First we will make a feather. Set the foreground colour to a pale cream. To do this, click on the foreground colour to open the colour dialogue box. In the display of colours shown on the right, click on the yellow below the pink, which is shown outlined in this picture.

Open a new image, 300x300, 16.7million colours, 72 pixels/inch, colour foreground colour. Use Selections/Select All. From the Image/Plug-in filters list, choose Jama 3d. Use the Roof filter, set the parameters as shown below and click Apply.

We are only interested in the right hand part of this texture, so use the selection tool, set at rectangle and outline the area shown here. Use Image/Crop to selection.

Add a layer as you have before, by using the add button on the layer palette. Fill this layer with whatever colour you want your feather to be. I am using a gradient fill, from dark grey at the top of the feathers to lighter grey at the bottom, but you can use any shade you please. If you are not using grey, in the stages which follow, where I use white and shades of grey, you should use lighter or darker shades of the colours you are using. Your texture will be completely hidden when you have done the fill.

Now on the layer palette, change the merge mode on the coloured layer to Multiply. If the texture is too strong, as it was with mine, go to the layer palette and double click on Background and OK it. The background will have become a layer and now you can draw the layer slider back on this first layer, and make the texture less prominent. My texture layer was at 34. Use Layers/Merge/Merge All (Flatten)

Use the selection tool again, set at ellipse, and make a feather shaped selection similar to mine here. (left) Use Edit/Copy followed by Edit/Paste/As new Image. It does not look all that much like a feather yet, so first, add a new layer so that we can add some shading to it.

On this layer, use the line tool to draw a line 4 wide right down the centre of your feather, in dark grey (or a dark shade of your colour). Use Image/blur/gaussian blur set at 4 to soften this line and give the impression of the centre stem of the feather. (right)

I wanted to give some extra lightness to the bottom of the feather. The images below show what I did.

Add a new layer and draw a filled ellipse on it in white with the shape tool

Image/blur/gaussian blur radius 16

Add a new layer and draw a medium grey line 4 wide on it with the line tool

Image/blur/gaussian blur radius 4

Now use layers/merge/merge visible. Add a layer and move it below the merged layer to the bottom of the layer palette list, so it is underneath the feather. Use the fill tool on solid fill and fill it with black. Check whether any of the light coloured gaussian blur has bled beyond the edges of the feather. If it has, use the eraser tool with a very small brush size and go carefully round the outside of the feather, on the merged layer, removing the spillage. Fill the bottom layer with white and check that none of the darker blur has spilled. Remove it if it has. Select the bottom layer again as the active one, click the delete layer button on the layer palette next to the add layer button. You should now have only one layer left.

The feather needs now to be made smaller. You will need to judge by how much to resize your feather if it is a very different size from mine to start off with. I resized mine to 70% of the original. Use smart size as the Resize type, uncheck Resize all layers and check Maintain aspect ratio. Use the move tool to move the feather to the top of its window. Then use Image/sharpen/sharpen and then use it again. (This gives a better result than using Sharpen More once).

Finally, we need to add a stem to the feather. Use the eyedropper tool to set the foreground colour to the colour of the very bottom of your feather. Use the line tool, width 2 or 3 depending on the size of your feather, and draw a short vertical line from the bottom of the feather downwards.

Save your finished feather (right) as a .psp image.

On the next page we shall make beads in two shapes, and decorate the dream catcher.