Using the Colour Palette

Now that you know the basics of colours and how to change them, you can do all sorts of fancy things with them.  How about we make a gradient now?

Using your new-found knowledge, change your foreground and background colours to 2 different colours of your choice.  Gradients look better if you use different shades of the same colour but you can use any colours you would like to and play around until you find something you like!  I'm going to have a bit of fun and choose 2 completely different colours so that you can see what effect the gradient has on them better.

In the top box, underneath where it says "Styles", click and hold on the little arrow that's in the bottom right hand corner of that box.

A pop-out box will come up:

Each of those has a different meaning.  Let's go through them.

The first one is a paintbrush - if that's selected (like in the screenshot above) it means you are using a solid colour.

The second one is 3 lines - if that's selected it means you are using a gradient

The third one is 9 tiny squares - if that's selected it means you are using a texture

The last one is a circle with a line through the middle - if that's selected it means you haven't got a colour, gradient or texture selected so nothing will happen with that one (if it's showing on the background box it means you will only get a foreground colour and vice versa)

We're going to be learning how to make a gradient, so choose the one that means gradient (the second one).  You'll get something that looks like this - it's a combination of your foreground and background colour.

I don't like the way that looks so I'm going to change it.

Single left click on the top box and the Gradient Options box will pop up (yours may look slightly different to mine):

Have a bit of a play around with each of these options in here and see what you come up with - you can have lots of fun in here and come up with all kinds of creations!!  There are 4 main sections to play around with - the style of your gradient

The tick box to show if you want it inverted or not (which colour do you want in the middle - your foreground or background colour?)

The horizontal, vertical, angle and number of repeats you want in your gradient

And finally, the style you want your gradient to have

Have a bit of a play around with all the options and see what you can come up with!  :o)

On the last page we're gonna be learning about textures.