String Feathers Leather Ties Beads Finishing Touches

There are quite a number of Dreamcatcher tutorials out there at the moment. Most of them use Blade Pro which is a bit of a problem if you don't have it. I was playing around one day & found this technique that can be made completely in Paint Shop Pro 6, with no need for any external plug-ins or textures, from the hoop right down to the beads. It is rather long and I would recommend that you have a working knowledge of the program before you start, especially the basics of layers as I use a LOT of them! As always, if you have any problems following the tutorial, please don't hesitate to contact me.

1. Create a new image, 400x500 pixels, with a transparent background. Create a new layer named White Background. Make your foreground colour white and flood-fill the canvas - it makes it easier to see what you're doing than a transparent one. Create a new layer & name it Hoop. It doesn't matter what colour you have as a foreground colour (as long as it's not white!) as we will be applying a texture to it in a moment. Choose the Shape tool, make the Shape Type a circle, Style stroked, Line Width 15. Make sure that the Create as Vector box is not checked and Antialias box is checked. Place your cursor on the co-ordinates 200,150, draw a circle roughly 200 pixels in diameter - it doesn't have to be exact.

2. Select the Magic Wand tool. Set the Tolerance to 200 and make sure that Feather is set to 0. Click on your hoop to select it. Go to Image/Effects/ Sculpture.... Choose the Pine preset from the drop down menu. Move the Depth slider right down to 1. Apply the sculpture. You should now have a circle with a wooden texture applied to it. Alternatively, you could have used the Mahogany preset, chosen Patten 23 from the pattern drop down menu or Flood Filled the selection with a wood texture of your own. Play around with the different textures - your dreamcatcher is your creation & each one you make will be unique.

3. Go to Image/Effects/Inner Bevel... and apply a bevel using the settings below. I used a light grey colour for the light - #C0C0C0

4. If you want, you could now use the Colors/Colorize... option to and some colour to your dreamcatcher hoop. In the adjacent image, I have shown 4 different colour options on the hoop. Generally, it looks better if you turn the Saturation quite far down - these colours were all done with a saturation of 50. It makes the Dreamcatcher look more organic and natural - as if it had a colour wash applied to it, rather than painted with emulsion or made of plastic. Press CTRL+D to drop the selection when you are done.

Your hoop is now complete. Click on the link below to go to part 2 when we shall make the strings for the dreamcatcher.