For the Studio Exploration assignment in my AVT 595 class, I decided to explore digital art with Adobe Illustrator. While I am familiar with the program, I use it mainly for design work with a lot of text, and layouts, so I decided to try to illustrate instead with the tools found in Adobe Illustrator.
Let's Get Started!
To start on a new document, I clicked create new, which took me to a pop up with selections. This included format (Print, screen, illustration), canvas size (Letter, A4, A3, etc.), units (Pixels, inches, points, feet, etc.), Width, Height, Orientation, Artboards, and Color mode.
I decided to pick print for format, Letter for canvas size which automatically filled the width and height, pixels for units, 1 for artboard, and CMYK for color mode.
Disclaimer: All video has been sped up and each step took 10-45 mins to explore.
Pen Tool
First I decided to try the pen tool which works based on points.
When using the pen tool I liked hw you can freehand, it felt very restrictive because of the points that snap to a spot. When creating shapes, unless you connect the last point to the first point, the fill color for the shape does not fill in properly. I also noticed how you can remove both the fill and stroke depending on what you are looking for.
Shape Tool
Second I decided to try to shape tool.
This tool had some general shapes like squares that can also be rectangles, circles that can be ovals, triangles that can have another side added, a star tool which also has ways to add or remove the sides that make up the star, and the line tool, which created straight lines unlike the pen tool where you can
Pencil and Paint Brush Tool
Finally, I decided to try the pencil and paint brush tool, which were found in the same selection.
These two tools had the post options in terms of mark making as there has a different range of different mediums that try to imitate how they act in real life. I had a lot more fun exploring this page than the others
Pencil tool final piece.
I wanted to be able to create characters with different colors and faces. I thought the pencil tool would work the best for this since it is more free with the curves. I decided to make it similar to when I use to make doodle art in elementary and middle school at school.
Shape tool final piece.
I decided to use the basic shapes to create a skyline of the sun setting. I also wanted to test out the gradient option when filling the shapes. With just shapes I was able to create buildings and the sun with a gradient.
Pen Tool final piece.
For the pen tool I decided to do a landscape with mountains to test out the curving tool as well as creating straighter lines. I liked how you can create a lot of shapes
Overall, I think Illustrator has a variety of tools and options to explore of create a lot of different types of artwork. I also liked how you can duplicate shapes and modify them after every stage. The ability to resize the shapes without ruining the quality of the shape was also a great feature as you can move and resize at different stages.