Design a Polish Folk Art Paper-Cut Flyer

Choose File → New and make a document 1200 wide and 1700 high, in pixels.

Click Layer 1, set the foreground to #EDE0C2, pick the Paint Bucket and click the canvas to fill it. You'll rename this layer Paper in a moment.

Make sure the rulers are showing (View → Show Rulers). Click the top ruler at 600 to drop a vertical guide down the middle, and click the left ruler at 850 for a horizontal guide. Where they cross is the centre of the medallion, and every symmetric piece in this flyer hangs off that point.

Click Add Layer and name it Medallion.

Pick the Elliptical Marquee and click once on the canvas without dragging. A dialog opens where you can type exact corners. Enter From 208, 458 and To 992, 1242. That's a circle with a radius of 392 px around the guide crossing.

Set the foreground to #1B1512 and choose Edit → Fill. Press Cmd+D to deselect.

Pick the Brush and set Size 56, Hardness 100 and Opacity 100.

In the options bar, click the snowflake button (Radial Symmetry) and set Segments to 32. Cmd-click the guide crossing to move the symmetry centre there.

Now click once on the top edge of the circle, where the vertical guide meets it. Lopsy repeats that one dab 32 times around the centre, and the circle gets a scalloped edge.

Radial symmetry works for the Eraser too, so one click punches a full ring of holes.

Pick the Eraser and set Size 15. Click just above the circle's top edge, in the middle of the top scallop (about 13 px above the edge). You get a hole in every scallop.

Set the Eraser to Size 8. Click on the black about 75 px in from the scallops, halfway between the top scallop's hole and the next hole to the right. That makes a second, finer ring of holes. The cream disc will cover the middle later, so these holes end up just outside its rim.

Click the snowflake button again to turn Radial Symmetry off.

Click Layer 1 and rename it Paper. Click Medallion, then Add Layer, and name the new layer Petals.

Pick the Brush with Size 44. Open the brush presets (click the brush tip at the left of the options bar), go to the Shape tab and set Taper to 62. Taper is a distance in pixels: the brush shrinks to a point over that length of stroke. Set it a little longer than the stroke you're about to draw and the stroke starts fat and ends in a point. Close the panel.

Turn Radial Symmetry back on with Segments 12. The centre is still on the guide crossing.

Set the foreground to #D02A6C. Start on the centre guide at the top of the black ring, just inside the scallops, and drag about 52 px straight down towards the centre. You get twelve pink teardrops.

Set the foreground to #1E8A52 and draw the same stroke again, this time starting halfway between the top pink petal and the one to its right, and aiming at the centre. The green petals land between the pink ones.

Open the brush presets and set Taper back to 0. Set Size 13, Segments 24, and the foreground to #F2B21B. Click once near the fat end of the top petal. Every petal gets a yellow eye.

Turn Radial Symmetry off. Click Add Layer and name it Inner Disc. Click once with the Elliptical Marquee and enter From 292, 542 To 908, 1158. Fill it with #F8EBCF and deselect.

The disc is a lighter, warmer cream than the paper, so it reads as a separate sheet glued on top.

Folk roosters are stylised, but they still need the right proportions: a big chest, a short back, a high tail and strong legs. Draw from a photo, not from memory.

Open the Reference drawer from the right-hand toolbar and load a side-on rooster photo. This one is Rooster in Key West, Florida from Wikimedia Commons, released under CC0. It was cropped to the bird before loading. Keep the drawer open while you draw.

To trace the photo, you need it on the canvas too. Click Inner Disc, then drag the photo file from your desktop onto the canvas. It lands as a new layer in the top-left corner with its pixels selected and the Move tool active.

Hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right corner handle up and to the left until the photo is about 31% of its size. Holding Cmd keeps the proportions. For this crop that's about 298 × 277 px.

Drag the photo into the left half of the disc so the rooster's beak stops about 35 px short of the centre guide. Its top-left corner lands at about (293, 700). Press Cmd+D.

Rename the layer Rooster Photo and lower its opacity to 60% with the opacity button on its row. That makes it easier to see your shapes on top.

Zoom in on the rooster: press Cmd+= a few times (to about 200%) and hold Space to drag it into view.

Make sure Rooster Photo is active, click New Group in the Layers panel and name it Rooster L. Every rooster layer goes inside this group:

• Base: click Add Layer and name it Base. It stays empty for now and will become the black paper under the bird.
• Legs: add a layer called Legs. Use the Brush at Size 9 in marigold #F2B21B. Click at the top of each leg in the photo, Shift-click the ankle, then from the ankle Shift-click out three toes.
• Tail: add a layer called Tail. Each feather is a tapered stroke. Start it at the feather's tip and drag in to the root, the point where the tail meets the back.

Paint the tail in three passes:

1. Green feathers: Size 40, Taper 100, emerald #1E8A52. Paint five strokes about 86 px long, fanning from pointing left to pointing up and to the right.
2. Pink feathers: paint one in each of the four gaps between the green ones, and paint each one twice. First in black #1B1512 at Size 40, Taper 90, then in magenta #D02A6C at Size 34, Taper 84, along the same line. The pink is wide enough to cover most of the green, so only the green's rounded tips show past it, like a scalloped edge. The black shows as a thin outline around each pink feather, just like layered paper.
3. Quills: a thin yellow line along each of the five green feathers' lines. Paint each one in black at Size 17 first, then in marigold at Size 11, from about 80 px out to 20 px from the root.

Set Taper back to 0 when you're done.

Add a layer called Body. Pick the Pen tool and trace the bird's silhouette over the photo, leaving out the tail and legs.

Start at the tip of the beak with a plain click, so it's a sharp corner. Then work clockwise: under the beak, down the throat and full chest, along the round belly, and up to a sharp corner where the tail joins. Come back along the back and neck to the top of the head. Drag each of those anchors a little to pull out curve handles, and click the first anchor to close the path.

Open the Paths panel, click Path to Selection, then Delete Path. Fill with cobalt #2B4AA6 and deselect.

The neck feathers (the hackle) are a yellow cape with a zigzag edge.

Add a layer called Hackle. Cmd-click the Body thumbnail to load the body's shape as a selection, then choose Select → Shrink… and enter 5 px. Shrinking keeps a cobalt rim around the yellow.

Pick the Lasso, hold Shift+Alt (intersect), and draw a loose shape around the head and neck. Give its lower edge sharp zigzag points across the shoulders and chest. Only the overlap of the two selections stays selected. Fill with marigold #F2B21B and deselect.

Add a layer called Wing. With the Pen, draw a teardrop over the wing, pointing back at the tail, and turn it into a selection. Fill it with emerald. Then make the layers:

• Shrink 6, fill marigold
• Shrink 5, fill magenta
• Shrink 5, fill cobalt

Deselect. With the Brush at Size 8 in black, click five cut dots in a gentle curve along the belly under the wing.

Add a layer called Comb. Pen the comb's five points in red #D8342C, with plain clicks for the points, turn the path into a selection and fill it. Then add the wattle on the same layer: drag a small Elliptical Marquee, about 15 × 21 px, over the photo's wattle under the beak, fill it red and deselect.

Add a Beak layer, Lasso a small triangle over the photo's beak, and fill it with vermilion #E0532E.

Add an Eye layer. Drag a 10 px circle with the Elliptical Marquee over the photo's eye (hold Shift to keep it round) and fill it with cream #F8EBCF. Drag a 6 px circle in the middle of it, fill it black and deselect.

This is the step that makes it look like cut paper.

Click the empty Base layer. Cmd-click the Body thumbnail. Then Cmd+Shift-click the Tail, Legs, Comb and Beak thumbnails to add each one to the selection.

Choose Select → Grow… with 5 px, fill with black #1B1512 and deselect. Every piece now sits on one black sheet that's a little bigger than the colour on top.

With Base still active, open its effects (the sparkle button on its row) and turn on Drop Shadow: Offset X 4, Offset Y 5, Blur 6, Opacity 45.

Select Rooster Photo and click Delete Layer. Close the Reference drawer, and choose View → Fit to Screen.

Collapse the Rooster L group and click its row. Click Duplicate Layer and rename the copy Rooster R.

Choose Image → Flip Horizontal. With a group active, every layer inside it flips as a unit, in place, so the copy now faces left on top of the original.

Pick the Move tool and drag the Rooster R group straight to the right, about 317 px, until the two beaks are the same distance from the centre guide. Finish with the arrow keys so the two birds are exact mirror images.

Click Inner Disc, then Add Layer twice. Name the first Tree Base and the second Tree, so the tree sits under both roosters.

Pick the Brush at Size 11 in leaf green #2E9E4F. In the options bar, click the mirror button labelled Symmetry Vertical, then Cmd-click on the centre guide to put the mirror line there. Anything you paint on one side now appears on the other.

• Stem: click on the centre guide a little above the roosters' combs and Shift-click straight below, just under their feet.
• Branch: at Size 13, click a little left of the left rooster's tail, level with its feet, and Shift-click the centre guide. The roosters now stand on it.
• Leaves: at Size 31 with Taper 118, draw two leaves from their fat tips in to the stem above the roosters. Draw one more drooping down from the base of the stem.
• Hanging stems: at Size 12 with no taper, draw a short stem down from the end of the branch.

Click four marigold dots up the stem at Size 9, then turn Symmetry Vertical off.

On the same Tree layer, turn on Radial Symmetry with Segments 6 and Cmd-click at the bottom of the left hanging stem to centre it there. With Size 20, Taper 26 and cobalt #2B4AA6, drag one stroke from about 28 px above that point in towards it. That's a whole six-petal flower. Turn Radial Symmetry off, set Taper to 0, and click a marigold centre at Size 12. Repeat at the bottom of the right hanging stem.

Add a layer called Blooms. With the Pen, draw the top tulip over the end of the stem: plain clicks for its five points, and a smooth curve for its rounded base.

Turn the tulip path into a selection, fill it red, then Shrink 7 and fill it marigold. Deselect.

Lasso a heart below the branch and fill it magenta. Shrink 7 and fill marigold, then Shrink 7 again and fill red.

On the left side only, Pen a small cobalt bud hanging from the drooping leaf (Shrink 5, marigold inside). Pen a small magenta tulip at the end of the upper-left leaf (Shrink 5, marigold inside).

Pen tools don't use symmetry, so mirror these two by hand.

Draw a Rectangular Marquee around the small left tulip, press Cmd+C and then Cmd+V. The copy pastes in place on a new layer, already selected, and Lopsy switches to the Move tool. Click Flip Horizontal in the options bar.

Drag the flipped tulip straight across to the matching spot on the right, deselect, and press Cmd+E to Merge Down into Blooms. Do the same with the cobalt bud.

Click Tree Base. Cmd-click the Tree thumbnail, Cmd+Shift-click the Blooms thumbnail, Grow 4, fill black and deselect.

Add the same Drop Shadow as the roosters: Offset X 4, Offset Y 5, Blur 6, Opacity 45.

Click Blooms, then New Group and name it Lettering. Add a raster layer called Ribbon inside it. New type is created above whichever layer is active, so click Ribbon before each new line of text.

Pick the Text tool with Bevan, size 136, colour #1B1512. Click in an empty margin and type NALEŚNIKI. If your keyboard has no Ś, type the word elsewhere and paste it. Press Tab to commit, name the layer Nalesniki, and set Letter spacing to 2 in the Text panel. With the Move tool, centre it on the middle guide, with its middle about 260 px from the top. That leaves room for the script above it and a border later.

Click Ribbon before each of these, and name each layer as you commit it:

• Babcia's in Courgette 104, magenta #D02A6C, centred above the headline. Name it Babcias.
• POLISH CRÊPES · HAND-PINCHED PIEROGI · KOMPOT in Fjalla One 30, black, letter spacing 3, centred under the headline. Name it Tagline.

For the menu, set the Text panel's alignment to Align center. A centred point-text block is centred on the spot you click.

• SŁODKIE · SWEET in Fjalla One 46, magenta, letter spacing 4, centred 270 px left of the guide (x 330), about 50 px below the medallion. Name it Sweet Head.
• the sweet list in Courgette 28, black, three lines (twaróg & wildflower honey / wild blueberry & cream / apple, cinnamon & walnut), under that heading. Name it Sweet List.
• SŁONE · SAVORY and the savoury list (ruskie: potato & cheese / sauerkraut & mushroom / smoked kiełbasa & onion) the same way, centred at x 870, with the heading in emerald. Name them Savory Head and Savory List.

Press Enter between list lines, and Tab to commit each layer.

Click Nalesniki and rename it Nalesniki Shadow. Click Duplicate Layer and name the copy Nalesniki.

Click Nalesniki Shadow, open its effects and turn on Color Overlay with #E0532E. With the Move tool, press the right arrow key 7 times and the down arrow key 7 times. It looks like a vermilion sheet under the black letters.

Click Babcias and press Cmd+D to make sure nothing is selected. With the Move tool, the live text shows its own transform box. Drag the round rotation handle just outside the top-right corner up and to the left, around the box's centre, until the script tilts about 5° and rises to the right. The text stays editable.

Choose View → Show Grid. The grid is 16 px by default and centred on the document, and showing it turns snapping on.

Click Ribbon. With the Rectangular Marquee, drag across the flyer below the menu, starting about 100 px in from the left edge and ending about 100 px in from the right. Make it about 60 px tall. The corners snap to the grid. Here they landed on 104 and 1096 across and 1538 and 1602 down: a band 64 px tall, centred on the page. Set the foreground to black #1B1512, fill, and deselect. Then hide the grid with View → Show Grid again.

Pick the Lasso and draw a triangle at the left end of the ribbon: from just above the top-left corner, in to a point 32 px inside the ribbon at its middle, and out to just below the bottom-left corner. Hold Shift and draw the mirror-image triangle at the right end to add it.

Press Delete and deselect. The ribbon now has swallowtail ends.

Click Ribbon and pick the Text tool (the alignment can stay on center). With Fjalla One 32 in the inner-disc cream #F8EBCF, click in an empty margin and type EVERY SATURDAY 8–2 · NORTHSIDE MARKET, STALL 14, with three spaces each side of the dot. Commit, name it Ribbon Text, and set Letter spacing to 2.

Centre it on the ribbon with the Move tool and arrow keys. Leave the same gap above and below the capitals, and about 85 px between the text and each notch.

Zoom right in on the bottom-left corner (about 300%). Click Paper and add a layer called Tile. You'll draw one 50 × 50 px tile in the corner, from (0, 1650) to (50, 1700).

Use the marquees' click-for-dialog: with nothing selected, click once and type the corners. After each fill, press Cmd+D, because the dialog only opens when nothing is selected.

• Black rule: set the foreground to black. Rectangular Marquee from (0, 1650) to (50, 1654). Fill, deselect.
• Scallop: Elliptical Marquee from (2, 1674) to (48, 1722). It runs off the bottom of the canvas, so only its top half shows. Fill, deselect.
• Half dots: small ellipses centred on the tile's left and right edges, from (−5, 1660) to (5, 1670) and from (45, 1660) to (55, 1670). Fill each, deselect.
• Magenta dot: set the foreground to magenta. Ellipse from (18, 1683) to (32, 1697). Fill, deselect.

Draw a Rectangular Marquee around exactly the tile, (0, 1650) to (50, 1700), and choose Edit → Define Pattern. The two half dots join up when tiles sit side by side.

Deselect, choose View → Fit to Screen, and delete the Tile layer.

Click Paper, add a layer called Band Bottom, and select the bottom 50 px: (0, 1650) to (1200, 1700). Choose Edit → Fill with Pattern…, click your tile in the pattern grid, and click Apply. Tiles are counted from the top-left of the document. 1650 is a multiple of 50, so the band starts exactly on a tile edge.

Keep the band selected, press Cmd+C and Cmd+V, and rename the pasted layer Band Top. The paste is already selected and the Move tool is active, so click Flip Vertical in the options bar.

Drag the flipped band straight up to the top edge and nudge it with the arrow keys until it sits exactly at y 0.

Click Inner Disc and add a layer called Dot Ring.

Pick the Brush at Size 10 in magenta. Turn on Radial Symmetry with Segments 32 and Cmd-click the guide crossing to centre it. Click once on the centre guide, 18 px inside the top edge of the cream disc.

Switch to Size 7 in emerald and click halfway between the top pink dot and the next one to the right, at the same distance from the centre. Turn Radial Symmetry off.

Click Ribbon Text and add a layer called Grain. It lands just above the ribbon, below the rest of the type and below the two rooster groups. That keeps the lettering and the roosters crisp while the grain shows on the paper, the disc and the medallion. Set the foreground to #808080 and choose Edit → Fill.

Choose Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 45, Mono and Gaussian. Then choose Filter → Gaussian Blur… with Radius 1 to soften the specks into a paper-like grain.

Open the layer's effects (the sparkle button) and set Blend to Overlay, then lower the layer's opacity to 30%. Overlay leaves mid-grey invisible, so only the light and dark specks show. They show most on the cream paper and hardly at all on the black.

Click Medallion and give it a bigger, softer Drop Shadow: Offset X 6, Offset Y 8, Blur 12, Opacity 40. It's the largest sheet, so it should sit highest off the page.

Click Paper and add two layers, Sprigs Base and Sprigs. On Sprigs, paint a little flower either side of the script, level with it and about 250 px in from each edge. For each one, turn on Radial Symmetry with Segments 6 and Cmd-click the flower's centre:

• a magenta stroke at Size 24, Taper 34, from 40 px above the centre in to it
• a green stroke at Size 14, Taper 24, between two pink petals
• turn symmetry off, set Taper to 0, and click a marigold centre dot at Size 16

Between the menu columns, turn on Symmetry Vertical and Cmd-click the centre guide. Draw a Size 6 green stem from level with the headings down to level with the last menu line. Add two pairs of leaves at Size 16, Taper 44. Turn symmetry off, set Taper to 0, and click a red Size 18 bud on top.

Finally click Sprigs Base, Cmd-click the Sprigs thumbnail, Grow 3, and fill black, so these little pieces are cut paper too.

Choose File → Save Project to keep every layer, then File → Quick Export PNG for a copy to print.