Hatching over a photo using the Calligraphy tool

Hatching effects can turn a plain looking image into a striking artistic rendition of itself, and be used in comic books, logos, or just about anything you like.

This recipe will show us how the Calligraphy tool can speed up the process of creating such an effect. We will create a linen pattern with the number 10 on it using calligraphy hatching on a photo.

How to do it...

The following steps will show how to hatch over a photograph:

1. 1. Choose a photo you like and import it into the current Inkscape document through the Import dialog (Ctrl + I). For best results, choose a black and white photo with a high contrast. You can also use the one from this recipe (10er.png, provided along with the files of this chapter). You will be prompted to choose whether to embed the image into the document or only to link to it. For greater portability choose embed.

2. 2. Select the Calligraphy tool (Ctrl + F6 or C) and choose the Tracing mode as our starting point...