Selective Colouring in Illustrator

Today we learnt more about illustrator and learnt some easier ways to add shadow and highlights to an image.

I started with this image found through google images. From that point I clicked on image trace and expanded the image.

Next we went to pathfinder found in the Window tag. Once open we applied divide twice.

Next we selected the group selection tool. Which is the white arrow with a plus sign next to it.

Next was adding in extra empty layers and then holding shift and selecting all of the petals.

Once they are selected bring the selection to an empty layer by hovering over the layer that the work is originally on and grabbing the small coloured box on the side of the layer and drag it to an empty layer.

Once that is done we went to swatches and selected the main colour for the petals. I chose a mid toned purple colour. After that I did the same thing for the leaves starting with giving them their own layer.

Once that was done we put the line work layer on the top and we named our layers to make things easier.

After that we started on adding the extra colours to give a cool effect to the picture. First off we locked off layers that we weren’t using the avoid big mistakes and then I selected the petals layer.

Once the petals layer was selected I selected a single petal and while that is selected click on the draw inside button found under the colours on the bottom left. After that we had to make sure we clicked out of the selection so we wouldn’t colour in the whole area with the next colour and then we selected the next colour starting with the shadows. From that point we selected the blob brush tool and used the brackets on the keyboard to change the size of the brush and painted away where we wanted to.

To make it easier we expanded the layers we were working on and locked all of them except for the one we were working on. Which would be one petal at a time. After all of that we did the same again for every other box within the image.

Below is the end result. The first is where I had ended in class time and then I coloured in the stem later.