How to Create Tiling Patterns in Inkscape – The Grid Methods

Patterns that tile can be fun to create and are useful for filling large spaces, like fabric, comforter covers, rugs, and so forth. There are many different methods that can be used to create these sorts of patterns. Herein I describe some simple methods that I think of as the grid style and which I used to create these summer-themed tiling patterns.

A Painting Tutorial by Evelyne Schulz

Many months ago I discovered Evelyne Schulz on Twitter due to a GIMP-related post. I immediately loved her artwork and, after some correspondence, she graciously agreed to write a tutorial about how she creates her digital paintings in GIMP. What follows is what she wrote about how she created her Warrior painting, with editing and inclusion of a description of the Palette Editor by me.

How to Import EPS Files into Inkscape

While browsing the shelves of a local discount book store, I stumbled upon an interesting pattern book called Drip.Dot.Swirl. by Von Glitschka, published by HOW Books in 2009. Being a bit of a pattern nut and seeing a lot of patterns in the book that I liked, I was about to buy the book when I noticed that the DVD that was supposed to be in the back of the book was missing. The DVD contains editable vector files, swatch libraries, and tutorials and is at least half the reason for buying the book. Being undaunted, after a quick search online I found a copy of the book and had it in my hands within a week.

Drip Dot Swirl: 94 Incredible Patterns for Design and Illustration

I happily popped the DVD into the drive and grabbed the first vector file, only to discover that all the files are in encapsulated PostScript (EPS) format and plain vanilla Inkscape is completely unable to load them. Fine. Back to the internet. After poking around for a while I finally found some useful instructions at InkscapeForum.com. Here's a quick step-by-step on how to set up Inkscape so that it can read EPS files. (Please note that these instructions are for Windows 7. For later versions of Windows, the way to get to your environment variables will probably be slightly different.)

Four Ways to Draw a Border Around a Selection in GIMP

I was recently asked for a quick way to draw a border three pixels wide around the inside edge of a rectangular selection on top of an in-progress graphic design. Two methods immediately came to mind and a third occurred to me later that afternoon. I discovered a fourth method while writing this article.

Method 1

The most obvious method to use is Select > Border [1], which opens the Border Selection dialog [2]. This dialog contains three adjustments.

Border Selection Dialog

Alignment and Distribution of Graphic Elements in Inkscape

Inkscape's alignment and distribution functionality is wonderful to use for organizing graphic or typographic design elements or laying out printed matter. In this tutorial I will demonstrate this by creating a simple graphic design of colored stars.

The Stars are in Alignment

Alignment and Distribution of Graphic Elements in GIMP

When creating graphic or typographic designs or laying out printed matter such as brochures, leaflets, or newsletters, knowing how to use GIMP to organize and move graphic elements can be very handy. In this article I will explore GIMP's alignment and distribution functions by creating a simple graphic design of colored circles.

GIMP's Layer Modes (Somewhat) Demystified – Part 4: A Pictorial Comparison

For a final comparison among the layer modes, I created several examples that visually show the effects of combining various layers.

Grayscale on Grayscale

First, I created a square non-dithered grayscale linear gradient lower layer, then made a copy and rotated it 90º for the upper layer. I chose each layer mode to see the effect. Here's a visual representation of what occurs with each layer mode.