How to Make Psychedelic Circles in Illustrator
Stare at psychedelic circles long enough and you'll begin to see patterns that may not actually exist in the artwork itself. These arrangements of elliptical graphics flow and repeat among shapes of varying sizes. Some feature rainbows of color, wildly variant hues and gradient transitions. Adobe Illustrator's vector toolbox includes the capabilities you need to ease the creative task of formulating these patterns to use as backgrounds and decorations. As with many complex graphic treatments, the key to creating psychedelic circles is to break their patterns down into repeatable units that are easy to draw.
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Instructions
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Activate the Ellipse tool, nested with the Rectangle and other shape-drawing tools in the Adobe Illustrator toolbox. Hold down the "Shift" key and draw a sequence of circles of various sizes.
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Switch to the Selection tool. Select individual circles and rearrange them until you're satisfied with the layout of your set of vector graphics. Click an unused area of your artboard to deselect your work.
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Open the Window menu and choose "Color" to bring up the Color panel if it isn't already open on your screen. Choose a color mode -- grayscale, HSB, RGB, CMYK or Web-safe RGB -- from the fly-out menu at the upper right corner of the Color panel. Use the color mode that matches your document-level usage or choose grayscale if you're planning artwork for a black-and-white project.
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Mix a color using the channel sliders in the color panel. Experiment to find a shade that fits your intended implementation of the design. When you reach a pleasing result, open the Color panel's fly-out menu and choose "Create New Swatch."
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Name your swatch and set its color type. Process colors are intended for on-press output using mixtures of four primary inks: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Spot colors print using pre-mixed inks that reproduce only one shade. Click the "Global" check box to edit your color swatch and thereby change the color of every object that uses it. Choose a color mode, check the formula sliders to determine that the color you mixed in the Color panel remains the choice you want, then click the "OK" button to create your swatch. Return to the Color panel to mix and save any additional colors you need for your artwork.
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Open the Window menu and choose "Swatches" to bring up the Swatches panel if it isn't already visible. Use the Selection tool to activate each of your circles and click one of your swatches to assign that color as its fill color. Assign a stroke color as well if you want your circles to include a matching or contrasting outline.
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Marquee around all your circles to select them. Drag them onto the Swatches panel to create a pattern made from work. Click an unused area of your artboard to deselect your active selection, then double-click your new pattern swatch to bring up the Swatch Options dialog box. Name your swatch, then click the "OK" button to close the dialog box.
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Switch to the Rectangle tool. Click and drag to draw a large rectangle, then click your new pattern swatch to apply it as a fill. Your pattern of circles repeats throughout the box you drew.
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Tips & Warnings
Create a duplicate of the set of circles you drew to build your pattern, then apply the pattern to the set of circles itself.
Control how your pattern repeats by enclosing it in a rectangle with no fill and no stroke before you drag your artwork to the Swatches panel. This bounding box defines where and how the pattern tiles.
To change how your pattern fills a graphic shape, move the shape across your artboard to alter where its tiling begins.
Avoid creating overly complex patterns that may be impossible to print.
References
Resources
- The Adobe Illustrator CS5 Wow! Book; Sharon Steuer
- Adobe Illustrator CS5 Bible; Ted Alspach
- Real World Adobe Illustrator CS5; Mordy Golding
- Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium All-in-One for Dummies; Jennifer Smith, et al.
- Illustrator CS5 for Windows and Macintosh Visual QuickStart Guide; Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
