In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a love heart wallpaper using Photoshop’s Stroke path and Pen tool.

A red heart with white wings on a blue gradient background

New Photoshop document file

In order to start designing we must create a new 1600x1200px Photoshop file and after doing that you must fill the background with #316b94 color:

Create new Photoshop file

Blue background

Create a custom pattern

Now we’ll create a 5x5px pattern to use it for our background:

Create new pattern

Now you must zoom 100% (press Z on your keyboard and click several times or use Ctrl+ several times) on the new pattern 5x5px file and you should have this on your screen:

Zoomed in canvas of 5x5px

Select the Pencil Tool(B)

Hold down the left mouse button and choose the second option from the list and after please check you have the following settings for your pencil brush:

Pencil tool

Start creating the pattern

From the top-left corner to right-bottom corner start drawing 1pixel:

create-pattern

Define Pattern

From the top horizontal menu select Edit(Alt+E) and further choose Define Pattern. Congratulations, you just learned how to create a custom pattern.

Draw a pattern, 1px by 1px from top left corner

Add styles to your background

With the pattern you’ve just created go to Blending options and add the following styles:

gradient-pattern

The background should look like this:

Gradient overlay in Photoshop

Design the wings

Now we have the background we should go further and add our two wings.

Start creating feathers

You must select Pen Tool and start adding points until you create a shape like this one:

Create a feather in Photoshop

Then add the following effects:

Outer glow and Gradient overlay feather effects

Add more feathers

Place more feathers using slight different shapes with same blending options until you achieve a wing…you should overlap them as it’s shown below:

Stack more feathers to create a wing design

This is why you should achieve by placing feathers one by one:

Left wing design made with feathers

Duplicate the left wing design

After you’ve created the left wing design, duplicate the layers you used for it and having all duplicated layers selected go to Edit->Transform and Flip Horizontal. A tip for you is to group layers for easier management of layers.

Two wings design

Create a heart

Create a heart with Pen Tool or you can choose heart symbol from custom shapes.

Red heart design with two wings

Add the following effects:

Heart blending options including inner shadow, outer glow, bevel and embosss, pattern overlay and stroke

And you will have:

Big styled red heart with wings

Add a new layer like this and use the following gradient:

Add shiny effects for the red heart

Add abstract shapes and lines

Selecting Pen Tool and Path instead of Shape Layers you must create a custom path like the one bellow and then apply a stroke path with the following brush settings:

Stroke path brushes

This is my result I achieved using two stroke paths but yours can be different, depends on what stroke path you’re creating:

Stroke path brushes applied as a background to a red heart

Add glowing circles

Select the Ellipse Tool (U) and holding down the Shift key create several circles like in this figure and place them behind heart shape, then apply the Outer Glow effect.

Glowing circles to the background

Repeating the last step add more circles for the final step, vary their blue color and place them in the right-bottom corner:

Blue and light blue circles as a background to a red heart and two wings design

Download the .zip wallpaper