Drawing Flowers

Open Adobe Illustrator CS5 (Start > All Programs > Adobe Illustrator CS5.

Start a new document (File > New) with the following settings:

Open the Flowers color swatch by first opening the swatch palette (Window > Swatches).

At the Swatch palette click the Swatch Library Menu icon at the bottom of palette to open the drop down menu. Select Nature then Flowers.

Your Flower Swatch should now appear open in the document:

Select the Ellipse Tool .

At the Swatch palette click the blue swatch (C=41 M=30 Y-0 K=0) :.

Make sure that you have no stroke selected .

Hold Shift while drawing out a circle as shown .

With the circle selected, go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Pucker & Bloat:

and use these settings:

Your ellipse should now look like this:

Select the shape again and while holding the Alt key click and drag out a copy of the shape with the Black Arrow Selection Tool .

Rotate the shape as shown:

Place the rotated shape onto the original to make a flower:

Now you will group both shapes together to form one shape. Select both shapes by dragging around both with the Black Arrow Select Tool . Go to Object > Group to group them together:

Make a copy of the flower (Alt + drag) and with the new flower still selected click the yellow color in the color palette (C=0 M=2 Y=50 K=0).

Make the yellow flower a little smaller and place it as shown:

Select the Ellipse Tool with the fill color of your choice (I chose a shade of purple) and draw out a small circle. Here is what you should have at this point:

Select all three parts of the flower, hold down the Alt key and make a copy. Change the inner circle to the color of your choice.

Select each flower separately and to to Object > Group . Then place them as shown. If necessary, remove the right flower in front of the left one, go to Object > Arrange > Bring to Front.

Select your Pencil Tool . Change your stroke color to any shade of green.

Draw a stem and keep it selected.

With the stem selected, change the stroke weight to 3 px.

Click the Black Arrow Selection Tool to select the stem then right-click the stem and select Arrange > Send to Back to move the stem behind the flower.

Draw out another stem as shown.

Select your Pencil or Pen Tool. Change your Fill color to any green then draw out a leaf shape.

Make a copy of the leaf and

Select your Type Tool . Click on the canvas and type "Flowers by your name."

Select the text with your mouse. On the Type Toolbar located at the top of the document window, change the font size as needed . Here is are my settings: Place the text as shown.

Save your file with the name Flowers.