Design a Gilded Baroque Rotisserie Menu

Build a candle-lit Baroque menu in Lopsy with a velvet damask, gilt frame and acanthus scrolls, a rooster painting in a medallion, and a curved title.

Advanced
120 min
32 steps

Published November 4, 2026

The finished Rotisserie Royale menu. Crimson velvet with a faint damask pattern fills the page inside a gilt frame with rosettes at the corners. At the top a gilt medallion ringed with ivory pearls holds a 17th-century painting of a red rooster and a white hen, flanked by gold acanthus scrolls. A crimson ribbon across the bottom of the medallion carries the title Rotisserie Royale in cream capitals. Below, on an arched ivory panel, a script tagline reads Spit-roasted over open flame, by candlelight, followed by three sections, Les Entrées, Les Rôtis and Les Douceurs, each with three dishes, italic descriptions and dotted leaders to red prices. A gold small-caps footer reads Rue Royale, Reservations by Candle and Quill.

Baroque printed ephemera loves excess: heavy gilt frames, velvet, scrolling acanthus leaves and a painted scene held in a medallion. In this tutorial you'll make a menu in that spirit for Rotisserie Royale, a made-up spit-roast restaurant. It's all drawn in Lopsy, apart from one public-domain painting. If you'd rather paint the still life yourself, the quince Baroque menu takes that route. This one leans on pattern, gilding and a curved title.

Along the way you'll use:

Brush symmetry and Define Pattern to draw a half-drop damask.
Emboss on a grey copy to give flat gold some relief.
Radial symmetry to place pearls and rosette petals in one click.
Duplicate and Flip to mirror an ornament.
Text on a path to bend the title along a ribbon.
Color Grading to warm the whole menu at the end.

The document is 1400 × 2100 px, a tall menu card.

You'll need one image: Melchior d'Hondecoeter's Poultry-yard with angered cock, public domain, from Wikimedia Commons. Download the full-size file.

The palette:

Velvet
Damask
drawn on black, then set to Screen
Gold
Parchment
Ribbon
Dish names
Headings and prices
Descriptions
Footer band
Dark strokes and fillet
Scorched edge
Ribbon tails
fold
Pearls
Tagline
Lighting

A few habits make the whole build easier:

Exact marquees. With nothing selected, click once on the canvas with the Rectangular or Elliptical Marquee. A dialog opens where you type the corners (From X/Y, To X/Y). Most shapes here are placed that way. The click only opens the dialog when nothing is selected, so press ⌘D before every exact marquee, even right after a fill or a delete.
⌘-click a thumbnail in the Layers panel to select that layer's pixels. That's how you'll keep gradients inside a shape.
The sparkle icon on a layer's row opens its effects drawer. That's also where the Blend mode lives. Click the percentage on the row to change its opacity.
New layers appear right above the active layer. Click the layer you want to build on before you add the next one.
Brush settings stick. The brush keeps its Size, Taper and Spacing until you change them. Unless a step says otherwise, use Taper 0 and Spacing 10%.
Text layers are named after their text. Rename each one as you go (double-click the name), because later steps refer to them by name.
Press ⌘D to deselect, and do it often.

Set up the guides

Create a 1400 × 2100 document. Click the top ruler at 150, 700 and 1250 to drop three vertical guides: the panel edges and the centre line. Click the left ruler at 392 and 640 for two horizontal guides. The first marks the centre of the medallion and the second the top of the panel's straight sides.
Paint the velvet
1. Click Background and pick the Gradient tool. Set Type to Radial and click Advanced….
2. Set three stops: on the left, at 55% and on the right. Click a stop and type its hex. Click the bar to add a stop.
3. Drag from a little above the middle of the page out to the bottom right corner.
Draw one damask tile
A damask is one motif repeated. Draw a single tile in the middle of the page, where the mirror line is.
1. Click Layer 1 and rename it Damask Tile (double-click the name).
2. Make an exact rectangle from 620, 930 to 780, 1170 and fill it with black. Edit → Fill uses the foreground colour, which starts out black. Press ⌘D.
3. Set the foreground to . With the Elliptical Marquee, make an oval from 670, 1026 to 730, 1098 and fill it: that's the pomegranate. Lasso a pointed flame shape on top of it, about 65 px tall, and fill that too.
4. Press B. In the brush presets (click the brush preview in the options bar), set Size 12, Hardness 100 and Taper 30. Taper shrinks the stroke to nothing over that many pixels.
5. Turn on Symmetry Vertical in the options bar (the icon with two halves side by side). Now everything you paint on the left is mirrored on the right of the centre line.
6. Paint one C-shaped leaf from the base of the pomegranate, out and up its left side, ending in a small curl at its shoulder. The mirror adds the right-hand leaf. Paint a smaller leaf lower down the same way.
7. Set Taper back to 0 and paint a short stem straight down the centre line at Size 8. At Size 12, click one dot beside the bottom of the stem (the mirror makes the pair), and one exactly on the centre line above the flame.
8. Turn Symmetry Vertical off again.
Turn the tile into a half-drop pattern
1. Make the same exact rectangle, 620, 930 to 780, 1170, and choose Edit → Define Pattern. Press ⌘D and delete the Damask Tile layer.
2. Click Background and add a layer called Damask. Set the foreground back to and fill the layer.
3. Choose Edit → Fill with Pattern…, pick your new pattern and set Column Stagger to 50%. Every other column drops by half a tile, which is how real damask repeats. Click Apply.
4. Set the layer's blend to Screen and its opacity to 35%. Screen makes the black vanish, so only the motifs lighten the velvet.
Hang the folds
1. Add a layer called Folds and run Filter → Clouds… with Scale 10.
2. Run Filter → Motion Blur… three times with Angle 90 and Distance 100. The clouds stretch into long vertical drapes.
3. Run Filter → Brightness/Contrast… with Contrast 55.
4. Set the layer to Soft Light at 65%.
Cut the frame band
1. Add a layer called Gilt Frame and set the foreground to .
2. Make an exact rectangle from 40, 40 to 1360, 2060, fill it, then choose Select → Shrink… and enter 26. Press Delete. You're left with a 26 px band.
3. Press ⌘D. Make another rectangle from 82, 82 to 1318, 2018, fill it, Shrink by 6 and press Delete. That's a thin inner fillet. Press ⌘D.
Gild the frame
1. ⌘-click the Gilt Frame thumbnail to select the band.
2. Set up a Linear gradient that alternates gold and bronze down its length. Start with at the left end. Add a pale stop right next to it and another just after that, for a thin glint along the top edge. Then add at about 30%, at 50%, at 75%, just before the right end, and at the right end. Select a leftover stop and delete it if the editor kept stops from the last gradient.
3. Drag straight down the centre line from the top of the page to the bottom. The top bar catches the light, and the sides ripple from gold to bronze. Press ⌘D.
4. In the effects drawer, turn on Drop Shadow (Offset Y 8, Blur 18, Opacity 85) and Stroke (Width 2, colour ).
Now give it relief:
1. ⌘-click the thumbnail again, then press ⌘C and ⌘V. The copy pastes in place on a new layer. Name it Frame Relief.
2. Run Filter → Emboss… with Angle 135 and Strength 22, then Filter → Desaturate. Press ⌘D.
3. Set Frame Relief to Hard Light. Mid-grey is invisible in Hard Light, so only the embossed highlights and shadows show on the gold.
Tip: Don't skip Desaturate. An embossed gold copy on Hard Light pushes the gold towards orange plastic.
Add corner rosettes
1. Add a layer called Rosettes and set the foreground to . Fill four exact circles, each 64 px across and centred where the band meets the inner fillet: 30, 30 to 94, 94 (top left), 1306, 30 to 1370, 94 (top right), 30, 2006 to 94, 2070 (bottom left) and 1306, 2006 to 1370, 2070 (bottom right). Press ⌘D after each fill.
2. Switch to and fill an 18 px circle in the middle of each one, for the boss. The top left is 53, 53 to 71, 71, and the others are the same 9 px either side of their centres.
3. Press B, set Size 14 and Hardness 85, and set the foreground to .
4. Click the Radial Symmetry button (the snowflake) and set Segments to 8.
5. For each corner, ⌘-click the rosette's centre to move the symmetry centre there, then click once about 21 px above it. One click paints all eight petals.
6. Turn Radial Symmetry off. Give the layer Drop Shadow (Offset Y 4, Blur 8, Opacity 85) and Stroke (Width 2, ).
7. Make a relief layer called Rosette Relief the same way as for the frame: copy, paste in place, Emboss at Strength 20, Desaturate, Hard Light.
Lay down the parchment panel
1. Add a layer called Parchment and set the foreground to .
2. Fill an exact rectangle from 150, 640 to 1250, 1935. Press ⌘D, then fill an exact ellipse from 150, 470 to 1250, 810. Together they make a rectangle with an arched top. Press ⌘D.
3. ⌘-click the thumbnail. Drag a Radial gradient with stops , at 55% and , from the centre of the panel to its bottom right corner. The edges go a little darker, like old paper.
4. Still selected, run Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 4 and Mono. Press ⌘D.
5. Turn on Inner Glow (Size 45, Opacity 45, colour ) for a scorched edge, and Drop Shadow (Offset Y 14, Blur 30, Opacity 85).
Rule the panel
1. Add a layer called Panel Rule and ⌘-click the Parchment thumbnail.
2. Select → Shrink… by 26 and fill with .
3. Shrink again by 3 and press Delete. A 3 px rule now follows the arch. Press ⌘D.
Add the footer band
1. Add a layer called Footer Band. Fill an exact rectangle from 88, 1935 to 1312, 2012 with and set the layer to 70%. The damask still shows faintly, but it's quiet enough behind the small gold type. Press ⌘D.
2. Add a layer called Footer Fillet and fill a 2 px strip from 88, 1941 to 1312, 1943 with . Press ⌘D.
Drop in the painting

Drag the downloaded painting from your file browser onto the canvas. It lands on a new layer, shrunk to fit the page width and selected, with the Move tool active. Rename the layer Painting.
Scale it down

Hold ⌘ and drag the bottom right corner handle up and to the left until the painting is about 670 px wide, just under half its dropped width. The top left corner stays put, so the right edge ends near 670 on the top ruler. ⌘ keeps the proportions. Press ⌘D to commit.

Then drag the painting with the Move tool until the rooster's body sits on the crossing of the centre guide and the 392 guide.
Cut it into a circle

Make an exact ellipse from 464, 156 to 936, 628. That's a circle 472 px across, centred on the guides. Check that the comb and the tail both sit inside it. If they don't, press ⌘D, nudge the painting with the arrow keys, and make the circle again. Don't drag the painting while the circle is active, because that would move only the pixels inside it.
Clear everything outside

Choose Select → Inverse and press Delete, then ⌘D. Run Filter → Unsharp Mask… with Radius 2 and Amount 0.8 to crisp the brushwork after the scale.
Gild the ring and string the pearls
1. Add a layer called Medallion Ring. Fill an exact circle from 418, 110 to 982, 674 with . Press ⌘D, make a circle from 468, 160 to 932, 624 and press Delete. The ring overlaps the painting by 4 px, so there's no gap.
2. ⌘-click the thumbnail and drag a Linear gradient from the ring's top left to its bottom right. Use stops , at 20%, at 38%, at 47%, at 50%, at 54%, at 72% and .
3. Give it a Drop Shadow (Offset Y 12, Blur 22, Opacity 90) and a Stroke (Width 2, ). Press ⌘D first, then make a Ring Relief layer with Emboss Strength 22, Desaturate and Hard Light, as before.
4. Add a layer called Pearls. Set the brush to Size 18, Hardness 90 and colour .
5. Turn on Radial Symmetry with 24 segments. ⌘-click the centre of the medallion, then click once in the middle of the ring band, straight above it.
6. Turn symmetry off. Add a small Drop Shadow (Offset Y 2, Blur 3) and a relief layer called Pearl Relief with Strength 30, so each pearl gets a lit edge.
Add the fillets
Add a layer called Ring Fillets.
1. Fill a circle from 468, 160 to 932, 624 with , then delete a circle 8 px smaller (472, 164 to 928, 620). That's a dark line where the gold meets the painting.
2. Fill a circle from 422, 114 to 978, 670 with , then delete a circle from 425, 117 to 975, 667. That's a bright line near the outer edge. Press ⌘D between each fill and delete.
Brush the scrolls
Add a layer called Scroll Left and set the foreground to . You only draw the left side; the right side comes from a copy.
1. Set the brush to Size 38, Hardness 100 and Taper 720.
2. Press just off the ring at its lower left. Sweep out to the left almost to the frame with a slight dip, up past the 392 guide, and curl into a tight spiral level with the top of the painting. Taper counts from where you press, so the stroke is thick at the medallion and thins into the curl.
3. Set Size 19 and Taper 450. Paint a second, smaller scroll from the same spot, a short hook that curls up into a little spiral just above the panel's shoulder.
Add acanthus leaves

With the Lasso, draw five leaves along the scrolls and fill each one with Edit → Fill. Give each leaf three or four rounded lobes down its sides and let the tip curl slightly. Put one in the crook of the big scroll, one dangling from its outside, one flicking up from the top of the spiral, and two along the lower scroll. Press ⌘D.
Gild the scroll
1. ⌘-click the thumbnail and drag the ring's gold gradient across the ornament from its top left to its bottom right. Press ⌘D.
2. Make a relief layer (Emboss Strength 18, Desaturate, Hard Light). With it active, choose Layer → Merge Down to bake the relief into Scroll Left.
3. Set the brush to Size 2.6, Taper 0 and colour . For each leaf, click at its base and Shift-click about halfway to the tip to draw a vein. Stop short of the tip, or the vein pokes out past the curled end.
4. Add a soft Drop Shadow (Offset Y 5, Blur 14, Opacity 70).
Duplicate and flip
1. Choose Layer → Duplicate Layer, click the copy's row and rename it Scroll Right.
2. Choose Image → Flip Horizontal. The copy mirrors in place, over the original.
Mirror it into place
1. Click the top ruler right where the left scroll's outermost curl ends (about 127). Click it again at 1400 minus that number (about 1273).
2. With the Move tool, drag Scroll Right across until its outer curl touches the right-hand guide and its top lines up with the top of the left scroll. Finish with the arrow keys (Shift moves 10 px at a time).
3. Click each of the two guides on the ruler again to remove them.
Make the ribbon
1. Add a layer called Ribbon Tails. With the Lasso, draw a swallowtail on the left: a band about 110 px tall, with its top edge at about y 720 and its bottom at about y 830, running from x 330 out to x 140. Cut a V-notch about 40 px deep into its outer end. Fill it with . Draw the mirror image on the right, from x 1070 out to x 1260, and fill it too.
2. Lasso a small triangle where each tail tucks behind the ribbon and fill it with . That's the fold.
3. Give the tails a Drop Shadow (Offset Y 6, Blur 10, Opacity 80) and a Stroke (Width 3, ).
4. Add a layer called Ribbon. The arched band is cut from two huge circles, and the exact-corners dialog happily takes corners off the canvas. Fill an exact ellipse from -850, 625 to 2250, 3725 with any colour, since the gradient replaces it.
5. Press ⌘D, make an ellipse from -750, 725 to 2150, 3625, and press Delete. You're left with a 100 px band whose top edge peaks at y 625, overlapping the bottom of the medallion by about 50 px.
6. Trim the ends: press ⌘D and delete a rectangle from 0, 0 to 262, 2100, then ⌘D again and delete one from 1137, 0 to 1400, 2100.
7. ⌘-click the thumbnail and drag a Linear gradient straight down across the band, from through at 45% to . Press ⌘D.
8. Add a Drop Shadow (Offset Y 10, Blur 18, Opacity 90) and a Stroke of Width 4 in . Click inside under Stroke so the gold edge stays on the ribbon.
Draw the title's path
1. With Ribbon active, press T. Set the font to Cinzel Decorative, weight Bold, size 60, colour , and Letter spacing 2 in the Text panel.
2. Click in the empty space near the bottom of the page and type Rotisserie Royale with two spaces between the words, so the gap holds its own against the wide letter spacing. Press Tab and rename the layer Title. Cinzel's lowercase letters are small capitals, so only the R's stand tall.
3. Press P for the Pen. The text will start at the path's first anchor. The straight title is about 660 px wide, so put the first anchor half that width left of the centre guide, at about x 366, and about 20 px below the ribbon's centre line.
4. Draw a three-point arc that follows the ribbon's curve: the left anchor, one on the centre guide, and one past the right end of the band. Click-drag each point along the curve so the handles pull out sideways.
5. Click the ✓ (Commit path) in the options bar. Enter would stroke the path onto the active layer instead.
Bend the title onto the ribbon

Click the Title layer, press T and choose your path in the options bar's Path dropdown. The text jumps onto the arc. Check that the space at each end of the ribbon is equal. If it isn't, redraw the path a few pixels earlier or later. Then click the path's row in the Paths panel to hide its outline, and give the title a small Drop Shadow (Offset Y 3, Blur 4, Opacity 90).
Set the footer and the desserts
Add an empty layer called Menu Rules above Title. Before each new text, click this layer, so you never restyle a text layer by accident.

Work from the bottom of the page upwards. Text only gets a new layer when you click outside every other text box, and those boxes reach down from where you clicked.

Every text setting carries over to the next text, so set all of them each time: font, weight, style (Normal or Italic), size and colour in the options bar; Line height, Letter spacing and alignment in the Text panel.

Footer. Set Cormorant SC, SemiBold, Normal, size 26, colour , Line height 1.25, Letter spacing 2, Align center. Click on the centre guide at y 1958, about 20 px into the footer band, and type Rue Royale · Reservations by Candle & Quill. Rename the layer Footer. Each column of a course is one text layer, with a blank line between dishes. For the desserts:
1. Descriptions first: Cormorant Garamond, Regular, Italic, size 23, , Line height 1.65, Letter spacing 0, Align left. Click at 232, 1667 and type the three descriptions (listed in the next step) with a blank line between each.
2. Prices next: Libre Caslon Text, Bold, Normal, size 25.6, , Line height 1.5, Letter spacing 0, Align right. Click at 1168, 1639 and type 12, 11 and 10, again with blank lines between.
3. Dish names last: Cormorant Garamond, SemiBold, Normal, size 32, , Line height 1.2, Letter spacing 0, Align left. Click at 232, 1635.
4. The odd-looking sizes keep everything on one rhythm: 1.65 × 23, 1.5 × 25.6 and 1.2 × 32 all come to about 38 px a line. With the Move tool, nudge the prices up or down with the arrow keys until they share the dish names' baseline.
5. Heading: Cinzel Decorative, Bold, Normal, size 40, , Line height 1.25, Letter spacing 1, Align center. Click on the centre guide at y 1570 and type Les Douceurs.
Rename the layers as you go: Descriptions 3, Prices 3, Dishes 3 and Heading 3.

Tip: Libre Caslon's figures are lining numerals. Cormorant's old-style figures make 11 and 10 look like Roman numerals at menu size.
Set the roasts, the starters and the tagline
Repeat the four layers for each course, always working upwards. Each course sits 315 px above the one below it:
- Les Rôtis: heading at y 1255, dish names at 232, 1320, descriptions at 232, 1352, prices at 1168, 1324.
- Les Entrées: heading at y 940, dish names at 232, 1005, descriptions at 232, 1037, prices at 1168, 1009.
Finish with the tagline: Pinyon Script, Regular, Normal, size 44, , Letter spacing 0, Align center. Click on the centre guide at y 860 and type Spit-roasted over open flame, by candlelight.

The dishes, with their prices and descriptions:
- Les Entrées: Rabbit Rillettes, 14, cornichons, grilled sourdough, quince jelly. Roasted Bone Marrow, 16, parsley salad, sea salt, toasted brioche. Red Onion Tarte Tatin, 13, aged Comté, thyme honey.
- Les Rôtis: Royal Rotisserie Cockerel, 38, half bird, basted in brown butter & rosemary. Rack of Lamb Provençale, 46, herb crust, garlic confit, red wine jus. Spit-Roast Duck à l'Orange, 42, bitter orange glaze, crackling skin.
- Les Douceurs: Rum Baba Royale, 12, Chantilly, candied cherries. Roasted Pears in Claret, 11, cinnamon, crème fraîche. Chocolate Pot de Crème, 10, sea salt, a leaf of gold.
Rule the headings
1. Click Menu Rules and set the brush to Size 3, Hardness 100, Taper 0, colour . Turn on Symmetry Vertical.
2. For each heading, click at x 248 level with the middle of the heading, then Shift-click about 28 px short of the heading's first letter. The mirror draws the right-hand rule for you.
3. At Size 9, click a dot at each end of the rule.
4. Turn symmetry off.
Add dotted leaders
1. Click Menu Rules and add a layer called Leaders. In the brush presets set Size 3.5 and Spacing 200%, the maximum. The dabs separate into dots.
2. For each dish, click 9 px left of the price, on the dish name's baseline, then Shift-click 14 px right of the end of the name. Starting at the price keeps the last dot the same distance from every figure.
3. Set Spacing back to 10% when you're done.
Light it by candle
Click the top layer in the panel, so these go above everything.
1. Shade: add a layer called Shade and fill it with . Make an exact ellipse from -170, -220 to 1570, 2320, Select → Feather… by 240 and press Delete. Set it to Multiply at 75%.
2. Candlelight: add a layer called Candlelight, make an ellipse from 160, 80 to 1240, 1300, feather it 260 and fill it with . Set it to Soft Light at 45%.
3. Panel Glow: add a layer called Panel Glow, make an ellipse from 300, 720 to 1100, 1560, feather it 200 and fill it with . Set it to Screen at 18%.
4. Grain: add a layer called Grain, fill it with , run Add Noise… at 30 with Mono, and set it to Overlay at 40%.
Group the layers
Click the first layer of each set, Shift-click the last, and choose Layer → Group Layers. Then rename the group:
- Velvet: Damask and Folds
- Frame: Gilt Frame up to the rosette relief
- Parchment Panel: Parchment up to Footer Fillet
- Medallion: Painting up to Scroll Right
- Ribbon Banner: Ribbon Tails, Ribbon and Title
- Bill of Fare: Menu Rules, Leaders and all the type
- Lighting: Shade, Candlelight, Panel Glow and Grain
New groups blend straight through at 100%, so the Multiply and Soft Light layers still reach everything below. You can now click Medallion and drag the whole medallion, scrolls and all, with the Move tool.
Grade the whole menu
Click the sparkle icon on the Project row to open its adjustments, and expand Color Grading.
1. Click Highlights under the wheels and set Hue 40, Saturation 10. The lights go slightly amber.
2. Click Shadows and set Hue 355, Saturation 14. The darks go towards oxblood.
Keep both small. The candlelight already does most of the warming.

Save the project with File → Save Project and export with File → Quick Export PNG.