Two in sketches
- Generate shapes to work from on paper.
- Reproduce on Illustrator.
- Combine demo techniques.
- refer to notes.
To start with I will draw some random organic-looking shapes with some markers on paper.
Now I need to bring this into Illustrator and outline each shape with the pen tool.
As I was doing this I noticed the shape fill, blocking the red lines behind it. I wanted to remove it and after some tweaking and a google search I worked it out. On the right side of the screen, I had the layers panel showing but once I switched it to “properties”, I discovered the option under the appearance heading and removed the fill.
After removing the fill, I realised that it could look good ad brought it back, I then cut the opacity in half and changed the colouR. I repeated this with the other shapes but they need smoothing. I will ask Jack for help with that.
This is enjoyable but I do find it frustrating, anything I make with Illustrator will take a lot of time. If I continue using it then I will no-doubt get quicker.
The answer was simple, by right-clicking on the pen tool icon, I revealed several other tools, I used all of these to sculpt the edges of the shapes, smoothing them. The anchor point tool is the most helpful as it allowed me to add new nodes that I could then reposition to achieve a smooth shape.
By clicking Window> gradient then repeating this but choosing “swatches” after window, I had the tools I needed to add a gradient.
I selected a shape then applied a third colour to the existing gradient. After this I changed the three colours to my preference. Finally I edited the lengths of the gradients and adjusted the angle from 0° to 45° and the others to 90°.
Since the shapes were already at 50° opacity, I layered them on each other in my desired pattern and after some adjustments to this, I was finally finished.
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