| St. Patrick's Day Shamrocks in Illustrator, p. 6 | |
(If you arrived on this page from a search, you should begin the tutorial from page one.)
Step 10. Now we need a stem. Activate the arc tool. It's on the Line tool popout menu. (If you have Illustrator 9, you'll have to draw the stem with the pen tool. Make a curved line). Draw an arc about a inch or so long. In the stroke palette, set the stroke width to 10 and choose rounded ends for the stroke. (If you can't see the stroke palette, go to Window > Stroke to show it.)
Step 11. We need to make the stem into an object; right now it is a stroke, the same as when we drew the first shamrock. Go to Object > Path > Outline Stroke. Before you could see the stroke; now you can see points around the shape.
Step 12. Use the gradient mesh tool to add some shading to the stem.
Step 13. Move the stem to the shamrock, and rotate if necessary as before. Send the stem behind the shamrock. (Object > Arrange > Send to Back) Select all four pieces and group them (Object > Group or Command/Control + G).
Step 14. Add some text, fill with a gradient, and warp it. To do this you will have to follow several steps. Text can't be filled with a gradient unless it is turned into outlines.
1. Type the text.
2. Click the Selection tool so you have a bounding box around the text and go to Type > Create Outlines. Now you can fill the text with a gradient the same as any object.
3. To warp the text go to Effect > Warp > Arc. This text is set at Horizontal at 50%. The rest of the settings are left at default.
And here is the final image! Happy St. Patrick's Day!
©2005 Sara Froehlich
