Cut an Americana Crate Stencil Set in Lopsy

1. Choose File → New, set Width 2400, Height 1700, Pixels, White background, and click Create.
2. Click Background in the Layers panel, set the foreground colour to #6B5B4A and choose Edit → Fill.

A barn wall is ten boards, each 240 px wide, and no two weathered the same.

1. Double-click Layer 1 and rename it Planks.
2. Pick the Rectangular Marquee and, with nothing selected, click once on the canvas without dragging. The Rectangular Selection dialog opens. (If a selection is active, that click only deselects it, so press Cmd+D first. The same goes for every exact-corners dialog in this tutorial.) Enter From X 0, From Y 0, To X 240, To Y 1700 and click Select.
3. Fill it with Edit → Fill in #736250.
4. Press Cmd+D, then repeat for each board, moving 240 px right each time (240–480, 480–720 and so on). Cycle through #655645, #7A6855, #6E5D4B, #615242 and back to #736250.
5. Deselect with Cmd+D.

1. Click Add Layer, name it Grain and fill it with mid grey #808080.
2. Run Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 100 and Mono.
3. Run Filter → Motion Blur… with Angle 90 and Distance 100. The speckles stretch into vertical streaks.
4. Open the layer's effects drawer (the ✦ button on its row) and set the blend mode to Overlay. Grey disappears in Overlay, so only the light and dark streaks show.

1. Add a layer called Weather and run Filter → Clouds… with Scale 4.
2. Set its blend mode to Soft Light and its opacity to 35%. Any stronger and the wall turns blotchy and fights with the plates.

1. Add a layer called Seams. Pick the Pencil, set Size 5 and colour #241D16.
2. At each board edge (x 240, 480, 720 …) click at the top of the canvas, hold Shift and click at the bottom. Shift-click draws a straight line from the last point.
3. Set Size 2 and colour #95826A and draw a second line 4 px to the right of each seam. That's the lit edge of the next board.
4. Pick the Brush at Size 12 in #2A2420 and click a few nail heads along the top and bottom of the wall. Leave some boards with one nail, some with two, and keep them slightly uneven.

The sheet is a 3 × 2 grid of 700 × 660 px cells, with 60 px between the columns and 70 px between the rows.

1. Zoom in on each spot so a ruler click lands on the exact pixel. Click the top ruler at x 90, 790, 850, 1550, 1610 and 2310. Each click drops a vertical guide (watch X in the status bar).
2. Click the left ruler at y 100, 760, 830 and 1490.
3. Make sure View → Snap to Guides is ticked.

Each plate gets its own group, so it can be tilted as one piece later.

1. Click Seams, click New Group and rename the group Plate 1.
2. With the group selected, click Add Layer. The layer goes inside the group. Rename it Sheet 1.
3. With the Rectangular Marquee, drag from the top-left of the first cell to its bottom-right. The marquee snaps onto the guides, so you don't have to be exact.

1. Fill the selection with manila #BC9C68 and run Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 12 and Mono, for a paper tooth.
2. Pick the Brush with Size 260, Hardness 0 and Opacity 18%, in #7A5528. While the marquee is still active, paint a stroke along the top edge and a curling one in the bottom-left corner. The selection keeps the oil stains on the sheet. Deselect.
3. In the effects drawer, turn on:

• Drop Shadow: colour #1A120B, Offset X 10, Offset Y 16, Blur 18, Opacity 60
• Stroke: colour #7E5A2C, Width 2, position inside, for the cut edge
• Inner Glow: colour #5E3F1A, Size 60, Opacity 55. Oil soaks in darker along every edge, and later along every cut too.

1. Collapse Plate 1 with its arrow and keep it selected, then click New Group. With a collapsed group selected, the new group lands beside it instead of inside. Name it Plate 2.
2. Inside it, repeat steps 2 and 3 of Start the first plate and all of Make the oiled manila sheet, effects included, for Sheet 2 in the second cell. Move the oil strokes about a little so the sheets don't match.
3. Do the same for Plate 3, Plate 4 and Plate 5 in the next three cells.

1. Collapse Plate 5, select it, and add a group called Proof with a layer Board inside.
2. Open the marquee dialog and select a rectangle 60 px wider than the last cell on both sides: From 1550, 830, To 2370, 1490. Fill it with pine #DDC395.
3. Run Add Noise… at 40, Mono, then Motion Blur… at Angle 0, Distance 90 for horizontal grain. The extra width keeps the blur from fading at the ends.
4. Press Cmd+D, open the dialog again and select the cell exactly (1610, 830 to 2310, 1490), choose Select → Inverse and press Delete to trim the extra.
5. Cut two 6 px gaps between the boards (deselect before each dialog): select 1610, 1040 to 2310, 1046 and press Delete, then the same at y 1256–1262.
6. Give Board the same Drop Shadow as the sheets and a 2 px inside Stroke in #A5824F. With the Brush at Size 11 in #3B332B, click one nail near each end of every board.

Plate 1 is the mustard plate: a five-point barn star in a ring.

1. Expand Plate 1, click Sheet 1 and add a layer called Star Art above it.
2. Pick the Pen tool. The star is centred at x 440, y 330, with its outer points 128 px from the centre and its inner points 51 px. Watching X and Y in the status bar, click these ten points in order, starting at the left-most one: 318, 290 · 410, 289 · 440, 202 · 470, 289 · 562, 290 · 489, 346 · 515, 434 · 440, 381 · 365, 434 · 391, 346. Click the first point again to close the path.
3. Open the Paths panel and click Path to Selection. Keep the path for now.
4. Fill the selection with mustard #C29C4C.

1. Deselect, then with the Elliptical Marquee click once to open its dialog and select From 256, 146 To 624, 514 (a 184 px radius around the star centre). Fill it.
2. Deselect and select From 272, 162 To 608, 498 (radius 168) and press Delete. That leaves a 16 px ring. The delete also clears the star, so click Path to Selection again, fill it again, and then click Delete Path.
3. A ring cut all the way round would let the centre of the stencil fall out. Leave four bridges: select a rectangle across the ring at the top and bottom (14 wide × 24 tall) and at the left and right (24 wide × 14 tall), and press Delete each time.
4. Add the registration holes: two 18 px circles, centred 30 px in from the left and right edges of the cell at half its height (x 120 and x 760, y 430). Fill them.

Every plate gets these two holes in exactly the same place.

1. Cmd-click the Star Art thumbnail. Its shape loads as a selection.
2. Click Sheet 1 and press Delete.

Hide Star Art for a moment to check. The wall shows through the cut, the drop shadow falls into it, and the Inner Glow darkens the cut edges like oil-soaked card.

1. Show Star Art, click its row, Cmd-click its thumbnail and press Cmd+C.
2. Expand Proof, click Board and press Cmd+V. The copy lands in place, right above Board. Rename it Mustard and deselect.
3. With the Move tool, drag it 1520 px right and 730 px down, into the same spot in the sixth cell. Finish with the arrow keys until its registration dots sit exactly the same distance from the board's edges as the holes on the plate.
4. Delete the Star Art layer. The plate is cut and the colour is on the proof.

Plate 2 is barn red: the rooster and two apples.

1. Collapse Plate 1, expand Plate 2 and click Sheet 2.
2. Drag the downloaded rooster file onto the canvas. It arrives at full size in the top-left corner as a new layer above Sheet 2. Deselect with Cmd+D and rename the layer Red Art.

1. Run Filter → Desaturate.
2. Run Filter → Threshold… with Level 110. The orange background turns white and the ink turns solid black.

1. Pick the Magic Wand, set Tolerance 10 and tick Contiguous.
2. Click the middle of the rooster's black body. The wand takes everything joined to it, including the post, but not the loose rays.
3. Woodcut hatching leaves small white flecks inside the selection. Run Select → Grow… 5 and then Select → Shrink… 5. Growing closes the small holes and shrinking brings the outline back, so you get one clean shape.

1. Choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. The background and the rays disappear.
2. Marquee the post below the feet (from the bottom of the feet to the bottom of the layer, across the full width) and press Delete.
3. Cmd-click the Red Art thumbnail, fill the selection with barn red #92342B and deselect.

1. Draw a rectangular marquee a couple of pixels larger than the rooster.
2. Pick the Move tool, hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right corner handle up and left until the rooster is about 260 px tall. Holding Cmd keeps the proportions.
3. Press Cmd+D to commit the scale.

Press Cmd+Z and Cmd+Shift+Z once each to compare. The scale undoes and redoes cleanly.

With the Move tool, drag the rooster onto the second plate. Centre it horizontally, with the top of its comb 100 px below the top of the sheet. The rooster then is centred where plate 1's ring centre sits, a little above the middle of the cell. Use the arrow keys for the last few pixels.

A solid rooster would cut out as one big hole and the plate would flop. Real stencils break shapes with thin bridges that double as drawing.

1. With the Pen, draw a thin closed sliver, about 7 px wide, across the tail from the back to the outside edge. Click down one side and back up the other. Path to Selection, press Delete, and Delete Path.
2. Do the same lower down the tail, and once more for a wing line that starts in the dip of the back and curves down through the breast and out the front.
3. The threshold lost the open beak. Pen a small triangle pointing up and right from the face, turn it into a selection and fill it red.

1. With the elliptical marquee dialog, select a 64 × 58 px ellipse centred 104 px in from the left of the cell and 584 px down. Fill it red.
2. Delete a 14 × 13 px ellipse at the top of the apple for the stem notch.
3. Repeat for a second apple centred 104 px in from the right.
4. Add the two registration holes in the same place as on plate 1, and fill them red.

Cmd-click the Red Art thumbnail, click Sheet 2 and press Delete. The bridges stay as thin strips of manila across the cut.

Copy the art onto the proof the same way as before:

1. Click Red Art, Cmd-click its thumbnail, press Cmd+C.
2. Click Mustard in the Proof group and press Cmd+V, so the paste lands above the mustard. Rename it Barn Red and deselect.
3. Move it 760 px right and 730 px down, and nudge until the red registration dots sit right on top of the mustard ones.
4. Delete Red Art.

Plate 3 is navy: the name and a ribbon under it.

1. Collapse Plate 2, expand Plate 3, click Sheet 3 and add a layer Navy Art.
2. Select a 300 × 44 px rectangle from 200 px to 500 px across the cell, 556 px to 600 px down, and fill it with navy #27324D.
3. With the Pen, draw each tail as a five-point shape, a little lower than the band and pointing outward with a V notch cut into its end. Leave a 6 px gap between each tail and the band. That gap is the fold of the ribbon and a bridge at the same time. Path to Selection, fill, Delete Path.
4. Add the registration holes in navy.

1. Pick the Text tool. Choose Stardos Stencil, weight Bold, Align Center, size 123, colour navy.
2. Click in the empty middle of the plate, type FOWLER and press Tab to commit.
3. Stardos Stencil already has stencil breaks in every letter, so the counters of the O and R won't fall out.

At size 123 the word is 500 px wide, the same as the space between the apples.

1. With the Move tool, centre it over the ribbon with its baseline about 27 px above the band. Arrow keys move it 1 px, Shift + arrows 10 px.

1. Click Rasterize Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel.
2. Choose Layer → Merge Down to merge the lettering into Navy Art.

1. Cmd-click the Navy Art thumbnail, click Sheet 3 and press Delete.
2. Click Navy Art, Cmd-click its thumbnail and press Cmd+C. Click Barn Red in the proof and press Cmd+V. Rename it Navy, move it 0 px across and 730 px down (plate 3 sits directly above the proof), and line up the dots.
3. Delete Navy Art.

Plate 4 is leaf green: a laurel sprig either side of the ring, and a leaf on each apple.

1. Collapse Plate 3, expand Plate 4, click Sheet 4, add a layer Green Art, and set the colour to #556A3A.
2. Zoom in on the left side of the plate. Pick the Pen, set its Stroke to 5, and click a gentle arc about 30 px outside where the ring sits, from the lower left up to the upper left. It follows the ring from plate 1, which in this cell would be centred at x 440, y 1060 with a radius of 184. Press Enter. On an open path, Enter strokes it onto the layer as the stem. Delete the path in the Paths panel.
3. Pen four pointed leaves along the outside of the stem, each about 46 × 18 px and angled up towards the tip, plus a smaller leaf at the tip. Close each one, Path to Selection, fill, Delete Path.
4. Do the mirror image on the right.

1. Above each apple, stroke a short stem with the Pen and Enter, then pen a small leaf leaning outward.
2. Add the registration holes in green.
3. Cut Sheet 4 with the art, paste the art above Navy on the proof as Leaf Green, move it 1520 px right and line it up. Then delete Green Art.

Plate 5 puts cream on top of the other colours.

1. Collapse Plate 4, expand Plate 5, click Sheet 5, add a layer Cream Art.
2. Plate 5 sits directly below plate 2, so everything is 730 px straight down from where it is on plate 2. Fill these in cream #EDE4CB with the elliptical dialog:

• a 10 × 20 px glint at the upper left of each apple: 934, 1398 to 944, 1418 and 1426, 1398 to 1436, 1418
• an 8 px dot for the eye: 1266, 952 to 1274, 960
• the two registration holes, as before.

1. Type ORCHARD in Stardos Stencil Bold at size 36, colour cream. Centre it on where the ribbon band sits: 200–500 px across the cell and 556–600 px down, so x 1050–1350, y 1386–1430. Rasterize it and Merge Down.

Cut Sheet 5, paste the art above Leaf Green on the proof as Cream, move it 760 px right and line it up. Then delete Cream Art. The proof now shows all five plates in register.

A used stencil is coated in its own colour around the cuts. Paint stops dead at the cut edges, because whatever went through the hole landed on the crate.

1. Expand Plate 1, click Sheet 1 and add a layer Overspray 1 above it.
2. Cmd-click the Sheet 1 thumbnail. The selection is the manila without the holes.
3. Set the foreground to mustard. Pick the Brush with Size 240, Hardness 0 and Opacity 40%, and drag two soft strokes across the design for a tint.
4. Pick the Spray tool with Size 70, Density 100, Opacity 70% and Softness 30, and zig-zag over the design in rows about 35 px apart. Make the cloud rounder than the design and keep its edges ragged. A small Size gives fine droplets. At big sizes the dots grow up to a quarter of the Size and look like measles.

Mustard is close to the manila, so plate 1 needs these strong settings. The other plates use about 22% for the brush and 40% for the spray. Go a little lighter on navy, the darkest colour, but not so light that it turns grey.

Repeat the overspray for plates 2 to 5, each on its own Overspray layer above its sheet:

• Plate 2: one cloud around the rooster and one along the apples.
• Plate 4: two separate clouds over the laurels, not one blob across the empty middle, and a third along the apple leaves.
• Plate 5: keep it small: the ribbon lettering, the glints and the eye.

Then label each plate:

1. With the plate's overspray layer selected, pick the Text tool with Covered By Your Grace, size 32, colour #393633, Align Left.
2. Click about 70 px in from the left edge, near the top of the plate, and type the label (on a Mac, Option+Shift+9 types the ·): No.1 · mustard, No.2 · barn red, No.3 · navy, No.4 · leaf green or No.5 · cream. Press Tab.
3. Click Rasterize Layer.

Keep at least 15 px between a label and any cut. The corner tape goes on later, so leave the first 60 px at the corners clear.

1. Expand Proof, click Cream and choose Layer → Merge Down four times. Rename the result Paint and set its opacity to 88%, so a little of the wood shows through every colour.
2. The registration dots did their job, but a buyer wouldn't see them. Select a 26 px circle over each one and press Delete.
3. Spray passes straight through the gaps between the boards. Select each 6 px gap again and press Delete on Paint too.

1. Click Board, Cmd-click its thumbnail, press Cmd+C.
2. Click Paint and press Cmd+V. A copy of the board lands above the paint. Name it Grain Over.
3. Set it to Multiply at 70%. The grain now runs through every colour, as if the paint soaked into the wood.

A crate gets knocked about, so the paint should chip a little.

1. Click Paint, click Add Mask, then click the mask thumbnail to edit the mask.
2. Pick the Brush at Size 9, Hardness 70, Opacity 85%. Click the brush preview at the left of the options bar to open the Brushes panel, and set Spacing 140, Size Jitter 80 and Opacity Jitter 50. The stroke breaks into separate nicks of different sizes.
3. Drag short strokes along the plank edges, across a corner of the ring and through the bottom of the lettering. On a mask the Brush always hides, whatever the colour.
4. Click the mask thumbnail again to stop editing, and set the brush Spacing and jitters back to what they were (25 and 0 here).

1. With Paint selected, pick the Text tool with Permanent Marker, size 34, colour #B3261E. Click in the top-left corner of the pine and type proof OK!. Press Tab and rasterize it.
2. Marquee around the note, pick the Move tool and drag the round rotation handle just outside a corner about 6° anticlockwise. Press Cmd+D to commit. Hand-written notes are never level.
3. Collapse Proof.

Pinned-up sheets never hang square.

1. Click the Plate 1 group row and press Cmd+D so nothing is selected. With the Move tool, handles appear round the whole group.
2. Drag the rotation handle just outside the top-right corner a little upward, about a degree anticlockwise, so the top-right corner rises 10 to 15 px. Press Cmd+D.
3. Tilt the others by a degree or so too, alternating direction, so neighbours lean different ways. Give the proof a little more (about a degree and a half clockwise), because it's a nailed board, not a sheet.

If a group has a marquee drawn on it, Lopsy asks you to deselect first. A selection would transform only part of the group.

1. Click the Proof group and add a layer Tape. It goes at the top of the stack, above every group.
2. With the Pen, draw a rectangle about 95 × 38 px over each top corner of each plate, tilted about 40° so it crosses the corner. Path to Selection, fill with #E1D6B6, Delete Path. Vary the angles a few degrees. The proof is nailed, so it gets no tape.
3. Draw one long strip, about 1320 × 76 px and a hair off level, centred in the bottom margin for the title.
4. Run Add Noise… at 14, Mono, give the layer a Drop Shadow (Offset 2, 4, Blur 6, Opacity 40) and set its opacity to 92%.

1. Pick the Text tool with Special Elite, size 36, colour #2A2522. Click above the strip and type FOWLER ORCHARD · CRATE-END STENCIL SET · 5 PLATES + PROOF. Press Tab.
2. With the Move tool, centre it on the strip, with even space above and below and at least 50 px of tape at each end.
3. Choose File → Save Project, then File → Export… for the PNG.