Make a Screen-Print Holiday Card with a Midnight Sun Bear

1. Choose File → New and make a 1500 × 2100 px document (Unit = Pixels).
2. Set the foreground to #F1E7CF, select the Background layer and run Edit → Fill. That's the paper.
3. Select Layer 1 and rename it Sky Navy.

Everything after this goes on its own layer, so you can change one ink without touching the rest.

Set the foreground to navy #1B2762. Pick the Lasso and drag one smooth outline: up the left side, a half-circle over the top, down the right side and back along the bottom to where you started. Leave a generous margin of paper, roughly a tenth of the card's width, on the left, right and top. Go slowly on the dome, because the gold keyline in step 23 is built from this exact selection and it will copy every wobble. Run Edit → Fill.

If the dome looks lumpy, press Cmd+Z and redraw it. A redo is cheap.

1. Add a layer above Sky Navy named Sky Rays.
2. Cmd-click the Sky Navy thumbnail to select the arch again.
3. Set the foreground to ray blue #2B3C94 and open Filter → Sunburst.
4. Try Rays 30, Length 100, Width 45, Taper 70, Fade 35, Jitter 20 and Center Y 48. Nudge Seed until you like the gaps between the rays, then Apply.

Center X and Center Y are percentages of the card, so Y 48 puts the burst's hub 48% of the way down, right where the moon will sit.

Add a layer called Aurora. Choose the Gradient tool, click the gradient preview in its options bar and set the two stops to teal #2EA89C and the same teal with its alpha at 0. Lasso a tall, wavy ribbon up the left side of the arch, thinner at the top than the bottom, and drag the gradient from the bottom of the ribbon to the top. Do a second ribbon, slightly different, up the right side.

Because the gradient fades out, each ribbon dissolves into the sky as it rises.

With nothing selected, run Filter → Halftone… on Aurora with Dot Size 22, Density 2 and Angle 20, then Apply.

A halftone turns the soft fade into one-ink dots that grow and shrink. That's the whole trick behind a screen-print gradient.

1. Add a layer Moon. Use the Elliptical Marquee to drag a big circle in the middle of the arch and fill it gold #F4B633. Hold Shift while you drag to keep it a true circle.
2. Click the Aurora layer and add a layer Moon Halo, so it sits just under Moon.
3. With the circle still selected, run Select → Grow… with about 40 px, fill it gold and set the layer to 18%.

The halo is a ring of pale gold around the disc, which is what makes the moon look like it's glowing.

1. Add a layer Moon Shade on top and Cmd-click the Moon thumbnail to select the same circle again.
2. Pick a linear gradient from vermilion #E2472B to vermilion at 0% alpha. Drag from the moon's lower right toward its upper left.
3. Deselect and run Filter → Halftone… with Dot Size 18, Density 2 and Angle 45.
4. Set the layer to 60% so the red dots warm the gold without taking it over.

The halo spills out of the arch onto the paper. Select Moon Halo, Cmd-click the Sky Navy thumbnail, then choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. Deselect.

Now click the small sparkle icon at the right of the Moon Halo row to open its effects drawer and set its blend mode to Screen. It brightens the sky behind the moon into a gold-tinged ring. Raise Moon Halo to 28% and drop Moon Shade to 42% while you're here, so the moon glows without looking dirty.

1. Add a layer Stars Spray above Aurora.
2. Cmd-click the Sky Navy thumbnail so the spray stays inside the arch.
3. Set the foreground to gold. Choose the Spray tool and set Size 180, Density 25, Softness 0 and Opacity 100. Softness is backwards on this tool: 0 is the softest setting.
4. Drag a slow arc down the left edge of the dome, another down the right, and a short one across the top.

Keep the middle of the sky clear. Quiet space makes the Big Dipper pop.

Add a layer Big Dipper, set the foreground to paper #F1E7CF and pick the Pencil at Size 5. The Dipper is a four-sided bowl with a handle of three stars curving away to the upper left. Click the first star of the bowl, then Shift-click each of the others to draw straight lines between them. Close the bowl by clicking back on the first point, then click the end of the handle and Shift-click its stars in turn.

Shift-click lines are far cleaner than dragging, and you can undo a bad one without losing the rest.

Lasso a small four-pointed star on each of the Dipper's points and fill it with paper. Click the lasso in a plus shape: a point top, bottom, left and right, with the corners pulled in. Then add a layer Sparkles and scatter eight or nine smaller gold ones around the sky, varying their size.

Make the Dipper stars bigger than the loose sparkles. The eye follows size, so this is how you lead the viewer to the constellation.

1. Add Far Hills above Moon Shade and lasso a gentle ridge across the bottom of the moon, running well past the edges of the arch. Fill it with teal #2EA89C.
2. Add Near Hills and lasso a lower, flatter ridge, filling it with the darker teal #1F7F84.
3. To trim both to the arch, Cmd-click the Sky Navy thumbnail, choose Select → Inverse, and press Delete on each hills layer in turn. Deselect.

Add Bear above Near Hills and pick the Pen tool. Click once for a corner, or click and drag to pull out a curve handle. Start at the tip of the nose, curve up over the forehead and along the long humped back, drop down the rump and the back leg, tuck up into the belly, then down and back up the front leg and under the chin to the nose again. Close the shape by clicking the first anchor.

Keep the pose simple, a chunky bear in profile walking left, with a flat belly, two stubby legs and no tail. Take as many points as you need. The Pen keeps every anchor editable, so it's much easier to refine than a lasso.

1. Open the Paths panel and press Path to Selection.
2. Set the foreground to deep navy #0D1236, select the Bear layer and run Edit → Fill.
3. Deselect, then delete Path 1 so the panel stays tidy.

1. Cmd-click the Bear thumbnail to select its shape.
2. Select Near Hills, add a layer called Bear Ghost and fill it vermilion.
3. Deselect, pick the Move tool and nudge the ghost down and to the right until just a thin sliver of red shows along the bear's belly and back.

That sliver of red is a deliberate misregistration, the kind you get when the second ink is printed slightly off. It gives the bear a rim of light on one side.

1. Add a layer Scarf above Bear. Lasso a slanted band across the neck, from the top of the shoulders down to the throat, and fill it vermilion.
2. Cmd-click the Bear thumbnail, run Select → Inverse and press Delete, so the band can't spill past the bear.
3. Deselect and lasso two long, tapering tails streaming back from the knot on the same Scarf layer. Fill them vermilion.

A moving scarf tells the viewer the air is cold and the bear is walking.

1. Add Pines above Near Hills and lasso two different-height pine trees in deep navy #0D1236 on the left of the hills.
2. Use the Rectangular Marquee to box the whole cluster and press Cmd+C then Cmd+V.

The paste lands on a new layer, which is exactly what you want.

Pick the Move tool and drag the pasted layer across to the right edge, then rename it Pines Right. Both clusters should already be the same navy because they're copies of one another. If one looks lighter, Cmd-click its thumbnail and fill the selection again with deep navy.

Using the same trees on both sides is how screen printers frame a picture without drawing twice.

1. Add Snow Hill above Near Hills and lasso a wavy snow ridge in snow #F6EEDA, running past the arch's bottom edge.
2. Cmd-click its thumbnail, add a layer Snow Shade, and drag a teal gradient (full teal at the start, 0% alpha at the end) from the bottom of the snow up to its crest.

With nothing selected, run Filter → Halftone… on Snow Shade with Dot Size 7 and Angle 45, then Apply. A smaller dot than the aurora gives the snow a finer grain.

Add Cabin above Near Hills. Place it on the teal ridge to the right of the bear's back leg, small enough that the bear dwarfs it. Use the marquee to fill a deep navy rectangle, then lasso a triangle for the roof and a thin rectangle for the chimney. Fill a gold window and a vermilion door.

A lit window is the story in this card: somewhere on the longest night, someone's home.

On a layer Chimney Smoke, fill four ellipses in snow #F6EEDA, getting bigger and more spaced as they rise. Set the layer to 75% and run Filter → Gaussian Blur… at Radius 3 to soften the puffs.

Everything else in the card is a hard-edged ink, so this is one of the few soft shapes in it.

1. Cmd-click the Sky Navy thumbnail, then select Snow Shade and add a layer Keyline, so it sits above the scenery.
2. Run Select → Shrink… with 22 and fill with gold.
3. Run Select → Shrink… with 5 and press Delete.
4. Deselect.

The thin ring that's left is the keyline. It echoes the arch and gives the picture a frame.

Set the foreground to navy, pick the Text tool and choose Alfa Slab One at Size 300. Click under the arch, type URSA and press the Commit text checkmark. Pressing Esc cancels the text, so use the checkmark.

Make the second word the same width as the first by lowering the size: Size 165 is right for SOLSTICE. Click below URSA, type the word and commit.

Move SOLSTICE up until the two words are nearly touching, with just a sliver of paper between the baseline of URSA and the tops of the next line.

1. With a title layer selected, press Duplicate Layer. The copy lands slightly down and to the right.
2. Select the lower layer, click the small sparkle icon on its row to open the effects drawer and turn on Color Overlay. Set the colour to vermilion #E2472B.
3. Do the same for URSA.

The red layer sits behind the navy one, and the offset gives a screen-print look for free.

1. Add a layer Seal. Use the Elliptical Marquee, holding Shift, to make a circle beside the title and fill it vermilion.
2. Run Select → Shrink… with 10 and fill paper.
3. Select → Shrink… with 5 and fill vermilion again.
4. Select → Shrink… with 28, then run Select → Selection → Path to turn the selection into a circular path.
5. Deselect.

That one thin paper ring is all the seal needs to feel stamped.

Pick the Text tool, set the foreground to paper, choose Oswald at Size 28, click near the seal and type LONGEST NIGHT · 21 DECEMBER · . While the text is still open, pick the path in the Path dropdown in the options bar. The words bend around the circle. Commit the text.

Text on a path only runs as far as its letters do, so at the default spacing the words cover about two thirds of the ring. Open the Text panel on the right, select the text layer and set Letter spacing to 6 so the phrase wraps the whole circle and the closing dot meets the first letter.

If the words don't meet at the join, add or remove a space at the end.

Select the Seal layer first so the star ends up on it. Lasso an eight-pointed star in the middle of the seal and fill it paper. Then fill a small vermilion circle in the centre.

Set the foreground to navy, pick Space Mono at Size 34, click in the bottom left margin and type LONGEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR / 21 DEC. Commit.

A tiny monospaced line against heavy slab type is a classic mix of one loud voice and one quiet one.

Click once on the left ruler, a little in from the card's left edge, to drop a vertical guide, and click again near the right edge for the other side. Do the same on the top ruler for the top and bottom. Each click is a guide, so there's no dragging. These mark where the live area ends and the crop marks begin.

Add a layer Print Marks, set the foreground to deep navy and pick the Pencil at Size 3. At each corner, click just outside where two guides cross, then Shift-click along the guide to draw a short line. Draw one horizontal and one vertical line per corner, so each corner gets a small L.

Add a small circle with a cross through it, centred above the arch, for a registration target.

Fill four small rectangles in a row, bottom right, in navy, teal, gold and vermilion. Printers add this bar so they can check each ink.

The bear sits a little low against the moon. Click Bear Ghost in the layers panel, Shift-click Scarf to select the three bear layers, and press Group Layers. Rename the group Bear Group. With the Move tool active and the group selected, drag the whole bear up and a touch to the right so it stands in the middle of the moon. Check the move with Cmd+Z and Cmd+Shift+Z.

Moving a group moves every layer inside it together, so the ghost and the scarf keep their alignment.

1. Add a layer Paper Fibers at the very top.
2. Run Filter → Fibers… and Apply. This filter picks its own colours and ignores the foreground.
3. Set the layer's blend mode to Multiply and its opacity to about 14%.

At full strength fibres look like wood grain. Keep them faint enough that you'd only notice them if they weren't there.

Zoom out and look at the card as a whole. Two things are off: the scarf tails look detached from the knot, and the ear is a flat block. Fix both:

1. Select Scarf inside Bear Group and add a layer Scarf Tail, which lands inside the group. Lasso a wedge that starts at the knot and tapers into one long tail, and fill it vermilion. Use the lasso and Delete on the Scarf layer to clear the old detached tail stubs.
2. Select Bear, lasso a small round ear on top of the head and fill it deep navy.

Looking at the whole piece from a distance is the best editing tool you have.

• Select Paper Fibers and lower its opacity to 8%.
• Select Moon Halo and bring it back down to 18%.
• SOLSTICE and its copy sit slightly left of URSA and a little narrower. Select each, set Letter spacing to 2.4 in the Text panel, then nudge it with the Move tool until both words share the same left and right edges.
• Move the credit line and its colour swatches so they sit level with each other and the same distance from the headline and the crop marks.
• Drop the seal and its ring text about 50 px so the badge is centred on the two-line headline.

Then choose File → Quick Export PNG.