Paint an Abstract Expressionist Flier for a Pottery Studio

1. Choose File → New and make a 1200 × 1600 px document.
2. Click Background, set the foreground colour to #E6DCC6 and choose Edit → Fill.
3. Double-click Layer 1 and rename it Canvas Weave. Fill it with #808080.
4. Choose Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 40 and Mono, then Filter → Motion Blur… with Angle 0 and Distance 7. That gives you horizontal threads.
5. Do it again for the vertical threads: Add Noise 30 Mono, then Motion Blur with Angle 90 and Distance 5.
6. Click the ✦ button on the layer's row to open the effects drawer, set the blend mode to Soft Light, then click the opacity figure on the row and drag it to 45%.

The grey disappears and leaves a faint cross-weave, like unprimed cotton duck.

Click the top ruler at x 64, 600 and 1136 to drop three vertical guides: the two margins and the centre. Then click the left ruler at y 64, 1040 and 1536. The guide at 1040 is where the painting stops and the type starts.

1. Click Canvas Weave and click Add Layer. Name it Splatter Black and leave it empty for now. It will hold the black drops later, and it has to sit at the top level of the Layers panel, above the stains.
2. Click Canvas Weave again and click New Group at the bottom of the Layers panel. Name the group Stains. It goes between Canvas Weave and Splatter Black.
3. With Stains selected, click Add Layer (it goes inside the group) and name it Cobalt Pour.
4. Pick the Lasso. Draw a lumpy oval about 820 px wide and 500 px tall, centred near 470, 420 and tilted up to the right. Let the outline bulge in and out a little as you go: real poured paint never makes a clean oval.

1. Set the foreground to #2C4F94, choose Edit → Fill and press Cmd+D to deselect.
2. Choose Filter → Gaussian Blur… with Radius 7. The hard lasso edge softens into a soaked-in edge.
3. Open the effects drawer and set the blend mode to Multiply, so the canvas weave shows through the paint.
4. Turn on Inner Glow with colour #142A5C, Size 22 and Opacity 55. This is the tide line: the darker rim where pigment collects as a pool dries.
5. Close the drawer and set the layer's opacity to 66%.

Make each stain on its own new layer inside Stains, the same way: Lasso, fill, Gaussian Blur, then blend mode and opacity.

• Terracotta Pool: about 600 × 430, centred near 840, 650, tilted down to the right so it overlaps the blue. Fill with #B65A35, Gaussian Blur 7, blend mode Normal, Inner Glow in #6E2A14 (size 22, opacity 55), opacity 85%.
• Ochre Wash: about 420 × 250, centred near 950, 200, running off the right edge. Fill with #D9A43C, Gaussian Blur 10, Normal, opacity 72%.
• Celadon Bleed: about 460 × 280, centred near 210, 820, running off the left edge. Fill with #8DB09A, Gaussian Blur 12, Multiply, opacity 78%.

The terracotta and ochre stay on Normal on purpose. They overlap the blue a lot, and Multiply on top of Multiply turns those overlaps into brown-black mud. On Normal the overlaps stay coloured and translucent. The celadon can stay on Multiply because it's pale and only just touches the blue.

Thinned paint creeps along the canvas threads. Pick the Smudge tool with Size 40 and Strength 75.

• On Cobalt Pour, start just inside the edge and drag outward about 40 px, curving slightly as you go. Do it once on the upper edge and once at the lower left.
• On Celadon Bleed, drag one short tendril out of the right edge.

Keep it to these three. More tendrils start to look like fins.

Pick the Dodge / Burn tool. Set Mode to Dodge, Exposure 14 and Size 200.

1. On Cobalt Pour, make one long sweep from the lower left of the pool up to its top right, then a shorter sweep under it.
2. On Terracotta Pool, make one sweep from its top left down through the middle.

These lighter paths read as places where the paint thinned out as it flowed.

Switch Mode to Burn, with Exposure 24 and Size 18. On Cobalt Pour, trace all the way round the pool just inside its edge, in three overlapping arcs. Do the same on Terracotta Pool and Ochre Wash.

Each arc is its own undo step, so if one comes out too dark, press Cmd+Z and trace it again.

Straight ochre is a little loud next to the soft blues. Click Ochre Wash, pick the Sponge tool with its defaults (Mode Desaturate, Strength 50, Size 30) and make one slow drag across the middle of the stain.

Then choose Filter → Hue/Saturation… with Hue -6 and Saturation -18. That pulls it toward the colour of a fired glaze.

1. Cmd-click the thumbnail of Cobalt Pour to load its pixels as a selection.
2. Cmd+Shift-click the thumbnails of Terracotta Pool, Ochre Wash and Celadon Bleed to add each of them.
3. Choose Select → Shrink… with 12, then Select → Feather… with 14.

Shrinking keeps the next texture off the very edges, so the tide lines stay crisp. Feathering softens the boundary so the texture doesn't stop at a visible line.

1. Click Celadon Bleed and click Add Layer. Name the new layer Pigment Mottle.
2. With the selection still active, choose Filter → Smoke… with Scale 6 and Turbulence 70. Press Cmd+D.
3. Set the layer to Overlay at 50%.

The smoke turns the flat fills into pooled, uneven pigment.

Kline's strokes break up at the edges because a big brush runs out of paint. You'll make a brush tip that's a column of bristles.

1. Click Splatter Black and click New Group. Name it Vessel. It goes above Splatter Black, at the top level. Inside it, add a layer called Kline Strokes.
2. Add one more layer called Bristle Tip. Set the foreground to #1C1A17, pick the Brush with the Hard Round preset and Hardness 100.
3. Near the top-left corner, click a column of dots straight down from about 40, 26 to 40, 174. Vary the Size between 6 and 15 and leave small, uneven gaps. A wobble of a few pixels left and right makes it look hand-made.
4. Drag a Rectangular Marquee tightly around the column, choose Edit → Define Brush… and name it Bristle Column.
5. Deselect and delete the Bristle Tip layer with the trash button.
6. Add a new Bristle Tip layer and do the same again, this time with the dots in a horizontal row from about 26, 40 to 174, 40. Name that brush Bristle Row, then delete the layer.

Each dot in the tip drags a streak when you paint. A column of dots makes streaks for strokes that run sideways, and a row of dots makes streaks for strokes that run downward.

Click Kline Strokes. Open the Brushes dialog with the brush-tip button at the left of the Brush options bar. On Presets pick Hard Round. On Shape set Hardness 70 and Spacing 4. On Dynamics set Speed Size 30 with Faster is Thinner.

Speed Size thins a stroke where you move fast and fattens it where you slow down, like a real loaded brush. Close the dialog.

The rim is an ellipse centred on 540, 250, about 300 px wide and 76 px tall.

1. Set Size 26 and paint the back half of the ellipse, from its left end over the top to its right end.
2. Set Size 50 and paint the front half in one sweep, starting a little behind the left end, going round the bottom and carrying on past the right end.

A heavier front makes the rim read as a round opening seen from slightly above.

Paint each of these as one confident stroke. Don't go back over them.

• Left wall, Size 52: start at the left end of the rim, swell out to its widest (about x 250) halfway down, then curve back in to the foot at about 424, 962.
• Right wall, Size 34: start at the right end of the rim, swell out to about x 832, then curve back in to about 664, 948. Making it lighter than the left wall gives the pot a light side and a shadow side.
• Foot, Size 26: a slightly wavy line joining the bottoms of the two walls.
• Wheel, Size 60: a long stroke across the page just above the 1040 guide, from near the left edge to near the right margin, rising very slightly.
• Diagonal, Size 64: from near the top-right corner (about 1130, 86) down to about 890, 356, where it meets the top of the rust stain. It cuts in like the edge of a big Kline canvas.

1. Open the Brushes dialog, pick the Bristle Column preset, set Spacing 1 and Speed Size 0, and close it.
2. Paint along the wheel bar twice, once at Size 72 and once at 66, each running only about 10 px past the bar's ends. Then paint once along the diagonal at Size 76.
3. Pick the Bristle Row preset (Spacing and Speed Size stay as you just set them) and paint along the left wall at Size 62 and along the right wall at Size 42.

Keep each bristle pass only a little wider than the stroke under it. That way the streaks fray the edges. Much wider, and they turn into ruled lines floating beside the stroke.

Pick Smudge with Size 60 and Strength 80. Drag each end of the wheel bar outward, about 60 px past where it ends. Then drag the lower end of the diagonal down and to the left. This is the paint dragging as the brush lifts off.

1. Click Kline Strokes, add a layer called Glaze Drips and set the foreground to #EEE4CF. Pick the Brush, open the Brushes dialog and choose the Hard Round preset, with Hardness 85 and Speed Size 0.
2. In the Brushes dialog's Shape tab, Taper makes a stroke start at a point and grow to full size over that many pixels. Each drip hangs from the front of the rim, at about y 288. Paint each one from its bottom end up to the rim, so it starts thin and is full width where it leaves the lip. Reopen the dialog to set each drip's Taper before you paint it:

• at x 468: 172 px long, Size 14, Taper 138
• at x 534: 252 px long, Size 16, Taper 202
• at x 602: 108 px long, Size 12, Taper 86

1. Set Taper back to 0. At the bottom of each drip, click a dab about one and a half times the drip's size. Then click a smaller dab a few pixels to one side and lower, so each bead is lopsided.
2. With Smudge at Size 22 and Strength 55, drag each bead down about 18 px so it sags.

Click Splatter Black, pick the Brush again (Smudge is still selected from the last step) and set the foreground to #1C1A17. In the Brushes dialog pick Hard Round, set Hardness 95 and Taper 60, and close it.

A flung drop has a round head and a tail that thins to a point. With Taper on, drawing each drop from the end of its tail back to the head does that in one stroke.

For each drop, press at the tip of the tail and drag 20–120 px back to where the drop landed. Point the tails in every direction.

• Put about seven around the left wall, five around the right wall and four near the diagonal, plus a little cluster around 330, 190 above the rim. Keep them more than 170 px away from 1008, 792, where the stamp will go.
• Vary the Size a lot, from 5 to 28. A few big drops among many small ones looks thrown. Drops that are all the same size look stamped.
• Set Size 7, then 4, and click a few droplets just beyond the ends of some tails. Finish with a sprinkle of Size 3 specks. Taper only affects drags, so these single clicks come out as round dots.

Set Taper back to 0 and Size to 5. Paint three long, continuous looping lines without lifting:

• across the top, from about 70, 160 to 560, 120, with five loose loops
• from 560, 520 down to 830, 680, crossing the rust stain
• from 80, 640 to 520, 820, crossing the green stain

Keep the loops round and uneven, never angular. Pollock's lines curve because the paint is falling, not being drawn.

1. Click Glaze Drips and add a layer called Splatter Colour. Set Taper to 50.
2. Flick nine short drops of #F3EDDF (Size 6–16) over the blue and the rust, four of #E2B33A (Size 5–12) and three of #B3362B (Size 5–11). Keep these tails short, just a little longer than the drop itself.
3. Set Taper back to 0.

Cream drops show up best on the dark stains. Keep the yellow and red sparse: they're accents.

The rust stain on the right could use a few more lines. Rather than paint new ones, borrow some.

1. Click Splatter Black. With the Rectangular Marquee, drag a box around the two or three loops at the start of the first skein, at the top left.
2. Press Cmd+C, then Cmd+V. The copy lands on a new layer above, in the same spot, and the Move tool is picked for you. Rename the layer Splatter Echo.
3. Drag the copy about 820 px right and 330 px down, onto the rust stain.

Draw a Rectangular Marquee tightly around the moved loops, so the transform box hugs them rather than the whole layer. Pick the Move tool, hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right corner handle inward until the box is about three quarters of its size. Cmd keeps the proportions.

Move the pointer just outside the top-right corner of the box until it shows the rotate cursor, then drag round until the loops are turned about 135°. Press Cmd+D to commit.

Turned and smaller, the loops read as a new throw rather than a copy. If you don't like where they landed, Cmd+Z steps back through the rotation, the scale and the move one at a time.

1. Click Splatter Echo, click New Group and name it Type. Inside it, add a layer called Footer Rule.
2. Choose View → Show Grid. The grid is a quick way to see how much room the bottom 560 px gives you: about two-thirds of the width for the title and one-third for the info column. If View → Snap to Grid is ticked, untick it, because the type won't sit on grid lines.
3. Pick the Pencil, set Size 3 and the colour to #1C1A17. Click at 64, 1482, then hold Shift and click at 1136, 1482 for a straight rule between the margins.
4. Choose View → Show Grid again to hide the grid.

1. Click Footer Rule. Pick the Text tool, choose Barlow Condensed, set the weight to ExtraBold, Size 232 and colour #1C1A17. Click an empty spot, type PINCH and press Tab to finish.
2. With the Move tool, place it so the top-left of the P sits at 60, 1068, just under the bar.
3. Click Footer Rule again and type BISQUE the same way. Place it with its left edge lined up with PINCH, leaving a gap of about 30 px between the bottom of PINCH and the top of BISQUE.
4. Double-click each text layer's name and rename it PINCH and BISQUE, so they're easy to find later.

The left edges sit at 60 rather than on the 64 guide on purpose. At this size the letters' side bearings make them look indented, and nudging them 4 px left lines them up by eye with the footer.

Click Footer Rule before each new piece of text, and rename each layer after you type it (the names are in bold below). The Text panel's Letter spacing and Line height carry over to the next piece of text, so set both every time. Where a step doesn't mention them, use letter spacing 0 and line height 1.2.

1. Ampersand: & in Knewave, Size 210, colour #B3362B. Place it so it overlaps the right stem of PINCH's H by about 24 px, with its bottom 6 px above BISQUE.
2. Kicker: CERAMICS STUDIO in Barlow Condensed Bold, Size 34, colour #B3362B. In the Text panel set Letter spacing to 3. Place it with its right edge on the 1136 guide and its top at 1072, level with the top of PINCH.
3. Hours: WEDNESDAYS 6–9 PM and SATURDAYS 10–4 PM on two lines (press Return between them), Barlow Condensed Bold 31, #1C1A17, letter spacing 1, Line height 1.3. Line its left edge up with the kicker, and put its last baseline on BISQUE's baseline (about y 1428).
4. Classes: WHEEL THROWING, HAND BUILDING, GLAZE NIGHTS and KILN RENTALS on four lines, Barlow Condensed Medium 31, #1C1A17, letter spacing 1, line height 1.45. Line it up on the same left edge, with equal gaps above and below it.
5. Footer: 41 BRICKYARD LANE · RIVERSIDE · PINCHANDBISQUE.STUDIO (two spaces either side of each dot), Barlow Condensed SemiBold 24, #1C1A17, letter spacing 4, with its top-left at 64, 1500.

1. Click Splatter Colour and click New Group. Name it Stamp. It sits at the top of the Vessel group, over the painting. Inside it, add a layer called Stamp Disc.
2. With the Elliptical Marquee, draw a circle centred on 1008, 792 with a radius of 125, from 883, 667 to 1133, 917. Set the foreground to #F3EDDF and fill it.
3. Draw a circle on the same centre with radius 112, from 896, 680 to 1120, 904. Set the foreground to #B3362B and fill it.
4. Draw one more with radius 108, from 900, 684 to 1116, 900. Set the foreground back to #F3EDDF, fill it and deselect.

That leaves a thin red ring inside a cream disc.

Open the effects drawer for Stamp Disc and turn on Stroke with Width 4 in #B3362B. Don't add a drop shadow: a stamp is printed flat on the paper, not stuck on top of it.

Click Stamp Disc before each piece of text, centre each one on x 1008, and rename the layers as shown:

• Price: $35 in Barlow Condensed ExtraBold 104, #1C1A17, letter spacing 0, with its top at 750
• Stamp Top: FIRST CLASS in Bold 24, #B3362B, letter spacing 3, with its top at 712
• Stamp Bottom: CLAY + FIRING in SemiBold 18, #B3362B, letter spacing 2, with its top at 854

Check that both small lines sit comfortably inside the red ring, with roughly equal space above FIRST CLASS and below CLAY + FIRING.

Click the Stamp group's row and press Cmd+D so nothing is selected. Pick the Move tool. The handles frame the whole group. Drag the rotate handle just outside the top-right corner a little anticlockwise, about 9°.

Rotating the group turns the disc and all three lines of live text together, and the text stays editable.

The layout is set, so untick View → Show Guides to hide the guides. Then click the Ampersand layer and pick the Move tool. Its handles frame the whole line of text, which is taller than the glyph. Drag the rotate handle at the top-right corner about 10° anticlockwise. The ampersand leans like it was brushed on quickly.

1. Click Pigment Mottle and click Add Mask at the bottom of the Layers panel. Click the mask thumbnail that appears under the layer's row, so you're painting on the mask instead of the layer.
2. Pick the Gradient tool, set a linear gradient from black to white, and drag from 600, 930 straight up to 600, 760.

The blue overlay shows where the mask hides the layer. The mottle now fades out before the wheel bar, so the stains look calmer near the type. Click the layer's name to leave mask editing.

With everything in place, the blue stain left of the pot looks a little empty. Click Splatter Black and pick the Clone Stamp with Size 70. Alt-click the cluster of drops above the rim at about 330, 190 to set the source. Then paint one short dab around 175, 340. The empty patch gets a few drops that match the rest.

1. Click the ✦ button on the Stains group's row. A group's drawer shows its blend mode and its adjustments.
2. Set the group's Blend to Multiply.
3. Click + Add Adjustment, choose Hue / Saturation and set Saturation to 10.

Any adjustment makes the group render on its own first, so without the Multiply the blue pool would stop multiplying onto the canvas and turn hard and bright. Setting the whole group to Multiply puts that soaked-in look back.

Click the ✦ button on the top Project group's row. It already has Levels, Curves, Exposure and Hue / Saturation, which every new document starts with and which do nothing until you change them. Click + Add Adjustment, choose Vignette and set it to 12. The corners darken slightly and pull the eye in.

1. Click Splatter Colour (inside Vessel) and add a layer called Print Grain.
2. Fill it with #808080, choose Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 22, Mono and Gaussian, and set it to Overlay at 30%.

Print Grain sits near the top of Vessel, under only the Stamp group, and Vessel is above everything else. So the grain covers the painting and the type alike, and they look printed on the same sheet. Export with File → Quick Export PNG, and save the project with File → Save Project so you can change the price and the hours next term.