Painting Grass by John Shannon

This small Tutorial will show the methods I use to create grass, everything was created using Adobe® Photoshop 5.5 and a mouse. Below are some step by step images showing the various stages and a brief description outlining the easy methods used to create them.

Step one

Above in step one I have 2 layers : a Background layer and a layer containing a simple blade of grass. I achived this simple shape by creating a sphere then using the Elliptical Marquee Tool to cut out a nice curved shape. I then experimented with the Filter/Distort/Wave Filter to get it to this shape, it was then coloured green.

Step two

In Step two you can see I have duplicated the grass twice, I just used the Free Transform Tool to make them slightly different sizes and shapes. The round circles you see are the brush sizes I used to burn very gentle on various parts of the grass (the brushes i used were soft) we want to get a nice 3D look which is why I am adding shadows where one blade of grass lays on top of another.

Step Three

In Step three I have continued duplicating layers, changing there shape and sizes slightly with the Free Transform Tool, Also as you can see I have started changing the color of some of the grass and have continued using the burn tool as I did in step two. We have quite a few layers now so I grouped some of them together (I made sure not to group all of them as I will need some single strands of grass as I continue.

Step Four

Above in Step Four I have duplicated a layer containing about 5/6 strands of the grass, have made it smaller and then using a soft brush have erased it very slightly.

Step Five

It is just a matter of doing the same now, duplicating changing shape and size slightly , flipping them, erasing here and there , changing color : always making the lower parts slightly darker using the burn tool. Also adding in some of the single strands I kept (in this case the ones I had coloured Yellow.

Finished Grass

And here is what I ended up with by just continuing to duplicate, erase , change color, shade etc. It is just a matter of building up Layer upon Layer, making the layers at the bottom darker , making some strands thinner or taller but everything here has been created using that single blade of grass we started with.

What I have basically created here is the “Raw Material” i needed, in this case the grass I have done here was needed for “The Scottish Widow” image. When I had laid out all the grass I then started using the Airbrush to change hues as and where I needed , I erased parts adding more shadow and lastly highlights.