Sep 30
43 comments 2008 at 10.18 am posted by Veerle Pieters
One of the things I’ve seen around quite a bit lately is a transparent rainbow gradient effect on a dark background. It seems to me that flashy transparent gradients are in these days. They make me think about magic. Today I’ll show you how you can create a magical rainbow color flame. OK, maybe I’m using too many words in a row here, but it’s the best I can do to describe this.
Sep 16
27 comments 2008 at 10.19 am posted by Veerle Pieters
In the January/February ‘08 edition of Layers magazine I wrote an article called “Get the grunge out”. Today I want share that article with my readers that didn’t get a chance to read it. Grunge is a popular style that has been around now for a couple of years in graphic design. A touch of grunge can easily be added to your artwork with a set of custom brushes. Once you create your set of brushes, you can save them and call them up at any time to achieve the grunge style. In this tutorial, we’ll use both Photoshop and Illustrator to create the brushes, and then you’ll learn how to apply the brushes in Photoshop.
Aug 26
33 comments 2008 at 08.04 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Today I’ll talk about how you can recolor your artwork in Illustrator CS3 using the LiveColor feature. I’ve always wanted to talk about this feature, but somehow I never got to actually doing it. I believe this is a rather powerful feature that might be a bit daunting at first sight. It definitely needs some getting used to before you actually see or understands its power.
Aug 19
36 comments 2008 at 01.53 pm posted by Veerle Pieters
About a week ago I received an e-mail from Sam Brown, wondering how to create a shape that looks almost exactly like the Apple Command key icon with an interesting four colored stroke depth effect to it. First thought that came to mind was “ideal for another tutorial"…
Aug 11
25 comments 2008 at 09.40 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Starting with simple shapes as a basis for your design can give you surprising results. By trying to apply them in a creative way and by experimenting you can end up with an amazing design. Today I’ll show you how to draw 4 simple shapes fast and easy. I’m thinking of the perfect wave line, the perfect heart shape, the perfect water drop and a diamond shape. They seem very easy to draw at first sight, though maybe you’ll learn a few tricks on how certain things can be done easier, faster or maybe just more prefect or natural.
Jul 22
50 comments 2008 at 09.37 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Sometimes I think “what could I create next?”. Why not start with just 4 lines and 5 color swatches and see from there? Use the tools at hand and see where it ends up. Surprising results happen when you do. Here is where I ended up…
Jun 24
21 comments 2008 at 09.19 am posted by Veerle Pieters
In my post from a few weeks ago, I demonstrated how to create simple organic shapes in Photoshop. In the comments a reader asked me “how to accomplish the transparency effect using Illustrator”. I thought why not showing the same creation in Illustrator while we’re at it. So here we go…
Jun 17
37 comments 2008 at 08.28 am posted by Veerle Pieters
A reader showed me this image with the question if I knew how to create this masking grid effect on the photo of this album. My first reaction was “Oh Soulstice Mixed Illusions I totally love this album” :) This grid masking seems like an interesting technique to take a closer look at. I’m sure there are many ways to excecute this technique and you could do this both in Illustrator or Photoshop…
Jun 03
45 comments 2008 at 10.25 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Lately I seem to be inspired by geometric forms and patterns in general, and today especially with a bit of an organic touch. I came across a very inspiring image months ago that uses an intersting technique, but I seem to have lost the URL. Today I thought of creating my own version because it seems like an interesting thing to explore. As usual I like to keep things simple. So I experimented a bit and I ‘ve found an easy way to create something that looks rather complex. Take a look at this…
May 20
26 comments 2008 at 04.33 pm posted by Veerle Pieters
Sometimes when I create a pattern background in Illustrator I don’t end up with a Pattern Swatch. Instead, I create a Symbol of the repeating element and I create a whole background repeating this Symbol: duplicating 1, then 2, 4, 8, 16 and so on. It’s just not always that simple to create perfectly seamless patterns, especially with geometric forms. Today I’ll show you how to create a geometric pattern shape and fill a background with it using the method I just described.
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