coyleart

Mel's Brushes Sale

Everything is on sale at Mel's Brushes until June 1st, so this is a great chance to get some vector clip art and brushes for your personal use at an amazing price!

I wrote a post about Mel's Brushes back in April, and I think she has terrific art and for those who are learning Illustrator it's an opportunity to play with some sweet and colorful vectors!

Surtex 2012

I didn't attend this year, but I'm enjoying reading about other artists' experiences at the show:

Natalie Timmons recaps what she learned in the seminars on her blog.

Joan Beiriger gives her impressions along with an extensive list of links to help you find other artists blogging about this year's show.

Today, May 30th at 8:30 EST you can hear Paul Brent talk about Surtex 2012 in a live teleseminar.

Speaking of live seminars, Joe Sliger from Wacom is talking about tablets and taking questions today on ReneeTV at 9 pm EST.

Cindy Lindgren shows pictures of her beautiful booth and writes about her experience as a second time exhibitor the show at her blog.

Alex Colombo has a great post about the show and you can follow her blog to read more interviews from Surtex artists that she will be publishing in the coming months.

From my one-year exeperience I know the artists who exhibit are busily following up with all the prospects they met at the show in the weeks following Surtex, so it's especially nice that they are taking the time to blog about it. Enjoy!

Adobe Illustrator CS6 : small improvements

Illustrator CS6 was released recently and I've been using it for my client work. As I work in my usual routine, I'm experiencing some of the small improvements that have been made to the new version. The new darker interface is not my favorite, but switching to Medium-Light in Preferences makes it easier to work with while I'm getting used to it. Eventually I may adopt the default interface color, but this is one of the most striking changes to the program that Adobe says will make it easier to focus on the art. I'll be spending more time with it before I can say whether I agree!

However, here are some of the small improvements to Illustrator CS6 that are already improving my workflow:

•Layers can be renamed by double-clicking on the name, saving you from opening dialog box. The same holds true for a lot of other items you assign names for, like Artboards and Brushes and Swatches (in list view).

•Transparency Panel now has a dropdown menu to select opacity percentages. It's faster than the old slider or typing a number.

•New Make and Release Mask buttons on the Transparency Panel, to save you from using the options menu when working with Opacity Masks. For more info on Opacity Masks, watch my tutorial.

•Gaussian Blur has become faster and the effect previews instantly as you make adjustments. It's located in the Effect menu under Photoshop Effects, Blur. This is a feature I will probably use a lot more now than I used to because of the instant previewing and the speed boost. Once you've set the level of blur you want at the edges of your shape, you can always go back and make adjustments by clicking the link to the effect in the Appearance Panel.

•By default, the color panel is collapsed and so you will need to visit the options menu to set the panel to display the names or formula information for the current colors. You can also stretch the Color panel and see a much larger spectrum to select color from. The swatches for None, White and Black are in a different position and in RGB mode there is now a field for hex codes.

Among the things I'll have to get used to: I like the improved Color Panel, but with the change to the interface color overall, it's going to take me some time to get used to the Swatches Panel. Only in the lightest mode can I see the swatches against a light gray background. In the default darker interface, swatches sit on a darker background and the default small size swatch is smaller than it's been in previous versions. So this is a change my eye will need to adjust to.

The Type cursor and the Pen Tool cursor are different. The type cursor now has both a pointer and a text insertion icon that changes based on what you are hovering over. The switching is kind of annoying for the user, and I wonder why they felt it needed to be changed. Until I'm finally used to it, the new type cursor is a bit of a pain.

Save For Web now limits you to 2 preview images, rather than 4. This may be more efficient, but it will take me some time to understand in the context of my work.

Those are some of the small things I'm noticing as I work in Illustrator CS6.

Of the major improvements, the most exciting is the new repeat pattern feature and the speed boost underpinning the program. I'm going to take up the new pattern feature more later.

Also, Live Trace has been renamed as Image Trace and the settings dialog has changed. The new version is noticeably faster on larger tracings. New options include a preview eyeball icon for flashing the original image off and on, and the option to choose Abutting or Overlapping paths for your tracing result.

If you trace a lot of full color images like photos, you will notice you get a better tracing result with the new Image Trace. If you use the feature like I do for tracing your pen and ink drawings, the improvements won't make much of a difference. I am looking forward to exploring more with detailed color images though, because the limitations in earlier versions made tracing only work well for certain clearly defined images.

Gradient Strokes is another big new feature that I'm excited about and I'm looking forward to seeing how I might incorporate it into my work.

Overall there are some nice improvements in this version, along with some changes to the interface that will take some time to get used to.

Some of the features that came along in Illustrator CS4 and CS5 have become so integral to how I work, that I wouldn't want to be without them now. Those CS4 features include: Multiple Artboards, Improved Appearance Panel, Transparent Gradients, the new Gradient Annotator and the Blob Brush. In CS5 I discovered I can't live without the Shape Builder Tool, Stroke improvements and Width Tool. The CS5 Draw Inside Mode has been helpful too.

In time, I'll find out which of the new CS6 improvements I can't live without. It all depends on what you use the program for - Illustrator has so many tools and features to explore. Happy exploring!

May 23rd chat cancelled

I'm sorry to have to do this again, but my voice has not fully recovered. I had a cold for two weeks, I'm on antibiotics, but the voice issues still linger. So, the May 23rd chats are cancelled, and we will let you know when we reschedule. Thank you for your continuing patience.

iScrapit with Renee Pearson

It's been a busy Spring, but I can't wait to get started with ReneePearson's new class: iScrapit, Mobile Scrapbooking for iPad & iPhone.

I've been using my iPad a lot for music and for reading. For a while now, I've been wanting to create an illustration portfolio for my iPad and I think this class might be just the right inspiration. Renee shows you how to get creative with the Keynote app, so I can imagine bringing in a lot of the design elements and pattern backgrounds I use when I'm designing collections.

The 3-week class starts June 15th and teaches Apple keynote for iOS, integrating the images you create in Photoshop or other image editing programs. For more information visit the iScrapit page on ReneePearson.com.

May Chat rescheduled: Wednesday May 23rd

Our Illustrator class live chat for May has been rescheduled. It was formerly scheduled to take place on May 16th, but I've got a bad cold and my voice is too hoarse for chatting, so we'll do it the following week at the same times: Wednesday, May 23th at 2pm and 9pm EST. I hope you can still join us, and as always, we'll record them for watching later.

Scalloped Borders in Illustrator

I've posted a new tutorial to my coyleart YouTube channel! In this tutorial, I teach you how to create a shape with a scalloped border in Adobe Illustrator, and then I show you how to save that appearance as a Graphic Style so you can apply it to other shapes in your file. All of this is made possible through using the Appearance Panel and a feature introduced in CS5 that aligns dashed strokes to the corner points in any shape you create. Follow the steps in the video to create a few scalloped borders of your own. 

 

Once you’ve got your scalloped style applied to some shapes, you can scale the shape while leaving the scallops at the same size, by UNchecking “Scale Strokes and Effects” in Preferences > General.

Take it further: play around with adding another stroke to your shape or add drop shadows to get the hang of working with the Appearance Panel.To fix the shape in the form of vectors that you can edit more readily with the Shape Builder or Pathfinder, select the shape and expand by choosing Object > Expand. 

For another tutorial demonstrating the Appearance Panel, watch my video on the Round Corners Effect in Illustrator.

Interview and giveaway on TrueUp.net!

I'm happy to be featured today in an interview with Kim Kight on TrueUp, the blog for the fabric obsessed! She asks insightful questions including one on "warming up" illustrator artwork, which can sometimes look too "illustratory." It also gave me a chance to talk about my online Adobe Illustrator classes on ReneePearson.com. We're giving away my Ink & Paint class which features the Wacom Tablet and instruction on how to use Calligraphic Brushes with the Paintbrush and Blob Brush tools in Illustrator. Kim will be choosing a winner Friday, May 4th, so get add your comment to the post to be entered to win!

My latest illustration epromo: cruise map

Over the years my illustrated maps have appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Frommers Budget Travel, Cooking Light, Flight International and many others. This map of U.S. Cruise Ports appeared in American Express Escape Magazine. My agent Kiki Pollard and I are sending this out as an e-promo today, so if you received one and it brought you here - welcome! You can see more of my images at coyleart.com and alexanderpollard.com.

 

Kim Kight and Laura Coyle on ReneeTV recording

If you missed the chat this Wednesday, you can watch here.

We had a lot of fun talking about designing for fabric, Kim answered bunches of attendee questions and a good time was had by all! Near the end, Kim gives a demonstration on using the Adobe Illustrator Recolor Artwork feature to mix up your color palettes and incorporate the Spoonflower Color Guide colors into your design.