The initial concept for my latest assignment for the Lilla Rogers Make Art That Sells Assignment Bootcamp was to experiment with jello molds. While I did experiment with the wiggly stuff a bit in the initial stages, I didn’t have a ton of time to devote to this project since I had some other deadlines to meet. I decided to go in a French patisserie direction and use this assignment as part of my My Year of Amélie project too.
I want to show you some of the initial sketches before we get to the final piece. Note: This is not ALL of the preliminary sketches. I drew A LOT of freaking macarons, people. And sorry about the weird color/lighting on some of these. I snapped some photos with my iPhone this morning before I rushed out the door for breakfast and the lighting sucked. I tried to brighten them up quickly.
By the way…you guys who draw or photograph food constantly? Do you get hungry? I wanted cake even more than usual when I was working on this project.
I picked a few sketches out that I liked best, photographed them, and opened them up in Illustrator and used the Image Trace feature. I’m going to go over this next part with you in hopes that someone with more experience will give me a shortcut. I clicked Expand and turned all my my sketches into editable paths and began to clean them up. So…here’s the part I’m wondering about. Do you guys simplify the paths before you start cleaning them up or do you just dig in and start deleting anchor points to get straighter lines? Am I overprocessing my work? What’s the best way to do it?
I cleaned up, chose my final illustrations, colored, and arranged them. And here it is. My final piece for the Lilla Rogers Make Art That Sells Assignment Bootcamp March Gallery.
I wish I’d had a little more time, but I’m happy with the way it turned out. I like the fun, springtime color palette. Now I want to go to Paris, or at least eat macarons.
If you have any Illustrator tips for vectorizing sketches, let me know! xo