Finding & Using Reference Imagery
Lesson 4 from: Drawing with Illustrator: Vector GraphicsStewart Scott-Curran
Finding & Using Reference Imagery
Lesson 4 from: Drawing with Illustrator: Vector GraphicsStewart Scott-Curran
Lesson Info
4. Finding & Using Reference Imagery
Lessons
Intro to Drawing with Illustrator
05:50 2Document Setup & Basic Tools
25:31 3Interpreting the Brief and Concepting
12:16 4Finding & Using Reference Imagery
07:32 5Creating Simple Elements with Shapes in Illustrator
06:23 6Creating Simple Elements with the Pen Tool in Illust
07:18 7Creative Rhythm & Depth with Repetition & Scale
16:05 8Composition and Putting it all Together
25:47Lesson Info
Finding & Using Reference Imagery
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna jump into illustrator, and we're going to start creating some of those elements. Um, and they are gonna love us to start building up the composition slowly. Okay. No, I could just jump in. I could just, um, start drawing some hoses. I could just start drawing some trees and mountains. Like what I like to do is face, um, reference imagery. You know, we doing have toe put the pressure on ourselves to invent everything you know of a rule head. You know, I like the thought of used in some terrorist hoses from wheels. I like the thought off drawing a church. What did it was actually look like? You know, I mean, I could probably set you sketch out, really advocate representation of what those may make it look like. But you know what? There's nothing wrong with, like, using some reference imagery, Um, doing like a Google search for some of these elements on DSO I've I've done this. Uh, I've done this already. I've gone. I've looked for a charge. I've look...
ed for some of these terraced houses. Andi, what I'm going to do is that I'm going to drag these, uh, into the document, and we're gonna use that Aziz reference. So I'm gonna click one. I'm gonna hold the shift key. I'm gonna click on the bottom there. So that is of my, uh, images. These were just like J pegs that have been saved from a from a Google search. And I'm going to drag these onto my page. Okay? No, this is a church that I actually, I knew already. This is one which is, and the village that I grew up in Scotland. And so, like, I knew already that I wake to the look over and it's probably gonna gonna work it. Well, I'm just gonna let resales that a little bit on dragged out off to the side of the page again. Like all of this Greece based around here, it's active space that we can use is no encroaching on our actual sheet of paper. But this is always super useful space that we can use. So I got a couple of different angles of the sketch of this, this church, and we can use that for a reference. And we've got a couple of photographs off like that. Tapes a tennis toes ease that you might find on wheels. You can see her. They're all strung together. Their repeated. We're gonna use those. No, it's important to know that we're No, we're not gonna copy. These necessarily were No gonna, um we're not gonna draw over the top. We're not gonna use these were not good. Copy. We're going to use them as a reference we're gonna use thes as visual cues to give us a sense of direction with With, we're going to go with these with these elements. Um, it is really gonna help us toe Look at them. Like as were Corey. And I'm gonna make when it comes to the charge, I'm gonna make something that looks something quite like that, you know? But I'm not gonna trace over the top over. There's a lot of detail in here that we probably don't need. Like, a lot of these elements are gonna be like super simplified. There's definitely some power on, like, super simple shapes. The European. Um, so we're just going to use that to give us, like, kind of a gade? Mr is the weird where these are going to go. Okay. So how are we gonna start? Well, first thing I'm gonna do we talked about, um, splitting the page into thirds. Okay, so I'm just gonna set up like, a couple of really quick gate's that we're going to help me to do that. No, There's a variety of different ways that you can do this. Um, none of which is necessarily better than the other way. The I like to do it is Teoh Just select my shape to make a rectangle and just, like, draw that to the size of the page. You'll notice, um, it snaps to the edge. Now, the reason that does that is that we want to make sure when we go into the view menu, we want to make sure we have smart gains. Uh, selected, we can tell us. Selected with the with a little check mark there. We can see that the the short cut is apple. You? No. Was the difference there? Okay, so if I If I go apple you and switch the smart gates off, you can see how it doesn't necessarily snap to the bottom of the page. Okay, we're gonna make sure that those are on. And now I lose it too. Snap to the ball. OK, so we know there weren't exactly lined up to the age of the page. Okay, Now, if I want toe split this page into thirds what I'm actually going to do so I'm gonna go into the object, Manu menu and transform This gives like, like, a lot of, um, a lot of options with her. We want toe transform the shape of that box. You know? Do we wanna make it bigger? Do we want to make it smaller? Do we want a sheer reflected rotated? What we're gonna do here is I'm gonna click skill. And I know that term. If I want to make 1/3 I'm just gonna pick something like rough. So I know 1/3 is 33 0.33 Okay, I want to make sure that transform objects is selected, and I'm gonna click. OK, so that gives us something that is exactly 1/3 of the size of the of the previous sheep. So I'm gonna snap back to the top and I'm gonna click the ruler and drag a gay down and again you're going to see as we get close is gonna snap to the age. Okay? So never know that this station is exactly 1/3 of the size of the page again when I drive this up because I have smart gates, switch stone, snap to the edge. Okay, now I know that's exactly lined up. I don't need to zoom in and, you know, use my cursor keys and make sure it's all lined up pro boy. So again, I can click the the ruler on drag down again and snap that to the bottom. Okay, Now I can get rid of that. So if you don't have my poster, might my peach size it split up and to exactly, uh, 3/3 You know, so that losers to have some kind of framework to work with the composition of the peace
Class Materials
bonus material with purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Anita
What an absolutely amazing class! I saw Stewart's artwork and it immediately connected with me so I knew I had to register for this class! I LOVE how he guides the student through his creative process from beginning to end...his description of the poem he used for his inspiration absolutely captivated me! Aside from the expert guidance with all the Illustrator tools and working through his composition, his methodology for developing the brief and conceptualizing the artwork from beginning to end held my attention! His second course (Color and Texture) is absolutely essential as well! He inspired me to experiment with Illustrator and get over my fear of it! Thank you Stewart! I hope you'll return to CreativeLive and teach more courses!
Mary Thomas
I purchased a companion class to this one by Scott and I was very pleased with the content, so I purchased this one as well. Both classes were very well presented and did not duplicate what was given in the other. I have now purchased seven classes by CreativeLive and am very happy with all of them. I have watched others as well on the free days with equally as favorable results.