Happy Tuesday! As we approach Thanksgiving month, I thought Katherine’s request for a tutorial on feathers in Illustrator was a great idea this week. Since no style was specified in her request, I decided to share how to replicate two styles I love – organic and geometric/iconic. We’ll go over a bunch of quick tips, like easily altering paths, applying clipping masks, expanding strokes and utilizing the pathfinder palette. At the end of this tutorial, you’ll have an organic and geometric/iconic style feather you’ll be able to apply any color or texture to, alter easily, and implement to any application in both CMYK and RGB. Read on to see how!
How to Create Feathers in Illustrator
The two textures used in the class come from this Watercolor Texture Kit (streaked texture #7, soft texture #13)
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Maribeth | October 28, 2015
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Another fun tutorial, thank you! I really enjoy all your tutorials, but what I especially like is that I learn a new trick with each one that I didn’t know before. 🙂
Jess S. | October 28, 2015
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hi teela, for the first feather how did you get the pencil tool to remove those sections you drew, and also the adding on? what pencil settings did you use? i’ve never seen the pencil tool used this way so i’m very curious… i tried it out and wasn’t able to get the same results as you did. thanks so much!
Teela | Author | November 1, 2015
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Hey Jess! No pencil settings 🙂 In order for it to work, the base part of the feather has to be selected and the pencil has to start along a path and then hit the path again before you release – let me know if you’re still having trouble!
Emmalilly | June 14, 2016
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I’m having trouble with that first feather too. Can’t seem to make the pencil tool work more than once. Any suggestions for a newbie?
Teela | Author | June 15, 2016
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Hey – if you double click on your pencil, this is what my pencil is set to: http://138.68.151.169/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Screen-Shot-2016-06-15-at-2.39.32-PM.png Hopefully that helps!
Gina | December 14, 2016
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I’m having the same problem but can’t fix it 🙁 It works once, but after that, it won’t “cut away”.
Teela | Author | December 16, 2016
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It could be that the feather became deselected after the first cut – it always has to be selected in order for the pencil to ‘cut’ parts away
Tatiana | October 29, 2015
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Thank you, Teela! As always – extreamly useful. Always wanted to know how to draw feathers and you made my dream come true!
Teela | Author | November 1, 2015
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yay! Thanks for watching! 😀
julia | November 12, 2015
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Thanks for this tutorial! Love it and learned a lot!
Teela | Author | November 15, 2015
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yay! happy to hear 🙂