Illustrator: Flower Power!

A quick tutorial for a change, featuring my favourite program the sublime Adobe Illustrator.

1. Create a simple elipse and then use the pen tool to sharpen one of the curves (hold down the alt key to temporarily bring up the convert anchor point tool).



2. Add a fill and stroke of your choice and then select the Rotate Tool (r) and alt-click at the base of the ellipse to redefine the rotation origin. Type in a rotation value of 36º and hit 'copy'. Now hit Command-D (Control for PCs) eight times to repeat the transformation and create the flower shape.



3. Use the Pathfinder pallette to join the flower petals together and then add a drop shadow that emanates from the centre of the flower decoration.



4. Select Object>Transform Each and reduce the size of the object to 90% and change the rotation value to 18º. Hit 'copy' and then Command-D until you have made an appropriate number of copies. Hey presto! Easy flowers.