Rose Covered Cottage Pixel Painting

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We'll be creating this rose-covered cottage in the 'pixel art' style using Paint Shop Pro. Pixel Art is one painting method that works equally well with a mouse or a graphics tablet and with any paint program. These instructions, however, are written for Paint Shop Pro X.

Sue Chastain at About.com has defined pixel art well... "Pixel Art is a retro form of digital art which is gaining a lot in popularity these days. Pixel Art is generally thought of as a computer graphic where the image is literally drawn pixel-by-pixel in tiny detail, usually using a limited color palette and primitive computer graphics tools.....Although pixel art is not hard to create, it does require a great deal of patience!"

That pretty well sums up what we'll be doing with this tutorial. This pixel-drawn rose-covered cottage is not hard to create, but it will require a certain amount of patience and attention to detail. Pixel Art can be very satisfying. To quote a pixel artist named drububu... "the quality of your work will not be influenced by the price of the program you use or your computer's brand and speed. The quality of your work purely stems from what's between your ears."

In addition to being a unique art form, pixel art has many benefits for web work. Because pixel art is designed to be used with a limited palette and hand-painted gradients, the results is often a small file size that is great for animated GIFs! More than 256 colors can be used if you save as PNG file type. Using the JPEG format is not recommended for a pixel painting. It will alter some pixels, possibly blurring the image and destroying "the look".

This 'pixel' style is not for everyone. Some may find it very tedious. I find the crisp simplicity of it a relaxing break from complicated illustration that requires a lot of different tool settings and image manipulation. But be forewarned...there's a lot of detail in the following steps and completing this tutorial may take a few drawing sessions...or more! ;-)

Save the following image for use in this tutorial. It is a layered image in .psp format, so any version of Paint Shop Pro will be able to open it. Included in the image are the cottage outline and some color swatches that we'll be using.

Download: azk23-cottage-outline.zip

Optional black outline. The left half of drawing has a black outline.
The part on the right changes outline to match house.

Getting started...tool settings

Unzip and open the file: azk23-cottage-outline.psp. Make a copy [Window > Duplicate] and save the untouched original 'just in case' you have to start over or something. ;-)

Most pixel painted images are very small, so this 500x500 canvas would be considered a fairly large pixel painting. It is intended to be used as a splash page or entry page graphic. You can resize it smaller if you wish. I drew it large so I could show a variety of details. Practice with this cottage and then re-draw your own using your colors and embellishments.

Tip: Pixel art degrades in quality when re-sized, so it is always best to decide, before you start, the exact size you want for your final illustration. If you want to work with a smaller image than this demo, resize the outline included in the file before starting tutorial. Resizing may blur the lines, so remove any stray pixels from the drawing until you have a crisp, clean black outline to start with.

For this pixel painted cottage, the Paintbrush will be the primary tool used in all steps.

Paintbrush settings are: Shape=square, Size=1, Hardness=100, Step=1, Density=100, Thickness=100, Rotation=0, Opacity=100, Blend=Normal, and Stroke=Continuous. Wet look paint UNchecked.

Unless instructions say otherwise...ALL tool settings will use a brush size of 1 pixel with anti-alias OFF.

Other settings that will not change no matter which tool is used:
Create on Vector, Connect Segments & Show Nodes are all UNchecked;
Blend Mode is Normal; Line Style is Solid; Opacity is 100% and no feather.
Only the Foreground/Stroke color/pattern will be used on the Materials palette. Background/Fill should be null.

Zoom in very close for nearly all steps. At least 300%, some steps 800-1000% or more.

Pick colors from swatches provided or use your own.
All painting will be done on HOUSE layer of drawing except where noted. The WINDOW LIGHTS layer is only for curtains and colors that are 'behind the glass'.

This cottage is white with blue trim. In some steps we'll be blending the black outline into the color scheme. If you prefer the look of a black outline, by all means, keep it black! Using a black outline is optional, it will give your drawing more of a 'cartoon' look. I like it both ways...there's no right or wrong here. A sampling of the difference is shown above.

Outline with base colors filled in

Base colors & Selections

Start by flood filling all areas with a base color.
Use Magic Wand to select areas for filling.
There are some selections we'll use over and over, so let's save those to the alpha channel.

To save a selection, use main menu and choose Selections > Load/Save Selection > Save Selection to Alpha Channel (give selection the NAME indicated in each step and click Save).

To load a saved selection, choose Selections > Load/Save Selection > Load Selection from Alpha Channel. Make sure 'Replace selection' is checked and all other buttons are UNchecked. Pick the selection you need from the drop down box on left and select 'Load'.

1.Use Magic Wand to select one part of outline and then use Selections > Modify > Select Similar to include the entire outline in the selection. Save this selection to Alpha Channel as OUTLINE.

2. Use Magic Wand to select all sections of house body, including chimneys. Hold Shift key down to select more than one item. Save this selection to Alpha Channel as HOUSE.

You can fill this selection with a pale gray...or not. We'll soon be filling this area with lap siding, so the color we use at this point isn't important...it really isn't even needed. But it may help you visualize things as we go along.

3. Use Magic Wand to select and fill steps with the darkest gray on the GRAYS swatch.

4. Select just the narrow edge of roof on each of the 3 gables and fill this with medium-dark brown (#4 brown from left on brown swatch).

5. Use Magic Wand to select the large area of ROOF and save selection to alpha channel. Fill this with medium brown (brown swatch, 3rd from left).

6. Also select and fill all window and doorway trim with same brown.

7. From the blue swatch, choose #2 from left for the house trim. Select and fill roof trim, shutters, porch posts and all sections of front door (except window and door handle).

8. Fill the window planter boxes with a blue that is 1 step darker.

Note: When we load these saved selections from alpha channel they will act as a mask and help us 'stay in the lines' when painting. Sometimes a larger area than needed will be selected, but with the Paintbrush tool we can restrict color change to specific lines. We'll only use the Flood Fill tool when we want to fill the ENTIRE selection with a new color or pattern.

Close-up of pattern tiles. Siding pattern on left. Brick pattern on right.
Brick is siding with vertical lines added.

White lap siding

Painting the large siding area of the house pixel by pixel could get a little tedious...so let's create our own pattern tile.
Open new image, 24x24 pixels with transparent background.
Using the darkest gray from swatch, paint a 1 pixel horizontal line.
Using the middle gray, paint another line under the dark gray line.
Using the lightest gray paint 1 more line.
On the next line, paint 1 pixel the lightest gray, then 1 pixel white, repeat for a check pattern all the way across.
Paint 2 more rows all white for a total of 6 lines in the pattern.
Copy those 6 lines and paste as new selection underneath the top 6 lines.
Paste again, 2 more times to fill up the 24x24 pattern.

Return to Rose Cottage, HOUSE layer. Load the HOUSE selection from alpha channel.

Choose 'Pattern' tab on the Materials palette. Locate the siding pattern you just made. Angle should be 0 and Scale should be 100. Texture should be UNchecked.

Flood fill each section of the house front with this pattern.

Return to the pattern tile and change it to a brick pattern for chimney. Make these changes to pattern on a separate layer if you want to keep both patterns.

In the top left corner, paint a 6 pixel tall vertical dark gray line connecting the dark gray lines of the existing pattern. Move over 12 pixels and paint another. Repeat for each row, alternating in a brick pattern (see above).

Return to Rose Cottage, HOUSE layer. Click Materials palette. Change current Pattern to brick pattern. Fill each chimney with the brick. De-select marquee.

Comment: Many pixel purest avoid all filters...and that could include 'noise'. But I happen to like the look you get with noise. Your choice to use or not use.

Optional: Break up the straight-line pattern of siding and brick by adding noise and removing some pixels.
Adjust > Add/Remove Noise > Add Noise
Check 'Uniform' and 'Monochrome' and enter 15% in dialog box.
Use Magic Wand to select a dark shade of gray in the siding...anywhere. Choose Selections > Modify > Select Similar. Check discontiguous and set tolerance to 15. OK.
Flood fill this selection with white. That should remove the rigid appearance of so many straight horizontal lines. Deselect marquee.

The last step for the siding is to change the black outline to match....but we won't do that just yet. First let's finish the roof and blue trim.

Roof Shingles/Shakes

For the roof shakes we'll create another pixel pattern with colors from the BROWN swatch.
Create new image, 48x24, filled with medium brown (brown swatch, 3rd from left).

First we'll set up some guidelines to help draw the shingles.
View > Change Grid, Guide & Snap Properties > Current image settings
Horizontal 12, Vertical 8 pixels, any contrasting color.
Click OK, then select View > Grid (on).

1. Using the Grid guide, paint some lines to represent the roof shingles Use the darkest brown from the swatch. Don't follow guidelines precisely...randomly stagger alignment and make each shingle a slightly different size. Paint these roof shakes with a 'shaky' hand...LOL Be loose and irregular with the lines for your best imitation of wood shakes. See example above.

2. Zoom in close and paint the LEFT and BOTTOM edge of each shingle. Use lightest brown from color swatch and paint it next to dark brown line with an extra pixel in some of the corners.

3. Paint a shadow line on each shingle under the dark brown line. Use color #4 on brown swatch. Paint 2 rows of pixels.

4. Let's make the shake pattern more subtle by randomly removing some of the lines. Grab the Paintbrush and randomly paint over some of the lines using the original brown base color. Add some more shadows and highlights wherever you feel some are needed.

5. Our pattern is starting to look like shingles! Let's create a bit more irregularity by adding noise. Same settings as before. Adjust > Add/Remove Noise > Add Noise

Return to cottage HOUSE layer. Load ROOF selection from alpha channel.
Flood fill the roof with the new pixel drawn shake pattern.

The last step in finishing the roof is to change the color of the black outline to match the rest of the roof. Zoom in to 800% and load the OUTLINE selection from alpha channel to mask the outline as you paint.

Tip: Hide the 'marching ants' marquee when working with such small selections....it will be easier to see what we're doing! Selections > Hide Marquee

Use light brown along the top ridge, a medium-dark brown on the side, and the darkest brown along the eaves. If you erase 2-3 pixels of outline between shakes it will add to the realism. You could also put a few darker pixels between some shakes.

Front Door Details

On the HOUSE layer, with the OUTLINE still selected, use Paintbrush to add shadows and highlights around door.

Pick the 2nd lightest brown from the color swatch and paint the 'sunlit' side of door TRIM outline. That would be the left side and top side of the trim. Use the darkest brown to paint the TRIM outline on the 'shadow' side (right & bottom).

Using the darkest blue in the swatch, change the black outline of the door to dark blue....leaving the black line at the very bottom of the door.

Also use this dark blue to paint the shadow side of the door molding outlines. Refer to above image.
Use the lightest shade of blue to paint the sunlit side of the door outlines.

Create a shadow on the right side of the door handle by changing just the right side and bottom outline of the door handle to dark blue.

Select the pale gold from swatch to paint the top and side outline....the 'sunlit' side of the door handle.

Selections > Invert

Select the darker shade from the gold swatch to paint the center space of the door handle.
De-selelct marquee.

Front Steps

Select the gray area of the front steps.
Add some texture to the steps by adding noise. Adjust > Add/Remove Noise > Add Noise
Check 'Uniform' and 'Monochrome' and enter 15% in dialog box.

Load OUTLINE selection from alpha channel again. Pick the middle gray from the GRAY swatch and paint the outline along top of each step. Pick the darkest gray from the 'noise' to paint the outline on each side of steps a mid-tone gray. Pick the dark gray from the house foundation to paint the very bottom outline of steps.

Deselect outline.
Use the dark gray from foundation to paint a dark line BETWEEN the steps, immediately above the light gray line. Add a little shading and extra texture by painting a checkered line above the darkest gray line using the dark gray and the medium gray from the side outline of steps. (Refer to image above)

Close-ups of windows and trim

Shade and Highlight Window Trim

The next step is to add highlights and shading to the window frames and blue house trim.
Zoom in very close...500% or more. As you look closely at windows, you may notice some missing pixels between the shutters and window frames. Copy a strip of white siding and paste in to fill that spot.
Load OUTLINE selection from alpha channel. Hide marquee.

Window Shutters

Tip: Speed things up by completing window & shutters on left and then copy/paste the entire window over the window on right.

Paint outline of shutters and window box the darkest shade of blue from swatch.
Invert the selection and use the lightest blue to add highlights to the window shutters with a 1 pixel line along the top and left side of each section of shutter. (refer to closeup image)
Use the 3rd shade of blue (3rd from left) to add a cast shadow under the cross bars of the shutters.

Window Frames

Invert selection again so outlines are selected.
Paint window frame outline the same way we did the door frame, with a highlight on 'sunlit' side and darker on 'shadow' side. Refer to close-up image. Use the 2nd lightest brown for the 'sunlit' parts and paint the outside top & left, inside right & bottom.

Paint the remaining window outline with darkest brown. The outer right, outer bottom, inner top, inner left.
The round window is a little trickier...but it's highlighted the same way.

Round Window

For the round window, paint the OUTSIDE LEFT and INSIDE RIGHT outline the 2nd lightest brown.
With the darkest brown paint the OUTSIDE RIGHT outline and INSIDE LEFT outline.

I think this window needs a little more embellishment. Let's add some blue trim to this window.
Invert selection marquee.
Using the darkest blue from swatch, paint a row of pixels framing just the left side of window. Follow the same 3-2-1 curve pattern as the brown line (refer to close-up image).
Using the lightest blue, paint a row of pixels framing the rest of the window.
De-select the marquee.

Using medium blue (3rd from left), paint a border completely around window.
Add a little more substance to this trim by painting a another row of medium blue around window.
Add an accent at the 4 compass points N-S-E-W by painting a 3rd line of medium blue JUST at those 4 points (refer to close-up).
Go around the window frame one more time with highlights and shadows. With the darkest blue, paint a row of pixels framing just the RIGHT side of window. With the lightest blue, paint a row of pixels framing the rest of the window.

Roof Trim and Other Details

In this step we'll add highlights and shading to the rest of the blue house trim.

Load the OUTLINE selection from alpha channel and paint the outlines on the porch posts. Lightest blue on left and darkest blue on right. Hide marquee. I think this highlight/shadow needs to be emphasized a little more. Let's paint a 2nd light line and a 2nd dark line next to the outlines. Refer to closeup image. De-select marquee when done.

Paint OUTLINE of blue roof trim the darkest shade of blue from swatch. Don't change the black outline around the brown roof shingles, just the outline that's between blue and white areas.

Let's give the roof trim some dimension using the same highlight and shadow used on porch posts. With the darkest shade of blue, draw a 2 pixel line (point-to-point) inside the roof trim adjacent to the dark blue outline.
Repeat for all 3 gables.

With the lightest blue, draw a straight, but angled, line up the center of the blue trim tucked in next to the dark line you just drew. Change brush size back to 1 pixel. As you get to lower corner returns of roof trim, refer to closeup for placement of highlights and shading.

Repeat for all gables.

Note: We've gone thru a lot of steps and Paint Shop Pro has recorded every action. If Paint Shop Pro starts running a little sluggish, free up some memory by clearing the clipboard and emptying the command history. Just remember, you can no longer UNDO any actions that are cleared. View > Palettes > History On the History palette, click Empty Command History. In PSP X, you can selectively UNDO only some of the command history, if you prefer (option not available for older versions).

Close-up of shadows from gable overhang

Cast Shadows

House is looking pretty good...but now we need to add some cast shadows to give it that extra punch and accent the different sections of the house. You could probably do this with Paint Shop Pro's drop shadow effect, but I don't think a 'drop shadow' works well in a pixel painting. It is generally accepted that 'pure' pixel art must be created without the use of automatic filters such as anti-aliasing and gradients. That would include drop-shadow gradients. So we're going to stick with that school of thought and create all gradients by hand...pixel by pixel. It will give us the best quality shadow when we export image as gif and will also give us a more control over shadow placement.

To speed things up, however, I have provided some pre-made shadow gradients in the COLOR SWATCH layer. An angled gradient for the roof gables plus a horizontal gradient for other areas have been built from the 8 shades shown in swatch. There are a few places on the house where there won't be enough room to use all 8 shades but, where there is room, we'll just copy the pre-made gradient and paste in place. For other areas, pick colors from the shadow swatch to paint pixel by pixel.

It is important to build the shadows on a separate layer so we can reduce the opacity until the shadow color looks 'just right'.

Create a new raster layer named SHADOWS.

Remember...the Zoom tool is your best friend for doing this kind of stuff! Zoom in.

The first shadow we'll do is cast by the roof overhang on the large front gable.
1. From the SWATCH layer, copy the angled gradient.
2. Return to the SHADOW layer and paste a shadow line under the left side of each roof gable. Start at the peak and paste the gradient so it tucks in next to the blue.
3. Repeat a couple times, then copy this new, longer piece of shadow and paste again...repeat until it's filled in all the way down to the gable end.
4. The very last pixels at the end will need to be painted in one pixel at a time. There's probably a few missing pixels up at the peak that will also need to be painted in pixel by pixel.

Copy a long length of finished shadow and paste it onto the other gable. Repeat until it is complete. Select none. Fill in any missing pixels at the peak and gable end.

Reduce opacity of this layer to 50% to preview how shadows look and then return it to 100% to work on some more shadow locations.

Cast shadows under sections of chimney, under roof overhang, under shutters and window boxes.
Inset is extreme close-up of shadow gradient

More Cast Shadows

On same SHADOW layer as previous step:

Copy the 8x8 straight line gradient swatch and paste it where roof overhangs the house. Duplicate until the roof shadow is complete.

Speed Tip: Paste the 8x8 gradient a few times then copy the result. Paste this larger swatch to complete the row of shadow.

Also paste some shadow under the front porch overhang. Refer to closeup above as a guide for placement of shadows around porch posts.

There's many places, such as the corner returns, where painting pixel by pixel works best. Paste the same shadow gradient below corner roof returns and then paint a gradient on the right side to complete the shadow. Refer to above image for placement. All right side shadows will 'stairstep' to create an angled line. This helps create some depth to the different parts of the house.

Pick 2 of the middle shades of gray from shadow swatch (#3 & 4 from left) to paint a narrow shadow below each of the different width sections of chimney top.

Use 3 darker shades for shadow under window boxes (#6,7,8).

De-select marquee.

Use the 2 darkest shades to paint a small shadowline under window shutters and on the right side of each shutter. Fill in the shadow between the shutter boards and also between the hinges.

Reduce opacity of this layer to 50%.

Finishing the Building

A couple more shadow locations. The porch posts will cast a shadow onto the front of the house and the dormer will cast a shadow onto the roof. We might want a different opacity for these shadows, so let's make each on it's own layer.

Tip: It will be easier to see what you're doing in next paragraph if you hide visibility for SHADOW layer until done.

Create a new raster layer above the SHADOW layer and name it POST SHADOWS. Copy the 4 pixel wide vertical gradient from the SWATCH layer and paste it into the POST SHADOWS layer, 2 pixels to the right of a porch post. Paste again and again until the shadow is same height as post. Copy this shadow and paste it next to other post, 2 pixels away.

Copy the same 4 pixel wide vertical gradient as the post shadow and paste it as a new selection on left side of porch, next to the black outline, as a shadow cast by other section of building (refer to above image).

Erase any pixels that are may get incorrecly placed on the brown or blue parts of roof trim.

Reduce opacity for this layer to 40%.

If you turned it off as suggested, turn visibility back on for SHADOW layer.

Create another new raster layer and name it ROOF SHADOW. On the SWATCH layer, select and copy just the darkest 4 rows of the 8x8 gradient. Paste that selection into the ROOF SHADOW layer. Rotate gradient 90 degrees left. Image > Free Rotate > 90, Left. All layers UNchecked. Move shadow gradient over next to the black outline of the roof dormer (right side). Copy the rotated gradient and paste it as a new selection a couple of times until it looks like step a in above image. Deselect marquee.

Erase the bottom pixels in a stairstep fashion as shown in step b above and fill in the 'missing' pixel in the outline with the darkest gray.

Reduce opacity of this layer to 60%.

Now we need to change the black outlines to match the siding and brick. Select the HOUSE layer. Load the OUTLINE selection from the alpha channel and paint over the black outline along the edges of the house and chimneys using a medium shade of gray. Hide marquee visibility so you can see where you're painting. Just paint the 'white' parts of the house, not roof shingles.

Close-up of window with candlelight gradient

Behind the Windows

There's a lot of options for filling the windows with color. You could leave yellow as is. You could put in some lace curtains, cafe curtains or window shades. You could fill the window area with shades of blue, light gray or dark gray to indicate interior lights on or off and put some flowers or people in the window. Or you could attempt what I call the 'candle glow' seen in many popular cottage paintings. It's your choice. Decorate the windows any way you want!

Candle Glow

To create the candle glow in the windows, we will use the 4 colors in the 'candlelight' swatch to paint arcs of color in the yellow rectangle. Sort of like a rainbow. To make a gradual transition between colors that replicate the candle glow, we will add alternating pixels (check pattern) to blend the colors. Starting at the top, paint a few rows with first color on left, then about 6-10 rows with a check pattern made with color #1 and #2, then 6-10 more rows of checks made with color #2 and #3. Finally rows of checks are made with color #3 and #4 with a few rows of just color #4 to finish the window. Complete one window before doing other windows. When that window is done, copy and paste it behind the other 4 windows. (Turn visibility of HOUSE layer back on...but do all copy/paste on WINDOW layer.)

Speed Tip: Paint 4 arcs of color using the 4 colors form the candlelight swatch, like a rainbow as described above. Next, make check patterns as separate images (about 6x6 pixels). Make a new image for the first 2 colors, one with the 2nd pair of colors and a new image with the 3rd pair of colors. Use these images as pattern fills. On the WINDOW layer of the cottage, select the top arc of the 'rainbow' with the Magic Wand and flood fill it with the check pattern made from color #1 and #2. Then select the next section of color and flood fill it with the next pattern, then the 3rd. Go back and paint over some of the check pattern at the top with solid color #1 for a few rows. Paint over some of the check pattern at the bottom with solid color #4. Touch up where needed. Copy/paste for other windows.

Are you tired of fiddling with the house construction yet? I am. LOL Take a break. Next step we'll start planting some trees and flowers! Turn visibility on for all layers and de-select any marquee that may be active.

Climbing Vine and Window Boxes

You're on your own for color choices for the flowers. There's thousands of suitable colors to choose from...so 'pick' your own flowers! LOL Picking the right green can sometimes be difficult, so two color swatches for 'greens' have been provided. The 'TREES' swatch has some muted shades of green for background foliage, while the 'VINE' swatch has some greens that are a little brighter. You can use these greens for foliage or pick your own. You could mix in some browns, maroons, golds and yellows too.

Climbing Roses:

Create a new raster layer for ROSE VINE that is above all other layers. With the darkest green, scribble a vine twining around the porch posts and up over the top of the gable and along the roof. With a couple more shades of green, paint some lighter colored 'leaves' here and there using a 1 or 2 pixel brush. I tried painting some tiny fussy leaves on the vine, but at this small size it was hard to tell the difference between the leaves I drew and the areas that were just scribbled in. Scribbling is faster!

Add some red roses to vine. With a size 2 or 3 brush and some rose red, plop in some flowers all over the vine. Use a very light shade of red (pink-red or orange-red) and a 1 pixel brush to highlight each flower.

Window Boxes:

Paint some more greens from VINE swatch in the window boxes. Add some flowers in color(s) of your choice with a 2 pixel brush. Group some of these posies together. Paint some highlights along top of flowers with the same pink-red or orange-red.

Steps to create background tree

Large Tree Behind House

Let's 'frame' the house with a large tree in the background. Most people have a difficult time drawing realistic looking trees but, not to worry, we're not going to get very detailed with this one. When you a drawing trees, a good tip to remember is that a tree's structure is very similar to the structure of a leaf. The branches of a tree branch out from the trunk in the same manner as veins in a leaf branch out from the center. Go to your yard and get a leaf if it will help.

Let's create a new raster layer for this tree. Drag the layer button so that it is below the HOUSE layer so our tree will be behind the house.

Base colors:

Using a dark brown and a 1 pixel brush, roughly lay out the location of the trunk and some branches. This will only be a guide to give us a general shape for our tree ...so just make it a quick sketch that resembles the veins of a giant leaf (using dark brown). Refer to above image(a). Now use dark green to fill in some leaf area...leaving a lot of open space. Scribble in some dark green over the branches with a 3 or 4 pixel brush. Refer to above image(b). Next, scribble in some medium green over the dark green, leaving a lot of dark toward the center. Refer to above image(c). Add some very light green highlights over that.

Creating detail:

Using the 1 pixel brush, go back over your scribbles and break up some large areas of color with a contrasting color or erase some if you got the tree too dense. (Leave some holes for the birds to fly through.) Using dark or medium green, outline some small clumps. Refer to above image(d).

All of the branches you sketched in earlier are probably hidden now. Use some browns to paint a few branches back in where they can be seen between the leaves. Use dark brown in the open spaces (against the sky) and medium brown against the dark areas. Refer to above image(e).

Speed Tip: To quickly create detail around the edges of tree, draw a detailed leaf group off to one side using a few shades of green. Copy and past the leaf group a few times around the edges. Mirror it or flip it in a few places to get variety. Refer to above image(f).

Now we need to add some flowers to the front yard!

Vary the size, shape and color of flowers

Garden Flowers

Create a new layer for FLOWERS.

Pick your green colors from the VINE swatch or use your own.
For the flowers, be consistent and use as many of the same reds, blues and yellows found elsewhere in the image as you can. It not only helps keep file size small, it will help the color balance of your painting.

Use the darkest green to base paint some shrubs around the foundation of the house. Just scribble in some shapes with a size 2 paintbrush. We're working on a separate layer, so you can always erase any pixels later that don't look 'just right'. Use a light green to highlight the tops of a few 'shrubs'.

Blue flowers:

These will be tall narrow flower clumps. Paint a tall group of squiggly light blue lines. Accent with a darker blue squiggle. Paint a few pixels on far left and some more on far right. Maybe a few more near center.

Red flowers:

These will be round or Rose-like. Use the same red used on vine, paint a circular clump of pixels. Accent on one side with a dark red. Paint a shrub-full group of these near the blue flowers. Have most of the flowers toward the top of the group. Accent a few with pinkish-red or orange-red.

Yellow flowers:

These will be small flowers on tall stems. Use a medium green from shrubs and draw some straight stem lines wherever you want to place the yellow flowers. Use a 2 pixel brush to stamp a yellow flower here and there along the stems. Use a 1 pixel brush and some dark yellow (gold or orange-yellow) to paint a few accent spots.

White flowers:

These will be daisy-like and must be painted on top of a dark color or they won't show up. Use a 2 pixel brush and paint 4 dots in shape of + sign. Use the same dark yellow used above to paint a center dot. Copy & paste this 'daisy' on top of the dark green wherever more flowers are needed.

Finishing and Customizing

Select the POST SHADOW layer. This is the layer set to 40% opacity. As a finishing touch, paint some shadows behind the flowers and foliage. Use a medium-dark gray to paint the cast shadow with a 1 pixel brush. Don't forget to zoom in. The vines we added to the porch posts will also cast a shadow. Add a few pixels to the side of the post shadow to indicate where the vines would stick out. Use the same gray that matches the gradient.

Delete or hide the COLOR SWATCH layer.

Delete the background layer if you want a transparent background.

Look back over your painting and add some lightest lights for sparkle or darkest darks for depth, if needed.

I now challenge you to surround the cottage vignette with sky, lawn, more flowers and other scenery. Maybe a fence, a mailbox, a front path or a birdhouse and some birds. Turn it into a complete landscaping painting. I've done a little embellishing to the vignette above to give you some ideas.

When done, merge all layers and sign your painting!

Save as optimized GIF or PNG (not JPG).

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*Copyright Exclusions: Fonts and dingbats will sometimes be used to create tutorial images and I do not claim copyright for these. Banners and logos linking to other sites are property of the respective website. Scripts have been used with permission as noted in source. Many 'Arizona Kate' character images created from commercial clip art or photos and from dingbats.