Begin with a new canvas, 400 x 400, white background. Turn on your grid (View|Grid) and set the grid to 10 x 10 pixels, line color of black.

Add a new layer and call up your Preset Shapes tool and choose the Tear Drop, placing a checkmark in the Antialias box only and a line width of 1. Set foreground and background colours to black. Starting in the middle of your canvas (at the 200 x 200 mark) click with your right mouse button and drag down and right to create a tear drop, size is your choice. Try to get the tip, the sides and the base of the drop to touch a grid line. If that doesn't work on your first attempt, just use the deformation tool to squish the drop around until it comes very close to touching a line at the four points as shown.

I didn't quite make it at the right side of mine, but it's close enough for rock 'n roll... ;)

Slide the opacity for the tear drop layer down to 50 or so to make things easier on the old eyeballs. Add a new layer above the drop and bring on your gold pinhead tube.

Click your first pinhead directly on the tip of the tear drop. Skip one grid line and click the next pinhead on the next grid line that is touching the tear drop at this point. You will not always be able to rely on vertical grid lines or horizontal grid lines, but one or the other will be touching your tear drop at the required intervals.

Just do your best to keep each pin head the same distance from one another. It's not crucial... it's just highly recommended... :)

Pins all in place? Okay... add a new layer and drag it below the pin layer. Delete the layer with the black tear drop and turn off your grid.. we're done with these now. Scare up your line draw tool and set it up for Single Line, width of 1, and antialias ON. ("Create as vector" and "Close Path" are unchecked.

Set your foreground colour to something that intrigues you and set your background colour to null.

Draw your first line from pin #0 to pin #14. Keep in mind that when doing string art, the thread is brought down to a certain pin and then wrapped around it before being brought back up to the next pin. So try to draw your line to the right side of pin #14 and then draw the next line from the left side of pin #14 to the left side of pin #1.

Come off the right side of pin #1 and draw your next line to the right side of pin #15. Come off the left side of pin #15 and draw a line to the left side of pin #2. Come off the right side of pin #2 and draw a line to the right side of pin #16.

It may sound confusing but once you get going it's very easy. With each successive line you create, you will be going to the next highest numbered pin on whichever side you are heading for. So, your next move would be from pin #16 to pin #3... then 3 to 17, 17 to 4, 4 to 18, 18 to 5 and so on... try it... you'll like it!! lol!

You'll be using some of the same pins twice. Just keep going with your zig-zag routine until you get back to pin #0.

This is your first layer of strings and it should look something like the image on the left.

We'll build three layers for this project, so let's keep on truckin'... ;)

Add a new layer and drag it over your first set of strings, but under the pin layer. Turn OFF the visibility of your first layer of strings now, otherwise you'll go blind... guaranteed! lol!

Choose another foreground colour... something complimentary (not in the *free* sense, but in the "Man, these two colours look smashing together!" sense. ;) Your background swatch remains null.

When your second layer is completed it will look like this, maybe just not the same colour.

You will be finishing up on the pin that mirrors the one you started with. You began with pin #2 and you will end with pin #31... its mirrored partner.

Turn on your first layer of strings now and have a look at what you've accomplished so far. Holy sufferin' catfish, it's a beautiful thing, ain't it!? LOL!!

Only one more layer to go... :)

Put your hand down, DonnaB, you are not getting a hall pass until you've finished this project!! ;)

Once again, add a new layer and position it above your first two strung out layers but below the layer of pins. And be sure to turn off the visibility of your first two layers...

Choose another foreground colour. Since your last choice was complimentary, this one could be staggeringly expensive... or not. ;)

This time we'll start at pin #1 and draw down to pin #20. Around 20 and up to #2. Around 2 and over to #21 ... 21 to 3, 3 to 22, 22 to 4... and swing your partner, do-si-do... lol!

The final layer has been completed. You will have ended at the mirrored partner of the pin with which you began.

We now have to turn on all our layers...

... and decide if they look acceptable as they are. This is the time to drag the three string layers around... see if they look better in a different order... ie: the darkest strings usually give the design a nicer look if they are lowest in the layer heap, otherwise they obscure some of the lighter upper strings. And after all this work we surely don't want one morsel of string obscured!

Once you have the layers to your liking, you might want to add a drop shadow to each seperate layer of strings. I used a black drop shadow, H-1, V-1, Opacity 40 and Blur 0 to each set of mine. It's up to you... the shadow does tend to give the design some depth, but it will also degrade the clarity somewhat.

Either way, you can now hide the background and merge your layers visible. I do recommend that you give the merged layer a dropshadow of sorts, though... it adds to the impact. On the merged layer I used a black dropshadow, H-3, V-3, Opacity 40 and Blur 6.2.