In this session, we used Illustrator and for me, I am not used to Illustrator because I don't use it that often so this session was useful to me because I have learned some features that I can use which will be displayed in this blog post.
We started off by looking at the different tools there are and what they are used for which I knew already. We spoke about what Illustrator was used for, it's for custom non regular grids and used to create vector images which I didn't know.
The next part was the part that I have struggled in the past which I feel I have improved slightly in this session, we had to use the 'pen tool' to create the outline of the building which I didn't struggle with because everything was straight, it was the 'curvature tool' which I have struggled with in the past but I felt in this session, that I have improved with it because I had more control with it and I learned how to move certain points.
The image below is an example of how I used the 'curvature tool' to make the outline smooth and how I used it to move certain points. The right part is the before and the left part is the after part.
The image below is just me playing around with the 'paint brush tool' and the 'blob brush tool' to see the difference between the two. The difference is that the 'paint brush tool' has the vectors/points inside and the 'blob brush tool' has the vectors/points outside.
The next part involved shapes. We looked at we can create shapes and emerging them together to form one object. I created the different shapes using the 'rectangle tool' and 'ellipse tool', I emerged them together using the 'shape builder tool'.
The next part was all about how to manipulate an image by changing the colours, position and basically how it looks.
As you can see from the images below, they look different to each other, the first image is the original and the second image looks slightly like a painting, I achieved that look by going to 'object', 'image trace' then 'make' which I then went to 'windows' then 'image trace' to get the little pop up box and from there, I changed the settings of the image. After that, we looked at the rule of thirds which is aligning an object using guide lines and their intersections, you can see from the second image below how I used the rule of thirds and placed the person's face where the lines intersect.
I also learned how to delete any parts of the image that I wasn't happy about but before I could do that, I had to simplify the image by going to 'object', 'path' then 'simplify', after that, I used the 'lasso tool' to delete some parts of the image.
The next part was to include typography into the image and I learned how to select one letter only and enlarge it or make it smaller by using the 'touch type tool' then I learned how to create that arc look by going to 'object', 'envelope distort' then 'make it warp'.
I feel like this session was useful because I feel more comfortable with Illustrator, the part I learned the most was how to use the 'curvature tool' because it was something I wanted to use in the past but wasn't comfortable with, I feel more comfortable now with it, I feel like I have more control with it and know how to manipulate the lines.
I am happy how my image looks in the end because I tried to compliment everything together like the typography with the image which is why the word is an arc shape, it's meant to represent the movement of the waves and I feel like I have achieved that.
