Christmas project

This employs Gradient Mesh, variations of the Rectangle tool, Live Trace on the wreath, the Text tool, the Swatch tool and adjustments to the opacity.

The finished project.

The pattern for the background, which is a cloud and some snow falling.  Above is the full pattern by itself.

This required no tutorials.  Seriously!!!

Pattern

 

It works better if the Swatch tool is used rather than the brush tool.

Business card

This is the card for my pseudobusiness, Lunar Solstice signed.

CATE Logo

This is my logo example for CATE, or Career and Technology Education.

Logo

This is my logo for Lunar Solstice signed.
I wanted a logo with the shape of a moon to symbolize peace and to go with the company title (luna= moon).  I also wanted to reflect my desire to be in a universe where everything is at rest, so the crescent is in blue.  The company is also supposed to be unique, one founded "once in a blue moon." (Pardon the pun.)  This logo is also supposed to be professional, and to be professional, a company has to be well rounded, like the moon.  The light inner circle is a highlight used to give the impression that the logo is a sphere, which is more round than a circle.  The gray lines in the blue crescent are made to resemble the components of a computer chip, so that the logo also has a techy look.

And no, this was not modeled off the Death Star!

Expression Project

The words are arranged in a circular shape to contribute to the restful feeling, but also to state that this is my cycle of emotions.  Each of these words is has a separate font and leading to emphasize their meaning.  The words are unshelved and unframed, since it does me no good to frame my personality on the wall or place it on a shelf when I can live it instead and let others see for themselves.  If the shadows left me, then my personality would reflect my happy and free emotions. When the layers are peeled away, all that remains is my soul behind the mirror.  The mirror in the center reflects my true face, hidden behind a shell of gray.  This shell keeps the darkness away from the my personality.  The water in the mirror flows as I do, and the plant growing from the pool of water displays how I believe that life will always find a way, even in the most adverse of situations.  The mirror does not have smooth edges that blend with the shell, since they completely oppose each other.  My figure is sideways to create a sense of peace within the safety of the shell.  The shadows are in the corners, held at bay, and are triangles to symbolize my conflict with them.  While my face may be towards the center, it is more to the right, since that's the way I want to live, always doing what is right.

3-D Object

This is my creation from a tutorial on creating a 3D pair of dice using Illustrator.  Using the Gradient Mesh tool was the hardest part of this assignment.  One highlight of the tutorial involved the resulting pictures, in which the dice numbers were incorrect, since 1 should be on the opposite side of 6.