STEP THIRTY FIVE

This is the completed mandala. It took several steps to get here. First, I cntrl dragged our Sedona bakground into our mandala. I scaled it down to size, rotated it and placed in position. I had to distort the image a little to make it more vertical. So I pulled in on the sides.
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Then I duplicated and rotated to get the ring of eight backgrounds. Next, I used the shape tool to create a deep green ocatagon for the center.
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Then I pulled up the image with the ring of stars. I deleted all the central elements leaving the deep purple circle and the ring of stars. I linked all the elements in the circle with the Sedona background and clouds. I then cntrl dragged it into the ring of stars. I had to scale it down a little and place it on center. I wanted the clouds to overlap the star ring, so I had to restack layers to accomplish that.
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Now we get to admire what we have done. I'm sure improvements could be made, but I am satisfied to where I am ready to move on to other things. Part of the beauty of these programs is that if I get inspired to add or change something later, I can go back and do so. As long as you keep layered versions, it is easy.
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At this point, I make a duplicate image and flatten it, but I save the layered version. I can then save in different formats as needed. I will usaually keep a PDF in CMYK for printing, a hi resolution JPG for viewing in Photo Gallery and so on, and a lo resolution JPG for the web as well as my PSD or CDR files
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I hope you have found these lessons helpful. Feel free to give feedback, make suggestions and spout off respectfully.

STEP THIRTY FOUR

After doing the outline, I tried something different for the coloring. Instead of going to color swatches and picking a color, I used the eye dropper tool and sampled colors from the photograph. I then used those colors with the fill tool. It worked quite well, and I actually kept those colors for the distant hills. Overall, it came out too drab. To fit our design, the colors need to be bright.

STEP THIRTY THREE

I want to use this photo for our background. Using wide iamges that can fill up a quadrant of our circle was another grand experiment, but I am ready to try going with an eigth. It means we will have to turn the green square in the center into an octagon, but I can live with that.
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Perhaps the wider image could work, or maybe it will work better in a future design; so it is an idea I will keep as a working tool.
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We will start with this image by creating a new layer from background. We can then use the magic eraser to remove the sky. I then create a new layer on which to do my painting. Again we will use a dark brown outline with the brush tool and fill in color with the fill tool.
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It was a cloudy, rainy day when I took a lot of my Sedona pictures. That makes them kind of dull and indistinct. For our purposes, however, that doesn't matter. We can create our own distinct shapes and vibrant colors. Things like the houses in the forground are also easily eliminated. The point is that you can use photos for this that might not be good enough for other uses.

STEP THIRTY TWO

I have been asking myself if there isn't a better way to handle this issue of enlarging the page without merging and shrinking layers. It is an issue that has come up before. It is quite easy to outgrow the page in creating these designs.
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It occurred to me to try linking layers and cntrl dragging them onto a new, larger page. I tried it and it works. Afterward, you can unlink the layers and retain all your editing potential. So what is the lesson here? I mean beside learning that I am an idiot?
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One is that there is often more than one way to do things and that experimentation is part of the learning process.
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Two is that the more you work with this process, the more shortcuts you will devise and the more ability yoy will develop to solve problems encountered along the way. I have only been working with computer graphics for nine months. I have worked out a lot in that time, but I am just begining. Many of you who have more basic experience with computers and computer graphics will be able to take what I am showing you and run with it.
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Three is that we all help each other by sharing what we have learned. That is the whole point of this tutorial. I am sure that some of you are going to say that you know of quicker, easier or better ways of doing things. Brian recently suggested that I check out fractile software. That would open a whole other dimension that could be applied to these designs. I am not ready to go there yet, but perhaps you are.
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In short, take what I am showing you as a starting point and grow your own approach as you go.

STEP THIRTY ONE

I have gone into a former version of the mandala which has the layering we need. It does not have the outer ring of stars of our last version. We will have to add the new clouds and background before we merge the mandala ring and shrink it down. Once we have the circle scaled down, we can add the star ring to it.
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After scaling the cloud to fit and positioning it around the hawk, I had to add some sections to the cloud so that it surrounded the hawk. The trick here is to keep an interesting asymmetrical shape, while fitting it around a symmetrical hawk shape. We don't want the cloud to become an uninteresting blob.
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I had to work with raising and lowering the cloud layer in the palette to alternately bring it in front of or in back of the hawk as I used the brush and fill tools to add sections to the cloud. By zooming in, I was able to get the detail I needed.
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After deciding that the result was satisfactory, I duplicated the cloud around the circle.

STEP THIRTY

I control dragged the cloud into the mandala window. I then scaled it down and placed it over the top hawk to fit. It looks good and I am still feeling clever until I try to put the cloud layer behind the hawk. Because I had merged the mandala layers, I have outsmarted myself.

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I need to put the cloud behind the hawk and in front of the light blue ring, but it can't be done. This is where I start feeling dumb. Being a bulldog, however, I am not going to give up. This should just take soem back tracking.

STEP TWENTY NINE

This is what we get after completing the outline and filling with color. I decided to go with a lavender cloud for contrast. I'm still feeling clever at this point. All I have to do is cntrl drag the merged layers into the mandala.
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One more thing. Making one of these designs generates a lot of files. In labeling and organizing them, I end up with some long file names. Sometimes, I get one of those pesky messages saying that the file name will be truncated. I have started using one little trick to conserve space. To eliminate the space between words or abbreviations, I alternate caps and lower case and run the letters into each other. That way I can read them while conserving space.

STEP TWENTY EIGHT

This is the little trick I figured out. We will outline the 2 sections of clouds on separate layers and then overlap layer 2 on top of layer 1. You could do this kind of thing from separate photos as well.
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This software can make you feel so clever sometimes. In a few minutes, I will show you an example of how dumb it can make you feel.

STEP TWENTY SEVEN

Are you ready to redo the clouds? Let's try using a different photograph. I rejected this one before as not uniform enough in shape, but I have an idea of how to make it work.
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We begin by creating a new layer and doing our outline in dark blue.

STEP TWENTY SIX

Let's move on to adding the poem. Simply use the text tool. I chose to center the type on the page. This is Old Bookman font. You can guess at your type size, because it is so easy to resize your text later. I used a dark blue type instead of black. You can play with all these options.
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I woke up one morning with the image of the man and hawk surrounded by a yellow aura. In my dream, I was creating the piece in tile. I have not done that yet, but it could be impressive. If any of you are good with tile, and want to use the design to do it in tile, feel free. Just send me a photograph of the finished piece. How is that for a Tom Sawyer?

STEP TWENTY FIVE

I am always blown away when I complete a ring like this. That is 48 stars. Do you know how long it would take to do that by hand?
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There is a little guess work involved. If you have a way to make it scientific, let me know.
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I started by duplicating the first star and dragging the copy to the bottom of the circle with the down arrow.
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We know that we want to fit so many stars into a 45° arc of our circle. We want to divide 45 into equal parts. If we divide by 3, we get 15° of arc. That is obviously too much. If we divide that in half, we get 7.5 degees of arc which should be about right. That gives us 6 stars in each 45° arc. That will come to 12 stars per quadrant or 48 stars for the whole circle.
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The question is, how big should the first star be to fit into the 7.5° of arc we need? There may be a way to determine this with a protractor function, but I have not figured that out yet. You could also divide a quadrant of your radial guide down into the 7.5° segments and scale your first star to fit that. The way I did it was to duplicate and rotate my linked pair through the first 45°. When I did so, it was a little too big; so I scaled it down slightly.
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I deleted the test layers and returned to my linked pair. I duplicated that and rotated 90°. I linked those 4 layers, duplicated and rotated 45°. That gave me 8 layers already highlighted which effectively links them. I then duplicated and rotated 7.5°. Then duplicate and rotate that set another 7.5°. Repeat that 2 more times and you will have a complete ring, unless I lost count and you need to add one more set.
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Those of you have ever tried doing this kind of thing with a ruler, protractor and compass will be as amazed as I am and what this software can do.

STEP TWENTY FOUR

I left a previous version of the mandala on screen and created a duplicate image. I then control dragged the central star from one window to the other. I could have done it by duplicating the central layer. I have positioned it at the top of our new ring.
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I don't like the light blue touching the larger circle of the same color, so I see we need to stroke the outside of the large light blue circle with another color; perhaps another 12 pixel yellow ring. Let's come back to that. First, I want to complete our outer ring of stars.
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Of course, we could have added some other element to this ring. I like to repeat imagery like this, so we will go with this.