Hi creative friends and welcome to my class Guide to Illustrator's Pathfinder Tool: Drawing Butterflies. I hope you enjoyed the class and found it inspiring to start designing shapes and characters in Illustrator. As a fun project for this class, I'm proposing to draw butterflies using simple shapes and the pathfinder tools because butterflies have a simple, symmetrical shape, you can "abstractisize" as much as you want and still get a recognizable shape and.. they're fun!

I started my project by sketching simple ideas. No pressure here, just loose sketches to get me started.

 

I brought the sketch in Illustrator and, with the use of ellipses, rectangles and the pathfinder tool, I've built my motifs. I put them together and build a mini collection of patterns....well....actually 2 collections because I had so much fun drawing the butterflies that I built multiple motifs.

 

And the second collection:

 

Wohoho, this was so much fun! I hope you enjoy the class and it gets in the mood to start you creating! That's the beauty of Illustrator: you can do things in so many different ways and using different tools and sometimes, you just need a nudge in the right direction to expand your skills toolbox! Happy making and I can't wait to see your designs!

Daniela