coyleart

Visit my new site!

I am excited to have a new website where I can collect all my Illustrator tips and tutorials! It's still a work in progress, but far enough along where I can send you there now: it's called illustratoring.com

I've also posted a new illustrator video tutorial on YouTube. This one is about those screen tiling lines or tiling artifacts you sometimes find in your illustrator repeat pattern fills. If you want to know more about what they are and how you can get rid of them, view the video.

The video is an excerpt from my latest class: Pattern Power in Illustrator CS6, which you can read about here.

Slowly but surely, I'm moving posts relavent to Illustrator over to illustratoring.com and cleaning out the rest, so this blog will be shrinking as I do this. Thanks for stopping by.

 

New Illustrator Pattern Class Coming Soon!

I'm putting the finishing touches on my latest class, and it will be released in the next few weeks. Stay tuned, and I'll post the release date as soon as I know it!

I recently returned from 10 days traveling in Croatia, where we attended the wedding of some dear friends and then took a tour of the Dalmatian coast. The photo above is from Mali Ston, where we enjoyed some delicious oysters, salty and flavorful from the Adriatic waters. There too many beautiful sites in Croatia to choose from - and so much good food. So this is why I've been on a posting hiatus for the last month, but I'm well rested (and well fed) now, so here's a little about the new class:

It's called Automatic Patterns in Adobe Illustrator CS4 and CS5 (and it works for CS6 too). I provide templates you can use right away to design repeat patterns in Illustrator - changes you make to elements on the artboard update instantly across the pattern field, so you are free from constantly dragging your art back and forth to the swatches panel. It's really amazing!

I created the templates using transform effects and some other great Illustrator features that make the templates a complete pattern creation and exporting environment for digital designers and crafters. My system makes it easy to get your finished work up on Spoonflower, make portfolio images, or export 12 x 12" background papers for scrapbooking.

And of course, I show you in detail how the templates are created, so you can customize the sizes for your own projects. I'll have more news soon as we get closer to the release!

 

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.

Pencils and Pens

Geek-out with illustrator Scott Bakal in these two informative posts about the pens, pencils and sharpeners he uses daily in his work. You'll enjoy the intimate photos and all the detail he lavishes on these humble materials.

Creation of a Line - Part 1

Creation of a Line - Part 2

Get inspired by Ed Emberly

There is a wonderful documentary on Lynda.com now about Ed Emberly, one of my favorite illustrators whose books I used to pore over as a young artist.

If you are not a subscriber to Lynda, you can still watch the intro and the first of the three chapters: Getting to know Ed. It's an enlightening tour of his studio where he talks about his education and about using crowquill pens, brushes and woodcut. He also talks about striking out on his own as a children's illustrator and author.

In the other two chapters he talks about his style and the genesis of his "drawing alphabet" books for kids. You also get a peek at Ed talking to school kids, meet his family and see him collaborate on a book with his daughter. Ed Emberly also gives his entertaining take on adapting to changing technology and how it's affecting the market in publishing.

Happy New Year!

I want to take a moment to wish you a very happy new year! One of the highlights of 2011 for me was seeing my Illustrator classes and tutorials gain a steady following. I always feel lucky to make my living as an artist, but becoming a teacher of Illustrator and working with Renee and Kent Pearson has made me even more grateful to be in the creative field.

The sense of genuine community and support from those who have signed up for my classes, attended chats or subscribed to my YouTube tutorials has been an unexpected reward and continues to fuel my excitement about this new avenue in my career. I'm very grateful for your participation, encouragement and questions, and I'm looking forward to more classes and chats with you in 2012! 

Wishing you all the best,

Laura Coyle

Illustrator Tutorials

In the past year, I've posted a series of Adobe Illustrator video tutorials to my Coyleart YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe so you can be alerted to my next Illustrator tutorial postings in 2012! Here are links to the most useful Adobe Illustrator tips you'll find among my YouTube Illustrator tutorials:

Illustrator Tools:

The Eraser Tool

The Spiral Tool Explained

The Illustrator CS5 Width Tool

The Blob Brush

Illustrator Techniques:

Clipping Masks in Illustrator

Layer Clipping Masks

Hand Lettering in Illustrator

Opacity Masking

Illustrator Essentials:

Vectors vs. Pixels Explained

RGB vs. CMYK

Repeat Pattern Basics in Illustrator

Wacom Pen Tip Feel - Pressure Sensitivity Tutorial

A Shorpy Christmas

When you're in the mood for nostalgia, hop over to one of my favorite sites, shorpy.com. There just aren't enough hours to look through the thousands of amazing vintage photographs. Happy Holidays!

Manly Christmas Tree

May your days be manly and bright! You'll find this foil-stamped Christmas man tree by Laura Coyle at your local Papyrus store.

Andy Warhol illustrations

Andy Warhol paid the bills in NYC as an illustrator before he became a pop art legend. He illustrated for record covers, magazines, advertisers and childrens books. He even won awards at it; I have an Art Directors club annual from the 50's that recognized his work. You can look more closely at the pictures from The Little Red Hen (pictured above) and the Magic Porridge Pot.

You can also flip through the Harper's Bazaar Archive Lookbook (from my earlier post here) and find a couple of Warhol shoes, but the collection posted on the blog Fabulous Doodles is more immediately satisfying. Check out Part 1 and Part 2.