In today’s tutorial, I’m going to be showing you how to create this garden scene using the Appearance panel, Art and Scatter brushes. Along the way, you will see how Color Guides and using the Rectangular Grid Tool can help you put together a composition.
Resources
The stock images I’ll be using can be found on Photodune from here and here.
Step 1
Start by creating a New Document with a Portrait Orientation.
In the Toolbar, hold click on the Line Segment Tool to access the other tools within. You’re going to need the Rectangular Grid Tool. Double-click on this to bring up the Rectangular Grid Tool Options. Change the Horizontal and Vertical Dividers to “2″ and click on OK.
With the Rectangular Grid Tool, draw across the canvas. This will act as a guide only.
Step 2
Go to File > Place… and place the reference image on the canvas below the grid. Using the Free Transform Tool (E) to rescale and position the reference image into the grid. The grid itself is going to be used as a guide for the “Rule of Thirds“.
So I’ve positioned the reference so the arch is going through the centre and each one of the areas has some focal point. I don’t want to be too busy so I’m going to remove some elements and balance out other areas so as not to confuse the viewer.
Step 3
I’m going to organize my layers in the Layer panel. The reference image will be contained within the “Reference” layer folder. Then Create New Layer and Double-click on it to rename it “BG”. Within this layer folder I’ll draw a white fill Rectangle (M) at 50% Opacity. Then the rectangular grid will be within a New Layer named “Grid”.
I’ll begin adding shapes to the illustration within another layer folder, which I’ll rename “Bases”.
