Make an Infographic Bonsai Stencil Contact Sheet

Open Lopsy. In the New Document dialog, set Width to 1200 and Height to 1600, choose a White background and click Create.

1. Leave Layer 1 where it is, at the top of the stack. Later it becomes the paper grain.
2. Select Background, set the foreground colour to #ECE6D8 and choose Edit → Fill. With nothing selected, it fills the whole layer.
3. Click the top ruler at 48, 600 and 1152. Those are the side margins and the centre line.
4. Click the left ruler at 60, 236, 1120 and 1540. Those are the top margin, the bottom of the header, the top of the footer and the bottom margin.

Select Background and click Add Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel. New layers go directly above the selected one. Double-click the new layer's name and call it Film.

Choose View → Show Grid, drag the Grid slider in the options bar to 8px and make sure Snap is ticked. Every corner in the next three steps falls on that 8 px grid.

Pick the Rectangular Marquee (M). Drag the first strip from 48, 256 to 1152, 656: from the left guide to the right guide, 400 px tall. Hold Shift and drag the second strip from 48, 696 to 1152, 1096. Shift adds the second rectangle to the first. Set the foreground to #191816, choose Edit → Fill, then deselect with Cmd+D.

Add a layer called Frames. A 120 film frame is square, so make six 320 × 320 squares, three per strip:

• top row from y 296, starting at x 80, 440 and 800
• bottom row from y 736, at the same three x positions

Drag the first square, then hold Shift for the other five. Leave 40 px of film above the frames for the edge print and 40 px below for the captions. Fill with #3A3832, the bench the plates were photographed on, and deselect.

Add a layer called Plates. Each plate is 8 px smaller than its frame on every side, so draw six 304 × 304 squares starting at 88, 304, 448, 304, 808, 304 and the same three x positions at y 744. Shift-add them as before.

Fill with #A9BB9A. Deselect, then turn the grid off with View → Show Grid. Run Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 6 and pick Mono, so the plates have a slight tooth.

Every tree is drawn on one black Cutter layer, then cut out of the plates in one go. Add a layer called Cutter above Plates and set the foreground to #1F1D1A. Zoom to 100% on frame 01 (Cmd and the scroll wheel, or Cmd+=).

The first tree is Chokkan, the formal upright. It's a straight trunk over a rectangular pot.

1. Pot. With the Rectangular Marquee, drag a thin rim about 136 × 8 px across the lower third of the plate (it starts at 172, 532 in this frame). Shift-add two small feet, about 16 × 8 px, under where the pot will end. Then pick the Lasso (L), hold Shift and trace the pot's body under the rim: a trapezoid a little narrower at the base, about 26 px deep. Fill and deselect.
2. Trunk. With the Lasso, trace a long spike that stands on the middle of the rim. Make it about 56 px wide at the ground, flaring out at both sides like roots, and taper it to about 6 px at the top, 180 px higher. Fill and deselect.

The slanting style in frame 03 uses the same pot. Draw a marquee around the pot, press Cmd+C and then Cmd+V. Lopsy pastes a copy on its own layer in exactly the same place and switches to the Move tool.

Deselect, then nudge the copy two frames to the right with the arrow keys. Two frames is 720 px, but stop 26 px short, at 694 px, so the pot sits left of centre and leaves room for the lean. Shift+→ moves 10 px at a time, so that's 69 presses and then 4 more with plain →. Choose Layer → Merge Down to put it back on Cutter.

A slanting tree is an upright tree tipped over. Draw a marquee around the frame 01 trunk only, from just above its tip to just above the pot rim, then copy and paste it. Paste selects the copy and switches to the Move tool, so its transform handles are already showing.

Point just outside the top-right corner until the cursor turns into the rotate arrow. Hold Cmd and drag clockwise. Cmd snaps the angle to 15° steps, so stop at the third step, 45°. Press Cmd+D to commit the rotation.

Nudge the rotated trunk with the arrow keys until its base sits on the left half of the frame 03 pot rim. It's about two frames right and a little down, roughly 752 px right and 29 px down. Choose Layer → Merge Down.

The rotation leaves the trunk's base cut off at an angle. Zoom in, and with the Lasso trace a low root flare over it: a wedge about 70 px wide at the rim that rises 30 px along the trunk. Fill it.

Bonsai foliage is clipped into flat clouds called pads. Each pad here is one wide, flat ellipse with two smaller domes on its top edge.

Back on frame 01, pick the Elliptical Marquee. Drag a flat ellipse about 104 × 30 px for the lowest pad on the left. Hold Shift and add two domes overlapping its top edge, each about half as wide. Shift-add the other pads up the trunk the same way, alternating left and right and getting smaller towards the top. Finish with a rounder apex pad on the tip.

Fill the whole selection at once and deselect.

Pick the Brush (B) and open the brush settings with the tip thumbnail at the left of the options bar. Choose Hard Round, set Hardness to 100, Spacing to 5 and Taper to 0.

Paint a short branch from the trunk to the middle of each pad. Use Size 6 for the low branches and 4 near the top. Frame 01 is done.

Frame 02 is Moyogi, the informal upright, in a shallow oval pot.

1. With the Elliptical Marquee, drag an ellipse about 132 × 44 px centred on the pot's rim line.
2. Switch to the Rectangular Marquee, hold Alt and drag a rectangle over the top half of the ellipse. Alt subtracts it, so only the lower half is left: a bowl.
3. Hold Shift and add a rim of about 144 × 7 px across the top of the bowl and two small feet under it.

Fill and deselect.

Taper shrinks the brush as the stroke goes on, so a stroke that starts at the root thins out towards the tip.

Open the brush settings and set Size to 30 and Taper to 270. The S below rises about 200 px, so the path along its bends is about 230 px long. A Taper a bit longer than that thins the tip to about 15% of the root's width without letting it vanish. Starting at the middle of the rim, drag up in a gentle S: left, then right, then left, then back over the root. Each bend should be about 30 px out from the centre line. Always drag trunks from the root, because Taper thins the stroke from where it starts.

Add the pads and branches as in frame 01, with each pad on the outside of a bend. Then set Taper back to 0, because it carries over to the next stroke.

On frame 03, add the Shakan pads. A slanting tree needs a counterweight, so put one low pad out on the left, uphill from the lean. Then add pads along both sides of the trunk and a big apex pad at its tip. Join them with branches as before.

Frame 04 is Fukinagashi, the windswept tree. Everything streams one way, as if a gale blew from the left.

1. Pot: a low slab. Use a rim of about 126 × 7 px on the left third of the plate, and Shift-lasso a shallow body under it.
2. Trunk: Size 24, Taper 250 (the sweep is about 210 px long). Start on the rim near the left end of the pot and sweep up and to the right, ending near the top-right corner of the plate. Set Taper back to 0.
3. Root flare: lasso a small wedge where the trunk meets the rim, so the trunk looks planted instead of balanced on a point.
4. Pads: long and thin, about 80–90 × 16 px, all hanging off the right-hand side of the trunk. Use Hard Round branches at Size 5, all pointing downwind.

Frame 05 is Han-kengai, the semi-cascade. The trunk arcs out over the rim, and its tip ends roughly level with it.

1. Pot: deep and narrow. Use a rim of about 102 × 8 px with a body about 56 px deep, plus two feet.
2. Trunk: Size 26, Taper 230 (about 195 px of path). Rise about 30 px from the middle of the rim, then curve right and down. Stop just to the right of the pot, about level with the rim. Set Taper back to 0.
3. Pads: a crown over the bend, one pad tucked under the left side, and two pads along the falling arm. The last pad marks the tip.

Frame 06 is Kengai, the full cascade. Its tip falls below the bottom of the pot, so the pot needs a stand to hang from.

1. Pot: tall. Use a rim of about 94 × 8 px near the top-left of the plate, a body about 86 px deep that narrows slightly, and two feet.
2. Stand: Shift-add a 118 × 8 px table top under the feet and two 10 px legs, each about 58 px long.
3. Trunk: Size 26, Taper 340 (about 290 px of path). Start on the rim, rise briefly, arc right over the rim and then fall almost straight down past the table, wobbling slightly. End near the bottom of the plate. Set Taper back to 0.
4. Pads: a crown over the rim, then small pads alternating left and right down the fall.

Zoom out with Cmd+0. All six trees are on the Cutter.

A real stencil can't have a hole that cuts the plate in two, and loose pieces fall out. Bridges are thin strips of plate left uncut to hold things together. Here they also make the plates read as stencils at a glance.

1. Pick the Eraser (E) and set Size to 5.
2. On each tree, click on one side of the trunk and Shift-click on the other to erase a straight line across it. Add one bridge across the trunk's base, along the top of the pot rim, so the tree is separate from the pot. Add a second across the trunk higher up.
3. For the registration holes, use the Elliptical Marquee to Shift-add four 14 px circles on every plate, one near each corner and 16 px in from both edges (24 in all). Fill them. They'll become punched holes that line each plate up on paper.

Cmd-click the Cutter thumbnail in the Layers panel. Every black pixel on it becomes a selection. Then click the Plates row, so the selection now targets the plates.

Press Delete. The trees, pots and holes are cut out of the green, and the bench shows through. Deselect, then click the eye on Cutter to hide it. Keep the layer, because it's your master drawing if you ever need to recut a plate.

Select Plates and click its Layer effects button (the sparkle at the end of its row).

• Inner Glow: colour #25301F, Size 6, Opacity 70. This darkens every cut edge, so the Mylar looks thick.
• Drop Shadow: colour #0C0B0A, Offset X 3, Offset Y 4, Blur 6, Opacity 70. The plates now sit just above the bench, so shadow falls into the holes too.
• Stroke: colour #E2ECD6, Width 1, position inside. This is the bright bevel where the knife cut the plastic.

Close the drawer.

Add a layer called Sheen above Plates and Cmd-click the Plates thumbnail to select the plate shapes.

Pick the Gradient tool, set Type to Linear and open Advanced…. Use five stops: #9A9A9A at 0%, #808080 at 42%, #FFFFFF at 50%, #808080 at 58% and #5A5A5A at 100%. Drag from the top-left of the first strip to the bottom-right of the second. Deselect, set the layer's blend mode to Soft Light and its opacity to 45%.

Mid grey does nothing on Soft Light, so only the white band and the darker ends show. Last, set Plates to 86% opacity so a hint of the bench shows through the plastic.

Now the infographic layer. Click Sheen, then add a layer called Axes above it, so the marks don't pick up the Soft Light tint. Set the foreground to #E2522B. Turn off View → Snap to Guides while you work on this layer, because the dots are small.

On each frame:

1. Plumb line (leaning trees only): with the Brush at Size 4, Taper 0 and Spacing 200 (the maximum), drag straight up from the root about 110 px. The wide spacing turns the stroke into dots.
2. Axis: set Size 3 and Spacing 5. Click the root, then Shift-click the tip of the tree.
3. Angle arc: click a point 46 px up the plumb line, then Shift-click your way round to the axis in short steps.
4. Root dot: a 12 px circle with the Elliptical Marquee, filled.

On frame 04, add three dotted wind arrows on the left, each with a small chevron head.

For the two upright trees, the axis is the plumb line, so skip the dotted line and the arc. The tag you add later says 0°. Turn Snap to Guides back on.

The footer's chart is a protractor that plots all six leans. Its centre is 250, 1350 and its radius is 152.

First, rename Layer 1 (still at the top of the stack) to Paper Grain. It gets its grain at the very end. Then click the Axes row and add a layer called Chart. With the Elliptical Marquee, drag a circle from 98, 1198 to 402, 1502. Then, with the Rectangular Marquee, hold Alt and drag over the circle's left half to subtract it. Fill with #DCD3BE and deselect.

Any tree that leans past 90° drops below the soil line, so that quarter gets hatching.

1. Make the tile. Add a layer called Tile. In an empty corner of the footer, click once (without dragging) with the Rectangular Marquee. The Rectangular Selection dialog opens, where you can type exact corners. Select a 10 × 2 px strip and fill it with #9C927C. Then select 10 × 7 px from the same corner and choose Edit → Define Pattern. Delete the Tile layer with the trash button.
2. Select the zone. On Chart, draw the same circle again. Then hold Shift+Alt and drag a rectangle from the centre down and right past the circle. Shift+Alt keeps only the overlap: the lower-right quarter.
3. Choose Edit → Fill with Pattern…, pick your stripe and click Apply. Deselect.

Add a layer called Chart Lines and set the foreground to #1F1D1A.

1. Ring: select the circle again, fill it, choose Select → Shrink… by 2 and press Delete. A 2 px ring is left.
2. Diameter: Brush at Size 2.6 and Spacing 5. (Below about 2.5 px the brush barely paints.) Click the top of the ring and Shift-click the bottom.
3. Soil line: Size 4. Click the centre and Shift-click 18 px past the ring on the right.
4. Ticks: click Radial Symmetry in the Brush options bar and set Segments to 24 (one every 15°). Cmd-click the chart's centre to move the symmetry centre there. Drag a short stroke 8 px straight up from the top of the ring. Lopsy repeats it 24 times round the circle. Click Radial Symmetry again to turn it off.
5. Draw a marquee over everything left of the centre and press Delete, so the ring and ticks only run round the right half.
6. Add the 15° "upright limit" as a dotted ray. Use Size 3 and Spacing 200, from the centre to the ring at about 289, 1203.

Add a layer called Chart Rays and set the foreground to #E2522B. With the Brush at Size 4 and Spacing back to 5, click the centre and Shift-click each point on the ring:

• 0° (frames 01 and 02): 250, 1198
• 45°: 357, 1243
• 60°: 382, 1274
• 95°: 401, 1365
• 150°: 326, 1482

Turn Snap to Guides off again. Shift-add a 16 px circle at the end of each ray and one at the centre, then fill. Turn snapping back on.

The right half of the footer shows how a photo becomes a plate. The photo is Sandai Shogun, a public-domain 1920s image of a pine bonsai, from Wikimedia Commons.

1. Add a layer called Panel Backs. Shift-add three 188 × 150 rectangles at 540, 1180, 752, 1180 and 964, 1180, and fill with #3A3832.
2. Drag the photo file onto the canvas. It lands at the top-left, selected. Hold Cmd and drag its bottom-right handle in until it's about 279 px wide (Cmd keeps the proportions). Press Cmd+D. Rename the layer Photo.
3. Nudge it with the Move tool until the tree is centred on the first panel.
4. Draw a marquee 6 px inside the first panel, choose Select → Inverse and press Delete, so the photo is trimmed to the panel with a dark border all round. Deselect.
5. Choose Filter → Desaturate, then Filter → Brightness/Contrast… with Contrast 25.

Choose Layer → Duplicate Layer and rename the copy Threshold. Switch to the Move tool (V) and nudge it 212 px right into the second panel: Shift+→ 21 times, then → twice.

A knife can't follow pine needles. Run Filter → Gaussian Blur… at Radius 4 so the needles clump into masses, then Filter → Threshold… at Level 140.

The blur smeared the edges outward, so trim it again: marquee 6 px inside the panel, Select → Inverse, Delete. Then select the bottom 16 px inside the panel and fill it white to drop the table's shadow.

First make the card to cut. Add a layer called Mini Plate and fill a rectangle 6 px inside the third panel with #A9BB9A, then deselect.

Click the Threshold row. Pick the Magic Wand (W), untick Contiguous and click on the black trunk. Every black pixel in the panel is selected.

Now clean the selection up for cutting:

1. Select → Grow… 3, then Select → Shrink… 3. This closes small gaps, which would be plate islands that fall out.
2. Select → Shrink… 2, then Select → Grow… 2. This removes specks too small to cut.

Tick Contiguous again when you're done with the wand.

1. With the Magic Wand still active, press Shift+→ 21 times and → twice. With a selection tool active, the arrow keys move the selection outline 212 px and leave the pixels where they are.
2. Click the Mini Plate row and press Delete.

Deselect. On Mini Plate, paint two bridges across the trunk and canopy with the Brush at Size 3 in #A9BB9A. Shift-click three points for each so they bend with the branches.

Give the mini plate the same treatment as the big plates, a little smaller: Inner Glow #25301F at Size 4, Opacity 70, and Drop Shadow #0C0B0A with offsets 2 / 3, Blur 4, Opacity 70.

Add a layer called Arrows. With the Brush at Size 4, Spacing 5, in vermilion, draw a 16 px arrow with a small chevron head in each gap between the panels.

Pick the Text tool (T). Before each new piece of text, click a picture layer, not a text layer, in the right group. With a text layer selected, changing the font or size restyles that layer instead. Press Tab to commit each one. Create text from the bottom of the page upward, in the order below: a click inside an existing text box edits that text instead of starting new.

• Footer line (click Arrows): one line of Plex Mono 12 in #57514A along the bottom margin.
• Photo strip (click Arrows). Heading FROM PHOTO TO PLATE in Barlow Condensed Bold 24. Captions 1 · PHOTOGRAPH, 2 · THRESHOLD and 3 · CUT + BRIDGE under the panels in Plex Mono 12. Then PLATE NOTES and four lines of notes in Plex Mono 15 at Line height 1.6.
• Chart (click Chart Rays). The heading TRUNK LEAN FROM VERTICAL is Barlow Condensed Bold 24 with Letter spacing 1. The legend is a six-line Plex Mono Medium 13 table at Line height 1.6. Under it, a two-line key reads ····· UPRIGHT LIMIT 15° and ===== BELOW THE SOIL LINE. Set it in 11 px, grey #6E675A. Each ray gets a vermilion Bold 13 number just outside its dot, and the soil line gets a small SOIL LINE.
• Film (click Axes first). Use IBM Plex Mono in amber #E3A13B. Above each frame, at Medium 12, type ▶ 01 ZB-120 and so on, 12 px below the strip's top edge. Below each frame, at SemiBold 14, type the caption, for example 01 CHOKKAN · FORMAL UPRIGHT, 12 px above the strip's bottom edge. In each plate's top-left corner, beside the punched hole, add the angle tag in Bold 22, vermilion: 0°, 0°, 45°, 60°, 95°, 150°.
• Header (click Paper Grain, so the type sits above the grain and stays crisp). ZEN BONSAI is Stardos Stencil Bold 124 with Letter spacing 2, its left edge on the 48 guide. Under it, the subtitle is Plex Mono Medium 16. For the spec block, set Align right in the Text panel first. Then drag a text box from about 880, 74 to the right margin guide, and type three lines in Barlow Condensed SemiBold 22 at Line height 1.3. A dragged box respects alignment, so the lines end exactly on the 1152 guide. Set Align left again afterwards, because alignment carries over to the next text.

1. Grain: select Paper Grain. It sits above everything except the header type. Fill it with #808080, run Add Noise at Amount 28, Mono and Gaussian, set it to Overlay and drop the opacity to 40%.
2. Registration marks: add a layer called Reg Marks. In each corner, fill an 18 px circle centred 24 px in from both edges, Shrink it by 2 and delete the inside. Then draw a 32 px cross through it with the Brush at Size 2.6.
3. Grease pencil: add a layer called Grease Pencil with the foreground at #C2185B. In the brush settings, set Size 8, Hardness 45, and on the Dynamics tab Size Jitter 30, Opacity Jitter 35 and Scatter 6. That gives the waxy, broken line of a china marker. Draw one loose, boxy loop round frame 06. Start at its bottom-left, go up the gap on its left, across the paper above the strip, down the right edge and back along the bottom. Keep the line outside the frame number and caption, and overlap the start a little at the end. Reset the jitters and Scatter to 0 afterwards.

With Grease Pencil selected, add text in Permanent Marker 26, #C2185B: PRINT ×2. Put it on the paper just under the loop. Click Rasterize Layer at the bottom of the Layers panel so you can rotate it as pixels.

Draw a marquee around the words with a little room to spare. With the Move tool, drag the rotate handle about 8° anticlockwise, then press Cmd+D. Choose Layer → Merge Down to put the note on the grease-pencil layer.

Four groups keep the file manageable. For each one, click its top layer, Shift-click its bottom layer to select the run, choose Layer → Group Layers and rename the group:

• Header: the title, subtitle and spec block
• Photo to Plate: the notes and captions down to Panel Backs
• Lean Chart: the ray numbers and legend down to Chart
• Contact Strips: the captions, tags and edge print down to Film

Collapse them. Now you can select a group and nudge the whole section with the Move tool. Choose File → Save Project to keep the layers, then File → Quick Export PNG for the finished sheet.