How to draw a scroll saw pattern with Sketchbook Pro

Welcome to Russell's Woodshed!
This post is another first for me. A few of the excellent people that watch our videos and visit this website have asked for a scroll saw pattern tutorial. Here we go...

Let's first place a disclaimer, I am still learning and am by no means a master. So, I can learn to teach and hopefully give you something useful from my experience. Check out the video below to see how I draw my patterns. Sketchbook is a great drawing app with tons of tutorials online.

Hardware and software:

The computer:
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB.
The pen tablet:
Wacom Intuos pen and touch small pen tablet. (I have added a link below to walmart if you are interested).
The software:
Sketchbook Pro.

Wacom Intuos 3D Pen and Touch CTH690TK Black

The start:

Find an image that catches your eye. I love making animal and flower patterns. Pixabay is a great website that has hundreds of thousands of images that a free of copyrights.  

Import the image:

Import the image into Sketchbook, the free app allows for up to 3 layers, which is enough for this technique. 
When you import an image, a new layer is created for that image. Change the transparency of the image using the slider in the layers pallet.

Drawing:

Now select an empty layer, this is important, if you draw on the same layer as the image, it cannot be turned of at the end of the process. You may notice that I turn the backgrund image on and off as I draw. This is another way to make sure that your line work is on the correct layer.
Now for the fun part, draw a bunch of lines. Trace the contours and the outline of the image. I always find the shadows first. This helps bring out the contrast and you will see fast progress.
Draw as few or as many lines as you wish. In the horse video, I kept the lines to a minimum. I want this piece to be "simple" to cut without taking too much away from the beautiful animal. This takes practice and I am no Steve Good or Charles Dearing (those guys are awesome).

Finishing up:

The final step is to double and triple check that you have islands (pieces that are not attached to the whole) where you want them and connection where they are needed. Use the eraser to clean up the project. Turn off the background image and use you eye or you finger to "walk" around the pattern. This, again, takes practice. ​

Thoughts:

You don't need a fancy mac computer or even anything electronic. You could lay a piece of paper on top of a magazine and trace pictures. But if you have a cell phone, the Sketchbook app is available on ios, android, pc and mac. It's free, the paid subscription is $5 a month with lots of added features and brushes. 

Did you like this post? Would you like more on pattern making? Let me know in the comments section below. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and find us on Instagram. We post weekly, sometimes more frequently. I hope this post was helpful, see you next week.