All about the path (Affinity Designer practice)

Stained Glass Field Masked

This week I became reacquainted with the almighty path. Not the proverbial path of life but the paths created in a vector design tool or, more specifically, the path tools available in my vector design tool of choice, Affinity Designer.

For those to whom vector art and paths aren’t familiar, a path is a line that’s defined as a series of points and curves (mathmatically) which, once drawn, can then be resized, reshaped, and otherwise used in a near infinite number of ways.

CleanShot 2023 01 28 at 20.29.25@2x
The points and curves shown were drawn by hand but can be resized or changed in infinite ways

For example, I had an idea to draw a kind of “stained glass” window illustration of the field I run through every day. Kind of based on the below (and our own stained glass window):

Using a vector design tool like Affinity Designer, I knew I could draw paths that would define each section of the stained glass window and then manipulate each of those sections individually, so that’s where I started.

Stained Glass Field Lines
The rectangle was not drawn by hand, but everything else was

While I did the initial “sketch” using the Pencil Tool (which creates paths based on freehand drawing, perfect for my Wacom) I spent a lot of time learning how to use the Knife tool to cut paths up, then Join and Close them to create the individual “pieces”.

CleanShot 2023 01 29 at 21.42.17@2x
CleanShot 2023 01 28 at 19.31.07@2x

I knew it would be worth it though, because once you have those paths you can do anything!

Stained Glass Field Color

You can move them around and apply effects to one piece or groups of pieces.

Stained Glass Field Mixed

You can also use you as masks for images of actual stained glass.

Stained Glass Field Masked

I am by no means even close to being competent designer but, I think we can agree, I’m on the path.

One response

  1. That end result (and the whole process) looks great. I bet if you teamed up with the person who made your stained glass, you could both knock out some beauties.

Comments welcome!

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