small 15 x 15 px circle,Convert it to Curves, and drag the bottom node down to extrude the shape.

make a seed from a circle

Rotate the seed to about 30 degrees, resize it if needed, and place it in the top left part of the tomato, inside the dark-red inner circle. Make a copy of the seed and flip it vertically to the bottom part. Add more seeds, filling the dark-red cavity.

fill the inner part of the tomato with seeds

Copy the seed group and flip it horizontally to the other side of the tomato. Form a small drop-shaped leaf from a circle and place several copies on top of the tomato, beneath the basic shape. Finally, add a subtle shadow to the right part of the tomato.

add more seeds and the top leaves of the tomato

Great! Now we have the set of healthy vegetables ready.

the set of healthy vegetables

Let’s also add some smaller particles, which will help us to fill the blank spaces of our poster. 
Use the Vector Crop Tool to slice half of the avocado (I’ve also deleted the seed here) and half of the tomato. Use the Ellipse Tool (M) to make a round piece of radish and a green piece of cucumber with small circular bumps on its surface.
Make several copies of the leaves that we created earlier, and recolor some of them. Here we also add a green pea and a yellow piece of a corn.

add some smaller particles

Let’s form a deep bowl, which we’ll later fill with the created vegetables. Take theRounded Rectangle Tool (M) and make a blue shape of about 230 x 230 px size. Adjust the corner roundness to make the shape look almost like a circle. 
Use the Vector Crop Tool to cut off the upper part of the rectangle. Add several smaller details to the bowl—place lighter-blue stripes on top and in the bottom of the bowl, and decorate the base with a wide white stripe. Add a shadow to our bowl as we did with all the previous objects.

form a bowl from a rounded rectangle

Start filling the bowl with veggies. Rotate the elements and place them in layers, one beneath the other, making a nice composition. Add several green leaves to make the pile of veggies more fluffy and three-dimensional.

Start filling the bowl with veggies

Place the bowl in the center of the document and draw a big, light-green circle under it. Apply a dark-green Stroke to the circle and adjust it in the Stroke panel, switching the Style of the stroke to Dash Line with 1-3-0-0 Dash values.

add a circle with dash stroke for the background

Use the vegetables from our set to rotate them and place along the edge of the circle.

add vegetables from our set along the circle

Add smaller particles and leaves to fill the empty spaces and to make the composition look more detailed.

Add smaller particles and leaves to fill the empty spaces

Let’s finish up our healthy poster. Create a new Layer in the Layers panel beneath the first one, which contains all our elements. Make a rectangle of the size of our document and fill it with light-beige color, thus forming a gentle background.

add a rectangle background on a new layer

Great job, folks! Our healthy vegetable poster is finished. I hope you’ve enjoyed following these simple instructions and discovered some interesting new tips and tricks, which can make the process of drawing flat objects easy and fun. Stay cool and enjoy your healthy life!

healthy vegetable poster is finished in affinity designer

 

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