Add/Subtract

[Gail Eberhart]

I am creating earrings.....I make a background pattern then insert the earring shape behind the pattern....from there I get hit and miss results.   I am trying to erase all pattern that remains on the outside the earring shape.  I have watched several tutorials and found a few ways to do it but again I get a hit and miss.  Any straight forward process would be appreciated. I think one of my problems is that I am using a SVG export to support my glowforge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tear earring final.svg

[firstdefence]

Not sure if this is what you want but...

Duplicate the layers and place the duplicates in a group These are backup layers, lock the group. Now lets work on the earring shape...

• Duplicate the Pink Pear layer
• Remove the pink pear shape from the Layer so that it is hierarchically on the same level as the Blue Pattern layer 
  
• Select the Blue pattern layer and the pink pair shape layer and use Layer > Expand Stroke
• Next use Layer > Geometry > Subtract, this should remove any of the blue pattern that is sat behind the pink pair shape.

[jmwellborn]

@Gail Eberhart  Welcome to the Forums!  Nothing so sophisticated as the solution provided by @firstdefence! (am I on the right track?) If your earring shape is a vector object, then perhaps these are two other ways. You can copy the two Curve Layers (shown in the video) and paste them into any other document, or you can make them into a pair of Assets.  Note that each tear drop layer has to be its own asset.  Drag your earring and background shapes on the canvas from the Assets Panel.  For the fill layer, select the Gradient Tool, then on the Context Toolbar, select Bitmap from the "Type" box.  Navigate to your files where you have your background patterns, select one and Open.  It will fill the teardrop shape (example on the right).  You can then use the "handles" to move your background pattern around.  From there you select the two layers and put them together. 

If you have saved your background patterns as Styles, then you just click on the fill layer, click on your chosen Style (example on the left.)  

You can also do this from the layers panel, as shown in my video.  After you have created the two shape layers, click on both layers and go up to the Context Toolbar and click on the Geometry option DIVIDE.  That gives you the teardrop shape with the hole in the middle.   I hope this helps!