Gradients and blends

PROF VAUGHN: This video is going to go
over gradients, and blends in Illustrator.

As we move into color this is a really fun
and easy opportunity to create really

interesting, um, backgrounds or objects
that have some sense of form

or dimensionality.

We're gonna think about how to use
gradients.

So, a couple of examples here.

We got our basic gradients, linear and
radial, we've seen this in Photoshop.

We have an additional gradient that
we're gonna call freeform, here's an

example of a freeform gradient.

And the I'm also gonna show you
how to blend, a couple different

opportunities in blending.

We think of blend, we're gonna move
from one color to another along a

simple, um, spectrum of steps.

So, lots of opportunities here.

Let's jump right into what this might
look like.

I'm gonna delete these to get us started.

So when you're thinking of a gradient,
remember we're vector based in Illustrator

so we're always going to apply it as if
it's a color to a vector object.

I'm going to just start with a simple
shape here.

I'm going to draw out a rectangle.

Now, I've been using gradient
so it's already sort-of preset that way,

but generally, you might just be drawing
an object that has a color that has a fill

or a stroke.

I'm just going to be a stoke on here so
we can see this and imagine that really

we just have rectangle, it has a black
edge if I go to move it we'll see there's

the black edge but it doesn't have a
color fill.

So to create a gradient, the easiest
first way to get about it, is use a fill.

Remember a gradient is just a color
choice.

We have a couple gradients down here in
this sort of standard color pallete.

If you don't see those, you can always
open up this little flat window and say,

show all, or if you want to isolate it
you can say show gradient swatches.

I know mine are already there though, so.

I'm gonna just start, I'm gonna pick any
of these.

So we've got this sort of black and white
version, this orange yellow,

and this blue one.

Doesn't matter which one you pick.

We're gonna dial it in to make it custom,
once we have a gradient.

So I've got my gradient, amazing.

It's not what I want but it gets me the
opportunity to choose this button,

gradient options.

Click that, and you get this palette, so
I'm gonna make sure

I can see the entire palette.

You can even stretch it out if you want.

So here I have my gradient choices.

I am currently set on fill.

Look it, here's fill and stroke.

You can go back and fourth.

Meaning, you could actually use the
gradient as a stroke versus the fill,

Not what we wanna do right now.

I have my type, so, here linear,
we're working

along a line, very simple.

Here is radial, of course that's
going to radiate out.

And within these sort of standard
gradients, we can change the direction.

So here are our kind of directional
forces.

If you wanted your gradient to be on an
angle, you could set it on an angle,

etcetera, you can also reverse
the gradient here,

flipping from side to side in this case,
reversing our gradient.

If we go to 0 you'll see that, back and
fourth.

So those are both simple choices.

If you want to start to edit the colors,
we have what are called color stops,

on, a gradient slider, so double clicking
this, opens up your color palette.

If you don't like these of course you can
always use the spectrum look.

I'm going to use the swatches for now.

And I want to start with a blue, and
maybe I want to move my blue towards

a yellow.

Now I've created this kind of, custom
gradient.

Bright blue, sliding over to yellow.

These are movable, I can slide these
around, increase or decrease the amount,

of that color, this will be reflected in
your gradient object.

You also have this, little, diamond.

This is the location at which the color
is shifting in the middle, so the tone or

the value, um, between the blue or the
yellow is sort of representative here.

Do you want it to be pushed way over,
or here?

Now let's say you want more then two
colors, you just hover over the slider,

you get this little plus sign here, click
it.

You have an additional color stock.

Now double click, give yourself a new
color, maybe you're getting really wild.

That's a little bit much for me at the
moment, early in the morning here.

Uh, and now we have another color stock.

If you want to delete them, you can simply
click, oops, don't do that.

Click on it, use the trash can.

Now you've deleted that stock.

Okay, so that's lovely.

Same options apply, if you're here you can
still change the colors excreta.

You, also have the ability if you've
created a gradient and you love it,

you can save it, um, so I will give you
some notes on how to save it.

It generally is as a color swatch, so if
you go back to that appearance, and the

fill, you can see it's loaded what I
currently have chosen.

If we want it to be sort of saved as a
swatch in here, we're gonna do new

swatch, and you would probably want to
give it a name you can remember.

I'm gonna call it blue yellow gradient.

Say okay, and now look at that tiny tiny
icon, that is my custom gradient.

Super lovely.

Okay, other opportunities in a gradient.

You have the edit gradient button, if you
click this, this gives you those same

opportunities that we were playing with
over here, but in a, uh, version that

shows it on your object.

So from here you could double click,
change the color,

you can adjust the slider, excreta.

So it's just a different way of working.

You can also, um, move your gradient
around as if it was a line,

that's an opportunity too.

This look right here is the same as what
would happen if you were using your

gradient tool.

So the gradient tool in your tools panel
is, um,

another way to get about a gradient.

This is particularly useful if you have
another object.

Notice I'm going to take this off really
quick.

I've drawn another object.

If I want to use my gradient tool to
apply a gradient, I can do that.

It's gonna default to applying the last
used gradient, so here I've gotten the

gradient tool, all I'm gonna do is come

and just click in this, uh, shape that
I've created, now you can see it's

applied that gradient.

Of course I can still edit it, and I can
additionally kind of redraw it,

constantly, so I'm redrawing on an angle,
I'm clicking and dragging to redraw this

gradient, so that's another way to go
about creating a gradient.

Okay, so those are are standard gradients
that we are used to thinking about.

Let's move on, get a little bit more
complex.

We're gonna look at free form gradients
which are incredibly fund.

I'm gonna move onto a different file.

So I've drawn a shape here, It's kind of
a custom shape.

At the moment it just has this black
outline so you can see it,

and there's no fill applied, so custom
shape.

Let's apply a gradient, always starting
with the fill.

Any gradient will do, doesn't matter we're
gonna change it.

Now gradient options.

Jump into that panel.

Here we go.

Move this over.

Under the type, we've got linear, radial,
here is the freeform.

Freeform is so fun, we have a couple
options in freeform.

Now as soon as you go into freeform mode,
depending on your computer it can take

a minute to load, so let it kind of do
it's thing, but it's gonna give you a

default gradient again, and it's going to
be different every time.

So this is this weird brown one, I hate
this gradient, let's change it.

We're gonna start by doing a free form
based on points.

Let's see what this makes.

If I go into my document you can see I've
got a circle here,

a circle here, circle here.

These are color stoppers, they're
just points.

If I double click, this is looking
familiar, this gets me back into my color

picker, I'm gonna choose some more
interesting colors then what they've

given me.

So I'm just choosing double click, pick
a color.

It can also be really nice to use white.

If you're thinking about creating form,
remember, 2D shape that has

a sense of volume, white is a great way
to go because it's a highlight, kind-of

brightens the surface.

So, these points, of course we can change
the color, we are also move them around,

we can delete them if you click on it
and hit delete, that will disappear.

If you want another point, you simply
just have to move the icon over and now

I've got a plus sign.

If I click it's going to give me a new
point, I can double click, shift the color

whichever direction I might want it to go.

The other opportunity with points is to
think about

the spread of each color, each hue.

If I drag out from this dotted line, I'm
increasing the spread,

if I drag in I'm decreasing spread.

If I click on this, I can also look at the
opportunities over here; same idea, here's

that spread, I additionally have
opacity, do you want to be able to see

through this color?

There's an opacity, amazing.

Maybe we need a couple more colors, let's
get kind of crazy, let's add some

purple in there.

Okay, so this is a really beautiful way to
create backgrounds, remember you're

thinking in term of color harmonies, color
schemes, what looks good together, let's

not go crazy with color, you want to use
it sort-of in a very precise way,

it takes a long time to learn how to use
color in a, um,

appropriate manner, spreading.

Okay, so, so exciting, you understand how
these work.

As you move them around, remember
it's a free form, so it's going to change

the way it blends as you move these
around, so have fun with this,

this is going to be a really great thing
to play with.

So, so far this is considered a free form
based on point, I also want to show you

a free form based on lines.

So, I'm going to go ahead and delete
these...whoops.

Okay, so I'm back to my sort-of basic
beginning.

I'm going to again, make a gradient and
free form.

Again, see how it gave it a different
one, that's totally fine it just kind-of

picked something.

Instead of points, I want to look at lines.

Give it a second.

Okay, in the lines, now we still have
some additional points, that's okay, we're

thinking about creating color stops
along a line, so, I'm going to click

one once, notice when I move my curser,
I get the rubber band, this is kind-of the

indicator of a line or a path, I'm going
to click again and I'm just sort-of

creating this line, it kind-of works along
this curvy basis.

So, let's start changing these colors so
you can see what's happening.

Right now they are all white, I want to
go back to some color, so double clicking

on the stop gives you the ability to
change its color.

Let's throw something crazy in here,
let's do the yellow,

okay things are getting wild.

Maybe we will take this back to a blue.

Okay, this one c--oops, I'm going
to do command Z

because I actually don't want that.

If you want to get out of those tools so
that you can click without creating a

point on a line, you use your escape key,
notice that rubber band is now gone,

so I could come over here and delete this
point, if I don't want it, this was left

over from that original one.

So, you can have a combination of points
and lines and that can

be a really nice way to go.

Perhaps you want this to feel like
its a highlighted area, maybe you just

need one point.

Maybe you need another point over here
to make it feel shadowy, you can go back

to the point menu, create a point and
maybe let's give it some sort-of

shadow kind-of contour.

That might be a bit much, but we'll leave
it there.

Okay, so you can do both.

When you're working in the line setting,
when you're on this line, you can kind-of

constantly add to it or make a separate
one if you've already moved on.

So here I can make a new one, maybe this
is my sort-of highlighted line.

If you try and cross over its not going
to really let you kind-of cross pass

the line, so you'd have to stop right
about here, but when you want to see

the effect, click to your black arrow tool
and you can kind-of get away from it and

see what's happening.

We have a sense of a, like, mountain point
happening here, like as, if there's

some volume, this might be a bit strong,
remember if you want to get back into

editing, make sure you have your object
selected and hit edit gradient and you

can keep editing this.

So this is really fun, practice drawing
gradients that are both

standard and free form, based on point
and line.

Last thing up that I'm going to show you
is our blend, um, also quick note the free

form is really amazing, it doesn't always
play nicely with everything, so just keep

that in mind, um, if you ever encounter
an error, sometimes if you have a very

very complex object, you can't
necessarily put a free form gradient

on it, just be warned.

Okay, so last up is blend.

I'm going to go to a different
document here.

Um, remember of course that your--
any of your objects can have a gradient.

I'm going to delete these ones so that we
have something more simple.

Okay, let's start with a rectangle.

I'm going to start with a color, let's
say green.

We don't really want a stoke.

Okay, so blending is a little different,
but it's a great way to start to

understand, uh, color spectrums and
our color harmonies.

So, I'm starting with green, I'm also
going to draw another shape, I'm going to

draw it over here--and actually
I'm going to edit this artboard

really quick just so we can work in a bit
longer orientation,

So, I'm going to use my artboard tool.

Okay, let's move these over.

Doesn't matter if they're the same size
and I actually want to shift this one.

So, click on it, and let's go to light
blue.

Okay, blending, this is a really
interesting thing.

You're going to start by drawing two
shapes, different colors, use that regular

selection tool to grab both, now object,
blend.

First thing you always going
to do is look at your blend options,

so this is a two-step process.

Inside blend options, we have a couple
choices, smooth color, specified steps.

Let's start with specified steps.

Eight is the number of steps, but this is
editable, let's do nine, why not.

And then we're going to say okay.

Photoshop now, once you commit this,
is going to blend from one color to the

other along nine steps of hue, in order
to make it do it, second part of the

process, object, blend, make.

So you have to do the option and then
you have to go back and say make,

there it is, boom.

Now, I had different sized objects, so you
can see it's also sort-of staggering down

in size, this is very interesting, these
are still objects that are editable,

you can edit them at the same time, I'm
just going to make it bigger so we can

kind-of see these a little bit better and
if you want to use your white arrow tool,

notice you can actually move your actual
steps, your actual lines.

So this is so interesting, not only did I
just create a really lovely sort-of

color spectrum, but it's broken up along
these steps.

Notice, if you're using your white arrow
tool, you can also--let's go up to our

layers panel here, here's our layers, you
can also, see--there's our line which is

called a path, our initial colors, so
perhaps you actually wanted to change

this color, of course you could target
this and go to something different.

I changed the end-step from that bright
blue to a purple, look at this lovely, um,

spectrum happening here.

If you want to, um, edit the individual
steps, you can also sort-of undo

this or separate them out.

We can do object, uh, expand, yeah,
I think this is what we want,

there it is, yup.

So, we say okay, now I actually have each
object, I need to ungroup it and now they

can be moved individually.

So this is an interesting way to also
make, um, to find colors that

good together because these are working
sort-of in an interesting spectrum.

So, that's one blend, let's make another
one.

You can do any shape, you don't have to do
a square, you can do circle, you could do,

um, whatever you want.

I'm going to make a perfect circle, hold
shift, and then I'm actually

going to copy this, command copy, command
paste, get that second one and I'm going

to move it over to here.

Let's change that color, so let's do,
let's do, uh, something real wild,

let's do a yellow.

Remember black arrow, selection tool,
grab both, object, blend part one,

blend option, instead of specified steps,
let's do smooth color and okay, part two,

tell illustrator to do it, object, blend,
make, here we go.

Now, this looks a lot more like a
gradient, right?

But again, interesting way to do it,
because we can expand this out,

if we wanted ever part of this.

I have it selected, object, expend, we're
going to expand the object of the

fill, that's fine, okay, whoa, look at
all these shapes, ungroup, what on Earth?

There's a lot happening here, I've just
selected a kind-of chunk of it, maybe I

want to move it out, this is an
interesting object.

Do I want just this one?

Move it up.

Maybe I sort-of want to pick and choose,
knowing that there is some sort-of shared,

uh, spectrum here, now I've gotten an
interesting color pallet.

So, those are the differences between
gradients and blends, start to use them

in your work, their very fun to do.