How To Add Texture To Drawings In Illustator

Watercolor blueprint is large trend correct now. The unique and beautiful qualities of the watercolor are used in many design solutions, such as packaging, web, stationery and other. There are many gratis and premium resources on the web, varying from high-res photos of watercolor textures, patterns and elements to vector files, offering even more pattern possibilities.

In this tutorial nosotros will testify you lot how to create your ain vector watercolor texture from scratch, y'all will larn how to create dissimilar watercolor elements past hand, and how to convert them from raster to vector image in Adobe Illustrator. It is super easy, fun, and you go to create exactly what you demand for your design vision, without depending on other sources!

We have also prepared a complimentary download file with the PNGs and .ai source of the watercolor elements in this tutorial. So let's get started!

Create watercolor textures and elements

First you demand to gear up some materials for your piece of work with the watercolor:

• Paint brushes – oval and flat
• Watercolor paint
• Watercolor paper (the paper we are using is 180 g/m2, which gives y'all a practiced texture and absorbs water quite well)
• Pencil and eraser
• Handkerchiefs
• H2o loving cup

Step one – Working with oval brush

In this step, y'all volition brand different shapes, with single and mixed colors, using oval paint brush. Take the castor and dip information technology into the cup with h2o generously. Accept just a trivial scrap of colour and get-go making shapes on your newspaper. The rules is, that the more paint and less water you accept on your castor, the more than saturated color you volition go. The less paint you apply with the brush, using more water – the lighter and more airy the colors will be:

Then start mixing with other colors and e'er add a footling bit more h2o, while the paper is wet, then that the colors mix well together:

While the color you merely practical is still wet, don't exist afraid, experiment, and add together a driblet from other color. That volition create a nice splash:

Step 2 – Remove excessive paint

If you added to much water, or you just desire to achieve cool, washed out effect, take a handkerchief and gently tap on top of the newspaper. The paper will absorb the excessive pigment and will leave its own texture mark:

Your watercolor pattern is gear up! Exit it to dry, scan it, or take a loftier-res photo of it and we volition work with it in Adobe Illustrator later on:

Footstep 3 – Working with flat castor

If you want to create pattern with smoothen edges and borders, rather than painting ovals, then utilize a flat paint brush. Utilize less water, so your contours remain smooth and crisp:

Step 4 – Create various elements

Once you lot become comfortable with the watercolor past painting textures, backgrounds, ovals, splashes and rectangles, the fun part begins! Apply your imagination, go wild and describe waterever you want: flowers, hearts, leaves, … – nosotros leave to yous to fill in the dots! Here are some examples of our shapes and experiments, that you lot tin become for free as watercolor vector texture and elements. Y'all are welcome!

Download the Watercolor Texture and Elements

Create your ain text with watercolor effect

There are many complimentary watercolor resource and if you demand inspiration or to use set onece, check our article on the topic. But if y'all accept the time, or you oasis't constitute what you lot need, and so nosotros accept one more surprise for you – we will testify yous how to create you own simple text with practical watercolor effect! It is super easy to do. Permit's see how. If you lot are uncomfortable with hand lettering, try and sketch out some ideas with pencil first. Don't worry right now about the arrangement of the letters and the scaling, because we can hands modify that in Photoshop. Well, we picked a quote we like about blueprint and wrote information technology down with marker on a plain, ordinary sketchbook paper:

Browse all your materials and ready the files

We hope that you had fun making watercolor textures and elements and that you liked hand-lettering! At present exit all your watercolor to dry and scan information technology (or accept loftier-res photos).

And so, open your scanned files in Adobe Photoshop and duplicate several layers of your scan. That way, you tin cut each element out from the rest of the scanned image and consign information technology as an individual PNG. It is handy to keep these designs in separate files!

Select one of the watercolor textures you made with Lasso Tool (L)and get to Select > Inverse – this volition select everything else, but not the texture you just marked. Now press Delete and everything you don't demand right now, volition disappear. Press Ctrl+Dto deselect.

You lot can go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturationif yous want to play a little bit with the colors. Under the same carte du jour, you can accommodate also contrast and the like. Endeavor, experiment and see what works for you best. Apply the Magic Wand Tool (Westward) to select some white spaces left and delete them.

So far so adept – you are washed with one of the elements, export a PNG from its layer, going to File > Save As. Repeat the same steps for the rest of your chemical element designs. When y'all are ready, we will move on to importing them in Adobe Illustrator, and then we can finally create our vector watercolor texture and elements.

Note, that if yous don't take a scanner and you prefer to take a photo of your works, you might face a problem. Sometimes, your background won't be completely white, but y'all can easily fix that in Photoshop. Just open the image, go to Epitome > Adjustments > Levelsand carefully movement the sliders, so the greyness spots from your groundwork disappear. Try moving the gray slider a bit to the left, and the white slider a bit to the right.

Here are all the elements we created, with adjusted colors and removed white backgrounds:

Create your vector watercolor texture and elements

Footstep 1 – Preview of your texture and elements

Import your watercolor texture and elements intoAdobe Illustrator and open Window >Image Trace. For Style, selectColour, and forPalette, selectFull Tone. Then pressPreview.You will have to wait a bit to render.

If you want to reduce the file size of your vector watercolor texture, so in Pallete drop down, instead of Full Tone selected Express. This will give you a more vector, simplified look of your watercolor and your file volition drop in size:

Step 2 – Trace your paradigm after the preview

Once happy with how the image looks, brand sure Preview box is checked off –  this volition allow you to click theTrace button. After tracing, you merely have to go toObject > Aggrandize and at that place you have it – your very ain vector watercolor texture and elements! Don't forget to remove the white background of your epitome past selecting it with Direct Pick Tool (press shortcut A)and pressing delete. Save you vector watercolor. Here is what your vector watercolor texture should look like before the save:

Create your vector watercolor text

You oasis't forgotten about the text we created, accept you lot? Well, we haven't! Let's get our hands in it.

Open the scanned image of your text in Photoshop and use tha Magic Wand Tool (W) to remove the white background. Select the different words with Lasso Tool (L),right click and choose Layer via Cut.This volition bring your option on a new layer and y'all will be able to motion the divide files around easily and scale them independantly. Nosotros ended up with this rearrangement of the lettering:

Now repeat the same actions, as for the textures to convert your PNG text image into a vector text. Don't forget to Aggrandize information technology and to delete the white parts. The new affair is, that subsequently yous've washed the steps you learned, you accept to select your text, go to Obeject > Compound Path > Make.

After that, in the layer panel, motion your text above the vector watercolor texture, which you have opened in the file also:

Select the two, and hitCtrl+7, which will create Clipping Mask. This ways, that your the vector watercolor texture will cut with the outlines of your text, like hither:

We hope you liked this tutorial, let us know what you lot think, by dropping a line or ii in the comment section below! We would love to hear from you!

You may also exist interested in 23 Drawing Software Options to Become Digital Picasso.

Source: https://graphicmama.com/blog/create-vector-watercolor-texture/

Posted by: ingramguat1950.blogspot.com

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