An Illustrated Pear: A Loaded Pear

Posted by Kathy Garvey
In my continuing efforts to study Illustrator CS6, this pear was sort of a summary or test to see what I could do with all of the stuff I now knew how to do. I just had fun with it. I started with my basic pear shape but decided to give it a sort of steampunk look so I used the Appearance palette with several fills to get some leather and metal looks. The leaf needed to be a little odd too. It was created by cutting the edges of my usual leaf with the knife tool and then I blended the same shape from the darker color to the lighter color to give it some dimension.

The pear needed some equipment, because what is a steampunk pear without equipment? I added an eyeball and miscellaneous items around the exterior using gradients and basic shapes. I created some gears using a variety of methods. It took a while to build the bandolier, even though it was easy to create all the casings with a blend, positioning them correctly was very manual. However, it only took a few minutes to fill them with flowers by alt-dragging them into place. I added a small pedestal for the pear to balance on.

 

Next it needed some finishing touches. I had some odds and ends of steampunk like items around the house, including a bolt marked 64k(?) and a very old but non-functioning Bulova watch. Using gradients, blends and some of the wonderful effects so easy to apply, I made an attempt at duplicating them to add to the already existing equipment. The bolt seemed like it would make a perfect stem.

Steampunk is not steampunk unless you really load on the STUFF. I thought there was room for a pocket to hold extra things so I built one. I stole a pear from one of my other studies to add to the pocket. (Making this probably the first cannibalistic pear illustration EVER!) I mocked up a map and magnifier with a pre-magnified view of the pear texture behind it. Shading and highlighting is something I usually save for Photoshop. But, using recently learned Illustrator techniques of creating highlights with the same color in Screen blend mode and the shadows with the same color in Multiply blend mode, I gave it a try. Loved it. (Used it again to add a little patch holding something-I'm not sure what it is-in a small empty spot on the top right of the pear.) The stitches are just a dashed stroke.

Once everything was built, I added the background and a small tag certifying that this pear, despite the bandolier of flowers, is perfectly balanced and therefore nothing to be afraid of. (Click on any illustration to enlarge it.)

Of all the pears so far, I think this one is my favorite. All the little things were a challenge and I probably spent 8 or more hours creating it. But it makes me smile when I look at it.

I'm still having fun with Illustrator CS6. Next: An Illustrated Pear: 3D Pear

But is it Art?

I'm teaching myself Illustrator CS6. One of my chosen topics this week was Live Paint. It was in other versions, but not one I used a lot. So, I decided to get serious about it. For a design idea, I was playing with the text of a common question "But is it art"? and decided the answer is that art just is. I did a quick sketch.

Then spent about an hour deciding on the right font. There wasn't one. Spent another hour modifying Felix Titling with two different versions, one that I came up with first and then a second closer to my sketch. Decided I liked the first attempt better.

I drew lots of other objects in Illustrator in black, white and shades of gray - things that are sort of my favorites: sprirals, birds, flowers.

Then converted that in a variety of ways to a live paint group. (If you ever used Flash, Live Paint was pretty much taken from Flash's clever way of letting you color objects based on where they intersect.) The first attempt I kept the intersections simple. Live Paint is fast. 23 minutes to totally recolor this!

The next one I changed the colors to mostly primaries. Time spent: 15 minutes.

The next one I changed to my preferred colors and created a new set of background shapes and let them create more intersections.  Time spent:45 minutes.

Fun exercise. The great thing about Live Paint (and Illustrator in general) is that it took so little time between the gray version and experimenting with the next colored version. (Actually painting each with acrylic or watercolor would have taken me weeks.) I'm not finished with Live Paint yet. I've only painted the "faces."  You can paint the strokes, too!  More fun to come. So is it art? Art is!