Atelier Académics with Stacy Stewart Smith — Couture CAD, Session V: Digital Painting Techniques and Floral Pattern Repeats in Adobe Photoshop
Atelier Académics with Stacy Stewart Smith — Couture CAD, Session V: Digital Painting Techniques and Floral Pattern Repeats in Adobe Photoshop
Atelier Académics with Stacy Stewart Smith
Couture CAD | Session V | Intermediate to Advanced | Adobe Photoshop | 1 hr 17 min
In this session, New York couturier Stacy Stewart Smith demonstrates digital painting and creating floral pattern repeats in Adobe Photoshop — essential skills for fashion designers working in couture, print design, and textile development. This session complements tutorials from his book CAD for Fashion Design and Merchandising on Bloomsbury Publishing.
What You'll Learn
- Setting up a Photoshop document (17×11 in, 300 dpi) and workspace optimized for painting and pattern design
- Importing and organizing floral reference images with clear layer naming
- Creating precise flower outlines using the Pen Tool and Direct Selection Tool
- Building layered color washes — dark, medium, and highlight — for depth and dimension
- Using blur, smudge, dodge, and burn tools for a natural, painterly finish
- Adding fine details: veins, speckles, and highlights with small brushes
- Managing layers: grouping, duplicating, merging, and locking for workflow clarity
- Creating color variations using hue/saturation adjustments and shape variations with Liquify and Distort
- Arranging flowers in a half-drop seamless repeat pattern using alignment tools
- Defining and testing a pattern repeat using Photoshop’s pattern fill feature
Prerequisites: Working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop. Basic flats are not covered.
Duration: Approximately 1 hour 17 minutes.
Upon purchase you will receive a downloadable PDF containing your session transcript, recording URL, and access instructions.
This session is part of Atelier Académics Series II: Couture CAD with Stacy Stewart Smith.
