Tuesday + Wednesday Week 2

Tuesday 15th May, 2018

Today we learned how to use gradients. We were taught how to customise the colours in these gradients as well, to create the exact amount of light/dark/transition we want.

Here are some practice runs I did:

I repeated the border shape, inserting them into the middle square, making them gradually get smaller; gradient of a shape!

I then tried to make it look like a ninja star or a spiral, which proved to be difficult and came out a bit weird, (not how I envisioned) but I thought I would share it anyways.

I used pink and black to practice with these colours for the final initials as that is what Kate mentioned she would like.

I then experimented using the spray-can symbol tool and the pen, (and some other button that made the colours go all funny), and even though I am not using any of this I thought it might as well go in.

Using my new understanding of the gradient tool, I wanted to practice making a sunset looking background, with the initials over it. (I have noticed that I seem to be always making/prefer images that have simple, 2D initials with a complex or colourful background).

I started off with making the gradient, playing around with the colours and transitions, and once I did that, I made the initials, which I was happy about the coloured background because they could be white; which I think looks super clean and neat. It still looked a bit plain so I added a bit of detail up the left side. I made the ‘frill’ effect by making a circle and then deleting two portions of it, leaving a semi circle, and then just copying it and repeating it all the way up.

Below is the final result.

(SIDE NOTE:I really like how the text fades away due to the gradient!! A cool example of how gradients can be used to influence the text, when not used directly IN the text)

Even though I liked the above image I created, I knew that it wasn’t something I wanted to further explore. I enjoy playing around with gradients, but prefer the look of solid colours and something a little less digital.

I went back to the initial sketch for a bit of inspiration and noticed the little flower at the bottom. This led me to think about tracing a flower or something to do with nature. I didn’t want it to appear too feminine, so I chose a palm leaf (just from an image I found from google) and used the paint tool to trace it. When I went to colour the image, I found that the computer recognised parts of the image as connected, and actually really liked the way it turned out. (Happy mistake!) I then made (on another separate document) a set of initials to go with the leaf, and then combined the two and practiced different colours, sizes, etc.

The image I traced: