Day 3
Objectives
General objectives
- Students will be able to effectively apply and edit colors in their drawings
Specific learning outcomes
- Colors
- Students will be familiar with a variety of basic color tools and settings
- Students will be able to create a cohesive color theme
- Students will be able to create and edit gradients and other advanced color settings
- Stroke
- Students will understand the basics of the Stroke panel including caps, corners, and dashed lines
Practice files: https://files.learnsoftware.org/illustrator/
Outline
Intro/Hook [color palette created from color.adobe.com]
Color basics
- Color modes (CMYK/RGB)
- Differences, when to use which one
- Use RGB CMYK demo.jpg to demonstrate
- Example Question: Which color mode would you use for a website design?
- Color.adobe.com/Libraries
- Example Question: What makes a good color scheme?
- Go to color.adobe.com & show how to create own theme, search for one, or extract one from an image
- Save theme to Adobe account and it will appear in Illustrator under Libraries panel
- Use Color Apps.ai to demonstrate the next principles
- Swatches
- How to add new swatch, organize swatches, view different swatch libraries
- The Stroke Panel
- How to change the caps and corners of a stroke
- How to create a dashed line
- Eye dropper tool
Gradients and transparency
- Example Question: (while looking at the weather icon) What do you see happening with the colors in this icon?
- Gradient tool and panel
- Freeform gradients
- Opacity settings/transparency panel
Conclusion
- Recap
- Color basics, Gradients & transparency
- Next time
- Drawing
- Badges
Example Activities
Color Apps.ai
Have students recreate the color in the app icons using various color tools. Pick and choose which apps you will practice with, as all the relevant tools can be learned well without doing every app. Extras are there so students can get extra practice if there is extra time, or if there is a need to review processes students are struggling with. Below is a list of the tools that can be taught with each icon.
Snapchat
- Fill/Stroke
Spotify
- Stroke Panel
- Swatches
- Create new swatches
- Eyedropper
- Edit swatch
- Transparency
Weather
- Eyedropper
- Swatches
- Gradient panel
- Gradient tool
- Transparency
- Freeform Gradient