project 4

Here it is - final project for the semester... I went with a botanical healing plant theme for the live trace images in the stamps. I used live trace from images I scanned, lots of live paint to adjust them after the fact... Live effects were mainly drop shadow and some dry brush. Symbols were a cool thing too, I used symbols on all the backgrounds for the stamps. to muck it up as necessary to create additional texture and interest. The little floating dandelion seed on top right stamp is also a symbol I created, used and modified (a few times, I must admit...)

Learned tons - as usual.

Nice to way end the semester - fun project. Have a great summer everyone!

project 4 - 3D object

I created the 3D object separately (not integrated in to the stamps). I decided to post it since it is not visible on the final project, being a requirement and all....

week 15 doodle

I really loved playing with live color! What a wonderful tool - a true time saver.

Here you can see my 2nd doodle for the class in the middle. The other 2 I tweked with the live color dialogue box... I'm just getting warmed up! Too bad the semester is almost over....

week 14 doodle

Week 14 doodle and live trace

I have been looking forward to this part of the class... it was a lot of material to cover.
I played with tracing a portrait, since I felt it was tricky to get 'right'. I did a black and white, grayscale and a color live trace. I adjusted them all, and could have contuned endlessly. I experimented with the live paint
bucket as well - how very cool!!!

I am excited about the last project with all these new tools to play with!

project 3

Project 3 - what a feat.

I created such powerful pattern brush that I sent myself straight to a massive crash. Oh well. Taught me a lesson. SAVE your WORK. All the time. And don't make complex pattern brushes and use them on multiple strokes.

This is about the mountain pine beetle infestation, that is very much a problem in large areas of the west cost pine forests. In this project I focus on the problem in BC, since I have personally detected these little bugs in trees and had to cut and burn them on the spot to try to contain the spread. Interesting. And gave me fun reason to draw a map and work with all the requirements for this project. Great learning.

week 12 doodle

Live effects rule! Unbelievable really. I created one star shape and here's the result after doodling with the live effects!

I duplicated the stroke to have orange and yellow strokes, duplicated the fill many times as well. And to be honest, I lost track at one point, so much was going on, so I started over. But the dots in the dashed line made me smile, so I decided to add some glowing edges on them, like little pearls or jewels. The transparency I applied, screen, gave another interesting level to the wild live effect doodling going on here.

Ok, that's it for now. Back to working on Project 3.

week 11 doodle

My doodling was focused on the brush tool this week. I loved paying with the different option, I created some custom brushes, loved the calligraphic options, the art brushes... Lots of fun. Here I traced an old symbol with a calligraphic brush, tweaked it a little by shaping the paths. Then copied it, changed to a rough charcoal in gray, pasted infront the original one and that's it in a nut shell. In the process, I tried applying opacity masks, gradients etc, but I liked the way this looks.

week 10 doodle

Week 10 practice doodle was truly about practicing the gradients for me; blending, clipping a gradient to use it as fill and making a gradient mesh... there was a lot to cover, and it could take me a lifetime to really get this program down. But the doodles are really perfect, forcing me to practice what was covered in the tutorials...

I am working with an upcoming website/company to sell unique artisan jewelry, and I decided to combine the doodling I've done one their logo in progress and such to this doodle (with a permission).

The first on I practiced creating a custom gradient, the using the text outline 'anja' to create a clipping mask. The small logo has a blend in the background clipped with a shape.

The bottom doodle has a background gradient mesh that I played with adjusting the handles, and points of... The linear yellow to green is a custom blend. On the small logo bottom right I used a radial gradient to fill the a in the shape. There it is. Lots of good practice.

Project 2

Project 2 - business card set

I had fun putting these together. I decided to play with the visual of the Rhizome traveling under ground and keeping the good work spreading... I placed generally speaking the land based contact info in the ground and the mobile information up higher in the card. I wanted each to be very different, so it was a bit of work for sure. The green vertical one is my personal favorite; the colors just make me want to look at it all the time!

I am sure there are a million ways to accomplish a good business card layout, but it really isn't that easy, when you put your mind to it! So many little things to consider.

Outi

week 8 doodle

I decided to take Carmina's hint to doodle with a business card in preparation to the 2nd project....

So I did do some typeface practice, and in contrary to the way I have done simple business cards, I decided to mess with the large text in effort to start creating a logo for the business cards I want to included in Project 2.

I did some envelope practice, and traced a bit of a root for a logo, I think I need to spend a lot of time perfecting the cards for the project, so this was GREAT practice in midst of watching the tutorials.

week 7 doodle

This weeks material, again, was a brainfull for me. Which is good, makes me pay even more attention.

This doodle however, was purely to practice some of the pathfinder commands, and turned into a liquify effect practice in the end.

My intention was a sunset of some sort. And here it is. Flamboyant.

I created a sun and a sea, dragged option+clicked to copy a few times, then played with the fills and strokes and got to apply mainly the crystallize distortion. It was fun. I could doodle for hours.....

week 6 doodle

The most recent doodle.

I used mainly the pen tool, wanting to get really comfortable with the cusps, closed, open paths, fill and stroke colors and so on. Using the bezier curves mainly, it was fun to trace this line drawing of a hooded sweatshirt. Finally beginning to understand how these sorts of files are created and put together. Like a big, nice puzzle.

There was a lot to learn this week, I'll have to do a whole other doodle to practice everything... but I guess that's where the P2 will be useful. After all, there are only so many hours in a day.

Outi

project 1

Here is my 1st project for this class.
I created a fictional soccer team crest to be printed on a t-shirt. And I went ahead and traced a t-shirt silhouette to make it easier to see were and how the actual design could be used. The top image is the actual project submitted, the 2 other images are my own additions for the blog only.

I used all the tools requested in project, except the polar grid tools, but opted for the pattern fill for extra credit instead. Nice option.

I wanted this to be somewhat realistic, so I got on the internet and downloaded some football team crests. That is where the bat idea came from. I had a lot of fun practicing the reflect tool especially, lots of joining as well. The soccer ball was a challenge. I am sure I would do it differently after acquiring some more skills.

I enjoyed the project - although designs may seem simplistic, they can be very complex, that is what I'm really learning.

Outi

week 4 doodle

In this doodle I wanted to focus on finding ways to create focus on objects within the different groups of stars.

I used color, opacity, size and placement as way to create contrast. Not very complex, but fun to play with the principles.

The idea is that within each group there is a different element used, and then between the groups there are a few ways to see contrast. Ofcourse, I would never make it so confusing in a specific project. But doodles are doodles. Great practice.

week 3 doodle

My doodle of the week is this banner style combination of graphic elements. I downloaded a free vector file off the internet, used it as my tracing template (let's me focus on the practice of tools, rather than scratching my head with a creative idea). I did, however, leave out some of the creative elements of the original artwork, because they were beyond my skill right now.

I used fill and stroke in every object. I used arc, star, ellipsis, rectangle, line segment, and pen tools. Also the zoom tool, which is so handy. My favorite short cut is cmd+zero to fit the document to page, and cmd+plus and minus to zoom in and out on the fly too. I use them all the time now.

I had fun tracing the bird, I only traced one of course, then copied and pasted, then scaled them down to get smaller birds using the scale panel form the menu.
Fun.

Outi

week 2 doodle

My first doodle for this class is this outline of a crown. I can't believe that I actually traced this! I started the doodle by getting this crown as a jpeg and placing it on the background with 25% opacity and locking it as a tracing template layer... how fun!!! First I attacked the circles, using ellipsis tool, the lines are either with a line segment tool or with the arc tool... I learned a lot about the direct selection tool and the arcs in this one. I decided to keep the strokes and color for next weeks doodle. This lesson already took way
more time than I anticipated. But I learned a lot. A lot.

Outi

Intro

Hi,

My name is Outi, and I am an enthusiastic user of the CS3 software; now looking forward to increasing my skills and understanding of Illustrator through this class. I do not use the software professionally, so I anticipate a steep learning curve!

I look forward to sharing the semester in class online with y'all.

Best,

Outi Pulkkinen