How to Make Foliage in Illustrator CS5

Make foliage in Illustrator CS5 by filling an ellipse with a gradient from the "Foliage" color gallery, then arranging duplicates of the ellipse in a circular pattern. The key to making foliage that appears to be three dimensional is the color gradient. The gradient simulates the smooth light-to-dark patterns that you witness on real foliage. To make your foliage illustrations more convincing, draw objects that you normal see with real foliage such as grass, terrain, and sidewalks.

Instructions

1. Click the ellipse icon from the tool palette to run the "Ellipse" tool, then drag on the canvas to draw an ellipse whose width is roughly 1.5 times its height. This action forms a shape that you'll use as a kind of seed for a larger foliage forms.

2. Click the "Stroke" control above the canvas, then type "0 pt" to tell Illustrator you don't want an outline around the ellipse. Outlines suggest flat 2-D shapes whereas realistic 3-D foliage requires shapes without outlines.

3. Click the leftmost dropdown control above the canvas to display a gallery of color swatches with which to fill the ellipse. Click the button at the lower left of this gallery to display a list of swatch libraries which organizes color swatches based on color and texture.

4. Click the "Gradients" category, then click the "Foliage" item under that category. This action displays a gallery of swatches that simulate foliage. Click a swatch from the gallery to fill the oval with the same gradient as the swatch.

5. Click the tool palette icon shaped like a rectangle with several shades of grey that blend smoothly together. This action runs the "Gradient" tool which lets you adjust gradient fills.

6. Click the mouse on a point just above the ellipse's top curve, then drag to a point slightly below the bottom curve. This action refills the gradient you applied but in a way that matches the direction you made with your mouse dragging.

7. Press "Control" and "C" simultaneously to copy the ellipse to the clipboard, and then press "Control" and "V" simultaneously at least eight times to make several duplicates of the ellipse.

8. Drag the ellipses to form a roughly circular shape to complete the illustration of foliage.

References

• Illustrator CS5 Bible; Ted Alspach
• How to Draw What You See; Rudy De Reyna