CREATING A GRADIENT FLOWER ICON

First of all, choose black as stroke colour and none as fill. Make sure that the Rulers are visible (View > Show Rulers or cmd/ctrl + R). Drag a vertical guide. This guide is the line that divides the leaf into 2 perfect sides, left and right. Choose the Pen tool and start the 1st curved point somewhere on the right of the guide. Click and drag downwards to the left.

Draw the 2nd point a bit lower on the left of the guide. Hold the Shift key while drawing this point. Drag vertically downwards. Draw the 3rd and last point again a bit lower, right on top of the guide. Again hold the Shift while drawing this point. Drag horizontal to the right. Hold the Command/Control key and click once on the canvas to deselect the path. Use the Direct Selection tool in case you think the curve needs a bit of tweaking to make it perfect. Make sure the handles of the last point are perfectly horizontal; otherwise you could run into trouble. The left and right part of the leaf will not match perfectly.

Choose the Selection tool and select the shape. Choose the Reflect tool, hold the Alt/Option key and click somewhere on top of the guide. Click precisely to avoid gaps or overlaps. In the Reflect window that appears, select Vertical as Axis and click Copy.

Since the lines are overlapping, we can't join both sides of the leaf. Choose both shapes and select the Rotation tool. Hold down Alt/Option key and click somewhere on top of the guide as shown in the image above. Make sure you click precisely. In the Rotate window enter an Angle value of 72° (360/5) and hit the Copy button. Now hit Cmd/Ctrl + D (Object > Transform >Transform Again) thrice in a row to complete the flower icon shape.

Zoom in on the centre of the icon. Choose the Direct Selection tool and drag a selection around 2 neighbour points and hit Cmd/Ctrl + J to connect them. Repeat these steps for the 4 gaps.

You will get an upside down star shape in the centre. This star shape depends on the centre point you have used before to rotate and duplicate the leaves. Pick the entire object using the Selection tool and navigate to Object > Path > Outline Stroke to turn the strokes into fills.

Pick five different colours (green blue, yellow green, red yellow, red purple, purple blue) from the Swatches palette to create 5 linear gradients. Choose a fragment using the Selection tool and fill it with the first gradient.

Choose the other 4 fragments one by one and give them their proper gradient as shown in the image above. Make sure you apply the gradients in the proper order so you can connect each one of them using a smooth transition.

Choose the first fragment and select the Gradient tool. Define the starting and ending point of the gradient by dragging a line. Select the 2nd fragment and do the same.

Repeat the same process for the other gradients too.

If you take a close look you will see that we have 2 mismatches. So we need to fix them.

Move this segment to the back by going to Object > Arrange > Send to Back. Divide the shape into 2 pieces to make the purple line go on top of the blue line and move it under the red line at the same time. We can change the stacking order of the 5 shapes to try to fix this problem, but what you do is just moving the problem to another fragment. So in the end there will always be 1 line where things don't match and where we have to correct. Choose the Scissors tool and cut (click on the path) the path somewhere in between the intersection with the blue and red line. Cut the path on both sides of the fill as marked in the image above.

Choose the 2 endpoints of 1 segment and hit Cmd/Ctrl + J to close the path. Lock this shape by hitting Cmd/Ctrl + 2. Choose the other 2 opening points and hitCmd/Ctrl + J again to close the other fragment.

Selecting 2 endpoints can be a bit tricky. Sometimes you run into trouble by having more than 2 endpoints selected. Illustrator will then show a message 'To join, you must select two open endpoints...’ When this happens: click once on one point and use one of the arrow keys to move this point from its position. Then you can select the proper endpoints to join them. After the path is closed you move the point back in its original position using the arrow keys. Sometimes more than 1 point needs to be moved from its position.

Once both paths are closed, unlock the shape with Cmd/Ctrl + Alt/Option + 2 that you have locked before. Move the purple fragment shape under the blue line by sending it to back: Object > Arrange > Send to Back. Now apply a solid purple colour to the fragment that lies on top of the red line and the icon is complete.

Posted in Adobe Illustrator