How to Draw a Flower With the Pen Tool in Illustrator
Flowers make ideal subject matter to create in a vector drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator because of the geometric precision of their shapes and forms. Illustrator's Pen tool -- along with some help from Illustrator's reshaping tools -- can help you make quick work of the task of crafting flower artwork. Although you can create your flower by drawing each petal individually, you can mimic nature's symmetry by building all your petals from one piece of master artwork.
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Instructions
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Activate the Pen tool in the Adobe Illustrator toolbox. Hold down the "Shift" key while you click and drag your pointing device from left to right on an open area of your art board.
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Continue holding down the "Shift" key. Place your cursor far enough below the first anchor point you drew that you can click and drag again, this time from right to left, to draw another point that forms the bottom of the circular center of a daisy-shaped flower. With the "Shift" key still depressed, place your cursor on top of the first point you drew, then click and drag from left to right to close your shape into a rough circle. Don't stop dragging the pointing device until your shape rounds out.
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Release the "Shift" key, then press and hold it again. This time, click and drag from left to right just below the bottom control point of your initial shape to create a new shape with a short control handle. Move your cursor below the point you just drew by a distance approximately 1.5 times the diameter of the first shape you created. Click and drag from right to left to create another anchor point with a slightly wider handle. Close this shape by clicking and dragging from left to right on top of the first anchor point that defines it. Release the "Shift" key. This second shape forms a petal oriented vertically below the center of the flower.
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Draw a vertical line down the center of your petal. Click and drag just inside the top of the shape. Click and drag again just inside the bottom of the petal.
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Switch to the Selection tool. Hold down the "Shift" key while you click on your petal and the line down its center. After you've selected both objects, hold down the "Alt" key for Windows or the "Option" key for the Mac OS, and drag the petal above the center of the flower, pressing and holding the "Shift" key as you drag the shape so you create a duplicate directly above the original petal.
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Switch to the Rotate tool. Double-click the tool to bring up its dialogue box. Enter 180 as the angle of rotation and click the "OK" button to orient the duplicate petal properly in relation to the flower center.
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Switch back to the Selection tool. Hold down the "Shift" key and click both the original and the duplicated petal to select them.
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Activate the Rotate tool again. Double-click the tool and enter 20 as the angle of rotation. This time, click the "Copy" button to create a new pair of petals.
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Open the "Object" menu, navigate to its "Transform" submenu and choose "Transform Again." Repeat this menu choice until your flower center is surrounded by a full set of petals.
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Switch back to the Selection tool. Hold down the "Shift" key and select all your petals. Double-click on the "Fill" color swatch in the Adobe Illustrator toolbox to bring up the Color Picker. Set the color for your petals to your desired shade. Click the "OK" button to apply your color. Click the circular center of your flower and choose a color for it as well.
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Tips & Warnings
Hold down the "Shift" key and draw the flower center using the Ellipse tool to create a perfect circle.
Experiment with different degrees of rotation when you duplicate the first pair of petals. Smaller angles create more closely spaced petals.
Use a subtle radial gradient as the color for your flower center to give it a dimensional look.
If your petals overlap, the last set of duplicates will appear in front of the rest of the petals, which creates an unnatural appearance.
References
Resources
- The Adobe Illustrator CS5 Wow! Book; Sharon Steuer
- Real World Adobe Illustrator CS5; Mordy Golding
- Adobe Illustrator CS5 Bible; Ted Alspach
- Illustrator CS5 for Windows and Macintosh Visual QuickStart Guide; Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas
- Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium All-in-One for Dummies; Jennifer Smith et al.
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
