Create a new document by pressing "Ctrl+N". Set the width and height of the document to 550px and 238px respectively and background to white. Keep the rest of the field as it is.

Click and set the foreground color box on the tool palette to green. For this example I used a hexadecimal value of #7BB753 as shown in the dialog box below.

Using the "Paint Bucket" tool fill the canvas with green. The paint bucket tool allows you to fill an area with any given foreground color.

Create a new layer, "Shift+Ctrl+N". Name the new layer "face". Then use the "Elliptical Marquee” tool to draw the shape of a face.

Without deselecting, change to the "Gradient" tool. Set #E27155 and #FFBFB0 as the foreground and background color respectively. The gradient tool creates a gradual blend between multiple colors.

Draw a vertical line from top to bottom of the selection. Press "Ctrl+d" to remove the selection when you are happy with the results.

To fill in the hair, create a new layer and name it "hair". "Ctrl+Click" on the face layer to bring out the selection.

Again use the ellipitical marquee tool but this time choose "Intersect with selection" on the top options bar.Draw an ellipse to intersect the previous selection to create a new selection as shown below.

Fill the new selection with light brown using the paint bucket tool. Repeat step 4 to create the other side of the hair. "Ctrl+Click" on the face layer to bring out the selection again. Using similar technique draw an ellipse to intersect the selection as shown below.

Fill it with light brown when you are happy with the result. Make sure that the hair layer is selected.

With the hair layer still selected, "Ctrl+Click" to bring out the selection. Now use the gradient tool to fill the hair with a foreground color of #7C4C22 and a background color of #39220E. At this point you would have achieved something similar to our artwork shown below.

Now to fill in the rest of the features using what you have learnt. Use the ellipitical marquee tool and draw a small ellipse on a new layer (name it "ears"). Fill it with #F6946D.

Click on the ears layer and select Layer>Duplicate Layer... to duplicate the ear layer, name the new layer "ear2". Move ear2 to the right side of the face.

Merge the 2 ear layers by pressing "Ctrl+e". Oops, the ears are suppose to be at the back! No worries, on the layer palette drag the ears layer below the face layer.

Up to this point, you can save your artwork. Press "Ctrl+s" or select File>Save, give your artwork a file name of my_ecard.psd.

We will be using the ellipitical marquee tool very often for the face creation. Draw an ellipse to represent the eye on a new layer "eyes".

Draw another ellipse over the eyes as shown below. Hit the "Delete" key to remove the unwanted areas.

Now "Ctrl+Click" on the eyes layer to bring out the selection. Choose "Intersect with selection" on the top options bar for our ellipitical marquee tool. Draw an ellipse to intersect the top left corner of the selection. Fill the new selection with white #FFFFFF.

Duplicate the eyes layer and move the new layer to the right side of the face. Merge the 2 layers together by pressing "Ctrl+e". At this point, your layer palette should resemble the one we have shown below.

Adding the mouth is fairly straight forward. Use the ellipitical marquee tool, we all love the ellipitical marquee tool, don’t we ;). Draw an ellipse on a new layer "mouth" to represent the mouth. Fill it with white #FFFFFF.

Okay we have enough of the ellipitical marquee, now we use select the "Rectangular Marquee" tool to complete our mouth. The rectangular marquee makes a rectangular selection (or a square, when used with the Shift key).

Draw a rectangle across the mouth and press "Delete" to remove the unwanted area.

Good Job! If you have made it this far, you have graduated from our beginner lesson. Save your file one more time. If you are ready for more challenging stuff, move on to our intermediate lesson.