Gradient Meshes make a fantastic base for creating exciting abstract artworks & designs — and in this step-by-step class, you will learn how to work methodically and easily develop sophisticated compositions with beautiful colour transitions and elaborate organic distortions!

Mesh-based designs can appear rather complex, but when you focus on the different aspects of the design at each stage of the process, you can develop your work visually in a more advanced manner, take full creative control over your artwork, and customise it to make it uniquely yours!

I am Evgeniya Righini-Brand, a graphic designer and founding partner at Attitude Creative, and experimenting with gradient-based designs in Adobe Illustrator has been one of my favourite creative playgrounds for years. I teach a popular Skillshare class Mastering Gradients in Adobe Illustrator, where, amongst other things, I cover the basics of working with gradient meshes and tips and tricks for distorting them in an experimental manner. And in this class, I am excited to share with you a different, more intentional approach to working with Gradient Meshes and break down my complete process of creating exciting vibrant abstract gradient artworks!

Following this class, you will be able to create your own sophisticated abstract gradient artworks by:

gaining an understanding of what goes into creating this type of work;
how you can split the process into clear manageable steps;
and how you can use a range of Adobe Illustrator’s tools to develop your meshes into something intentional and captivating!

In this class, I will step-by-step guide you through all of the stages of creating artworks with Gradient Meshes including:

developing the structure of distortions using the Direct Selection, Anchor Point, Gradient Mesh & Distortion tools;
creating exciting vibrant color transitions using the Recolor Artwork tool and refining coloring using the Color Swatches and HSB Color Sliders;
trouble-shooting and refining the composition;
integrating solid geometric elements into the mesh using Clipping & Opacity Masks to elevate the work, give it more dimension and add a personal stylistic touch;
enhancing your work with easy texturing and colour adjustment techniques;
saving your work for print and digital use.

If you are a designer, illustrator or an artist who loves the look of abstract organic colourful artworks and would like to create your own to use in digital or print design, branding or packaging projects, print out to use as wall art, or sell as print-on-demand products — this is the class for you!

Recommended Previous Skills & Experience:

Whilst the step-by-step nature of this class will allow you to follow the process regardless of your level, for best experience you’ll need to know your way around Adobe Illustrator and have some understanding of the principles of creating vector artworks and working with the colours and gradients in the digital environment.

I am super excited to let you in on how I create my abstract mesh-based designs and cannot wait to see what this class inspires you to create!

Related Graphic Design Classes:

Software:

To make it easier to follow along, you’ll need a Creative Cloud version of Adobe Illustrator. You can download the latest trial version of the Adobe Illustrator from adobe.com. However, because this class uses mostly Adobe Illustrator’s core tools and techniques, you should be able to complete this class using any version of Adobe Illustrator.

Giveaway:

To celebrate your creativity and the launch of this class, we’ll be running a giveaway of 1 year of Skillshare Membership!

To enter this giveaway:

watch this class:
post a project in this class;
leave a class review;
and follow us on Skillshare.

To double your chance of winning by being entered into the draw twice, share the work you create on Instagram as well as posting it as a projects in this class, tag us @attitudecreative and use tag #AbstractGradientsWithAttitude, so we can easily find your posts and share your work with our Instagram community!

Entry deadline is at noon EST on Sunday, 2 October 2022. The winner will be drawn at random & announced the following day.

I cannot wait to see your projects, and good luck!

Shannon Barclay

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