Since Web Designer Wall was launched last week, I received several emails regarding on how I made the main illustration background. I thought I should put up a quick Illustrator tutorial so everyone can share. This article will outline the main steps on how I made the flower pattern in Illustrator. Hopefully, this can answer your question.

1. Sketch

Always draw your illustration on paper first. This will save your time.

flower sketch

2. Trace

The illustration was traced in Adobe Illustrator using my favorite tracing technique. First, import the scan in Illustrator and set Layer Opacity to 20%.

layer option

Then trace it with the Pen tool.

tracing pen tool

3. Coloring

After you've done the tracing, go to Colourlovers.com (or any color palette sites) and find the color themes that you like. What I did was copy the sample image from the site, then paste it directly in Illustrator.

color palettes

Now fill the path color by using the Eyedropper tool.

eyedropper

With the Eyedropper tool active, select the path, then click on the image to pick the color. That's it. Quick and easy.