This tutorial is not recommended for those that cannot control the pen tool with ease. However, if you learn by doing, this tutorial might help you learn how to control the pen tool, although I do not explain in detail how to use it.

To begin, draw a petal shape.

The fill does not matter at this point, continue drawing petal shapes.

You should end up with 4-6 petals.

Apply a colored gradient to one of the petals. Make the angle point towards the center of the flower.

Click okay. Now right click on this layer and select “Copy Layer Style”. Then, right click on all your other layers and select “Paste Layer Style”. Now you will need to go to each layer’s blending options and change the angle of the gradient so that they all go towards the center of the flower.

Hide the background, click on one of the layers and select “Merge Visible”.

Now make a selection in the center of the flower. Go to Select > Feather. Feather the selection 10 pixels as shown.

Keeping the same area selected, apply a gaussian blur as shown to take away some of the petal overlaps.

Now duplicate this layer. Rotate it a little bit to the right and apply the following blending option:

and also:

This new layer as you can see is the leaves beneath the flower. Now on a new layer on top, scrible a little with the pencil tool.

Now make sure the flower and scribble are in the center of your canvas. Then apply this filter:

After you do that, hide the layer you were just working on. Do the same thing on another layer, only this time use a color, and make the scribble bigger.

Now hit Control-F to apply the last filter. When you show all layers, your picture should look like this:

This step is optional. You can add stamen using the pen tool.

Now put all the layers that made this flower into a new folder. Duplicate this folder. Now you have a new flower. Select the folder and hit Control-T to change its position. Now open this folder and select the petals layer. Hit Control-U to get to the Hue/Saturation panel. Change the settings as you see fit.

Do the same for the colored burst layer. I recommend re-drawing the stamens altogether to avoid making the flowers look too much alike.

You’re done!

Keywords: Adobe Photoshop tutorial, vector shapes, pen tool, tattoo flowers, how to draw in photoshop, how to vector from scratch, flowers, nature, leaves, pretty designs.