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Adobe Illustrator |
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Illustrator :
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Adobe Illustrator is a very powerful program for creating digital graphic art. It's power comes from the fact that it creates graphics with vector points, instead of pixels. In Photoshop you have to plan your project around the resolution (pixels per inch), but in Illustrator you can create resolution free graphics that will look good anywhere, from your web site or business card up to and including the side of a building.
Sadly, Illustrator has a steep learning curve. Most people, myself included, began creating digital art on computers with Photoshop. When I first opened Illustrator, I went looking for my favorite Photoshop tools (airbrush, filters and layer styles) but they aren't there. Creating artwork in Illustrator is very much like creating an old fashioned montage with scissors and colored paper. If you want to draw an apple, you cut out an apple shape from your red paper and paste it down. If you want to draw a shadow on the apple, you cut out the shadow shape from your darker red paper and paste that in place.
To use the analogy, in Illustrator your scissors is the pen tool, and your paper is the color picker. Where it gets exciting is in the huge collection of colored paper Illustrator ships with, and the ability to create your own custom colored paper. Of course Illustrator is much deeper than just a tool for creating digital art, it has a strong suite of type formatting tools and is extremely useful for creating business stationery such as business cards, letterheads, posters, CD covers and maps. |
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Black and White self portrait
My students are always certain they can't draw a portrait. I created a lesson plan demonstrating just how easy it is to go from an instant digital photo to the finished Illustration over the course of a 2 hour lecture. This has become an extremely popular lesson as students discover the power of this amazing program while "illustrating" their self portrait. Because of the popularity of this lesson, I will shortly be filmed by the College Vision crew demonstrating the process for cable TV. Look for it soon on "Click!" channel 89. One of my older Flash lessons can also be seen on College Vision from time to time, look for the "Flash Animation/Quicktime" show. |
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5 1/2" x 8" notepaper
I used the logo below to create this notepaper as a demonstration for my students on the power of Illustrator. |
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Logo
This logo project began life as a photo taken on a canoe trip. I brought the photo into Photoshop, posterized it then brought it into Illustrator where I traced out the essential black and white shapes ending up with a vector based logo which I have used in several other projects involving Illustrator and inDesign. |
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Illustrator Guitar
Several of my students drew guitars for their final
project in Illustrator. I drew this guitar as a demonstration
of what you can do when you master the program. We
were all inspired by a magnificent guitar an earlier
student (Brent R.) had created. I thought it would be easy to copy Brent's
guitar, but was surprised to find that the
smooth wood tones of the body were impossible to achieve until he explained the secret: draw the body horizontal, not
slanted. Make a very simple 3 row, 3 column mesh using
4 mesh points. The rows and columns must follow the
contour of the body. Rotate the body AFTER the mesh
is applied. There is also a "lighten" layer
mode on the reflection, which is also a mesh. Project
time: 20 hours. |
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Illustrator
Glass
This drawing began as a 12 hour pencil drawing. I
needed a challenge in Illustrator and decided to draw
it again using vector tools, with surprising results.
I almost like it better than the pencil
version.
Because I exported this Illustrator file as a Flash
file, or .SWF, you can maximize the window, and/or
'Right Click', and zoom in on the pop up window to
see the detail work. |
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Illustrator
Plant Bulb
I created this plant bulb while creating a Lesson
Plan from the "Illustrator 10 WOW Book"
by Sharon Steuer. It takes advantage of Illustrator's
ability to blend shapes. The roots and skin were drawn
with one of the many custom brushes. |
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Illustrator
Fish
From the same WOW book mentioned above, I found this
excellent tutorial on how to draw a fish. I love the
way the Gradient Mesh tool allows me to control the
flow of color. While I was creating this fish, I was
also painting a still life at my easel with traditional
media in the evenings, and I found myself longing
for the ease of "edit>undo". Computers
make it easy. |
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Illustrator
Hot Air Balloons
I was looking for a new class project for the Intermediate
Illustrator class I teach at CPTC
when I received a greeting card in the mail featuring
hot air balloons. I looked at it and thought, "This
would make a great exercise for my students!".
The strokes on the seams were the most challenging
part to draw.
What's fun about the balloons is once you finish
one complete balloon, the time consuming detail work
is done. Creating a new balloon is as easy as dragging
out a duplicate and playing with the colors. |
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Manikin
Like many artists, I have a little wooden manikin
on a stand. About a year ago I set him down by my
computer, and with the aid of a nearby desk lamp providing
clear directional light, I drew him with the pen tool
and simple gradients. I have a 9x12 Wacom tablet,
without which I would hesitate to tackle a project
of this nature.
Because I exported this Illustrator file as a Flash
file (SWF), you can maximize the window, and/or
'Right Click', and zoom in on the pop up window to
see the detail work. This illustration was accepted at http://www.istockphoto.com/ . You can download the *.ai file there for a fee if you search for "manikin vector".
Note: I have also drawn this little
guy with traditional pencil
and paper, but I prefer the Illustrator version. |
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Sitting
Manikin
Same manikin as above, but he had to sit down to rest.
Similar to the balloons above, once all the basic shapes
were drawn and colored with gradients, it was relatively
simple to redraw him in a different position. Drawing
these manikins from 'life' was when I began to understand
why the software is called Illustrator. You do not have
to be a classically trained artist to create digital
art, although it helps. If you spend the time learning
Illustrator's toolset, especially the Pen tool, it's
only a matter of time until you create something lovely. |
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Rolling
Hills
I created this landscape while preparing a lesson plan
using the "Illustrator 10 WOW Book" as a guide.
The WOW series of software manuals are outstanding,
however they don't make especially good step by step
instruction manuals. For example, the Plant Bulb illustration
at the top of this page was explained on one page in
the WOW book. When I taught the Plant
Bulb project to my students, I expanded the instructions
to 6 pages. |
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Illustrator :
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