Discover how to use Adobe Illustrator CS3 to produce a beautiful Pacific scene. A step-by-step tutorial demonstrates how to draw realistic waves, palm trees, and other objects.
To create such a background, first of all you have to draw a vertical rectangle. Colour it with tropical blue. Look in the Bright swatch palette.
Form a new layer. Use the Pen tool to set the clouds.
Open the Beach swatch palette. Create a new layer. Draw the distant islands using the Pen tool.
For creating the water highlight, select the Charcoal brush and a light blue colour and add some strokes.
On a new layer, using the Pen tool, draw the land area. Then use the Ellipse tool to make the circles.
Create another layer and place it below the land layer. Draw the bse of the palm tree using the Pen tool.
Draw the half portion of a palm leaf.
Choose the top and bottom points of the palm leaf and click on Average and choose Vertical.
Without leaving the selection the half leaf, reset the bounding box. Double-click on the Reflective tool and choose Vertical. Press Copy.
For zooming in go to View mode. Shift the other half of the palm leaf inward. Make sure it overlaps by at least one pixel. Select the both halves and move to Pathfinder and click on Add to Shape Area. Click Expand.
Select the Rotate tool. Then move the Anchor Point to the top of the palm tree base. Alt+drag the one leaf around. Continue the duplication of leaf press Control+D several times.
You can readjust the size of each leaf. If you want to use Wrap on any of the leaves, it can be done easily. And the island background is ready.
