Technique Thursday - Illustrator Pencil tool Part 2

Hi again!

This is part 2 of how to use Illustrator to create fun doodles and turn them into a Photoshop template.

So we left off with out little happy flower doodle.  Miss Bailey thinks it needs a lady bug to be truly happy… but she also thinks it should have a smiley face. ;)  "We'll see Miss Bailey." I say to her as she's sitting on my lap here wanting to draw a happy face. :D

There are several ways to create your mask items for a template depending on if you want the doodle lines or not.  I prefer to keep my doodle lines in case I want them for later to use for an overlay, pattern or just as is for a doodle.  Can you tell I like to multi task?

If you want to save your doodle lines for use later. 

Step 1 - Wanting the doodle lines.  If you don't care about the lines, skip this step.

The first thing I do is select all my layers together and dragging them into the New Layer icon at the bottom of the layer panel.

Then I take those copied layers and merge them into one by selecting and clicking on the Layers Panel menu and clicking Merge Selected.

This is now a layer with all my black lines of my doodle.  I temporarily turn this layer off by clicking the little eyeball next to the layer icon.  This way I won't be selecting as I work. 

Option 1 - Simple fill

You could just select each part of your flower and fill path using the color fill with the piece selected from the menu.  

Select your petal piece using your Selection Tool (V) by dragging your mouse curser over a part of the petal.  Then click on the tiny arrow in the menu bar on top to pull down your options and pick a color to fill the petal. See below.

Do this with each part you want a different color… OR cheat like I do!  I select all at first by dragging over all the lines and I color the color that has the most pieces. (The petals in this example).

Then I unselect all by clicking off to the side.

Now I click on only the lines I want to change the color like the center of the flower.  Go up to the menu and change to orange.

Then I drag my mouse over the stem and leaves and change to green.

Here's the result.  Cute little flower with color fill.

Option 2 - Creating a Live Paint object 

This option is good for when you are just wanting the color fill and will use the object as a whole and not as a template with individual pieces.

Select all of the paths by dragging your mouse over the whole flower.

In your top menu bar, OBJECT> LIVE PAINT> MAKE

Now everything is put onto one layer as a group.

Select your Live Paint bucket from your side menu bar.  Select the color you want the fill in the top menu bar again like we did for the pieces above.  And click inside every area you want that color to fill.

Do with each color of your flower change your colors as you like.

Almost the same results… but do you see the difference?  Look at the center of the flower.  You have the doodle lines of the petals showing.  That's the difference.  And there are things you can do to avoid that, but that is a more in depth lesson for later.  But that is why I prefer to fill as in the first option with layers.  You'll see another reason in a second here.  

Now all that is needed is to export our happy flower into a photoshop file so we can work with it.

First turn back on your doodle lines layer so it gets saved also.

Next go to FILE>EXPORT   

When the dialog box comes up, pick Photoshop to get a PSD file.

Then you will get another dialog box for options as shown here to the right.

Use the settings I have shown here.

The important part is 300ppi, Write Layers and unclick Maximum Editability or you will get all the paths too which we don't want for this.

Open the new PSD file in your Photoshop program.

This is now the layers you have.

Doodle on it's own layer on top.

Center of flower, petals and the stem with Leaves.

Now you can recolor, clip papers to each or leave as is.

If you don't want the petal lines to show up on your flower center, simply drag that layer above your doodle lined layer.

I decided that I didn't want the paper center and instead used a button for my flower center.  Here is my finished happy little flower with my papers and button from Emerging Spring kit.  And since Bailey wants her Lady Bug, I also brought in Betty Jo's cute little lady bug from her new release Ladybug Pink Mini Kit. :) 

The best part is, the original PSD can be used over and over as a template.  Now I can add shadows, burn the leaves and petals using my burn tool (As I showed you how to do in another Technique Thursday tutorial here.) 

So here it is with some quick brush strokes just to give my flower some depth. :)

Like this?  If you visit us at the DDS forum you can get the Happy Flower template for free in the Artist Studio under Mini Tutorials forum as a download. :)  You have to be registered in the forum and logged in to see the Artist Studio to get it.  Just click on Categories tab at the top and scroll down.  Can't miss it. Look for the thread with "Happy Flower" as the title. 

And be sure to visit the shop tomorrow Friday for our Friday Freebie and all new releases will be on sale.  And can I just say WOW, there's some nice products for tomorrow! Spring is definitely in the air! 

Till next Thursday!

Technique Thursday - Illustrator Pencil tool Part 1

By request I am going to show you how easy it is to use the Illustrator Pencil tool to create some fun and cute doodles that can be saved as templates to use over and over again.

I have found one of the easiest ways to draw on the computer and create doodles and even templates from my doodles is using this awesome little tool.  This week I'm going to show you how to create your doodle, next week we will take our doodle and create a template from it.

I am using my Wacom Pad to draw today, but you can use your mouse if you don't have one.

Let's begin by opening a new document.  FILE>NEW

And put in the options I have here for the purpose of this lesson. Give it a name and click OK.

Let's get to know a couple of the tools we'll be using first. I am only going to introduce you to the tools we will be using today.

Drawing a Line

Select the pencil tool and click and drag to draw a free hand line drawing.  I'm drawing a cute little flower today for Miss Bailey to color next time she comes over.
As you draw your petal shape and get close to where you began you'll want to close the path to make a complete shape. 

To close a path, hold Alt/Option key as your Pencil Tool reaches the start point. A circle icon will appear next to the Pencil Tool to indicate path closure.

Here's my first two petals of my flower.

Then I continued to add 3 more petals. Hint: Nature works in odd numbers so I have a total of 5 petals.


You will notice that one of them has a jagged line.  I did this on purpose so I could show you the smooth tool and how it works.

Normally when you draw with the Pencil Tool, the path looks jaggy until you get a lot of practice in using your Wacom Pad.  To smoothen the parts that are jaggy, first use your selection tool (V).  That's the Black arrow at the top of the menu.  And drag your curser over part of one of the petals you want to smooth.  It will show up highlighted in blue (as shown below),  and if you enlarged this pic, you would see all the dots, or anchor points.  
Select your pencil tool and hold Alt/Option to turn the Pencil Tool to the smooth tool, OR if you pulled out the menu as I like to do, just select the smooth tool in the middle. 
Then draw over the the area of the lines which you would like to smoothen.  Think of just tracing over the lines.  Do this over and over your jagged line until it smooths out to how you would like it.  

This is the result after I used this several times over the jag on my petal.  Pretty impressive isn't it?  Makes me look good. :)

I wasn't happy with the location this petal ended up.  So with it selected I go back to my Selection Tool (V), click and hold and move it into place.  You can also go to an outside corner and rotate it a bit if you like.  

When you are happy with it, just click outside your art board to deselect. 

Next step.  Create a new layer in the layers Panel.  See New layer circled in red here.

Now draw a little circle for the flowers center.  Remember to hold your Alt/Option key to close your circle.

Again, if it's too jagged, select it using the Selection tool and then use your smooth tool to smooth out any jagged parts or to make rounder.

Add another new layer.  Then draw a stem.  Make sure you draw the whole outline of the stem if you want to be able to color fill this later not just a single line, but a single line works too.  

Create another new layer.  Then draw a leaf on each side coming from the bottom of your stem.  Close your leaf by holding the Alt/Option key to close the shape.  Use your selection tool and smooth tool again if you like. 

Save your file!

So this is what I ended up with.  Cute isn't she? 

 The beauty of this is that I made the petals on one layer, the flower center on a separate layer, the stem on it's own layer and the leaves on their own layer.  

Why?  Because now I can fill each shape and export out to a PSD to use in my photoshop and color, clip papers to the parts and then get into all my detail work of shading and painting.  

But we'll save that until next week.  

For now I just want you to practice using these tools to make shapes so you get them embedded into your workflow.  Practice!  Then feel free to show us your doodles in our gallery.  

See you back here again next week where we will learn how to color in our doodles using Live Paint. 

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