Recently i’m doing a lot of sketches. Mostly in the evening when it’s quiet and when i’m done with client work. For inspiration, i look regularly on Flickr. I find a lot of impressive material. Lots of collections and sets from amazing people. I found this collection where I took some inspiration of for this drawing tutorial.

Final illustration "Sheep Love"

I have been playing around with the illustration to do an iPhone and iPad wallpaper also, so if you want to grab the wallpaper for your mobile devices go ahead.

download the 1440x900px wallpaper

download the iPhone wallpaper

download the iPad wallpaper

Step 1 : drawing the sheep

I found an old drawing tutorial on Flickr where i took the inspiration from to draw the sheep, here's how i did it:

Step 2 : import the drawing into Illustrator (or another application)

Open a new document and place the original drawing onto a new layer and dim the layer to 50% (double click the layer) before adding a new one on top of it.

Select the Pen tool and draw the shapes with only a black stroke and an empty fill, start with the first one, select this shape and copy it over the second one, adjust the shapes till the last one. Make sure your last shape has a closing path.

Step 3 : close the shapes

Before applying a texture or color to the shape, make sure the path of the shape is closed. You can do this by selecting end points with the direct selection tool (A) and join 2 end points by clicking cmd+J (command + J). Or selection Object in the menu bar > Path > Join. Once this is done, we can move on and apply a color.

Step 4 : applying a texture to the shape

Once you have a shape, i always copy the layer to a new layer to make sure I have a copy of my traced shape in case something goes wrong. with the new shape, apply a fill color like black or brown.

• once your shape has a color, you can import the texture you want to apply
• from the menu, click File > Place and select the texture file to import
• click Mask once the file has been placed onto your image
• make sure the shape is on top of the texture before applying a Clipping Mask
• once both the shape and the texture are on the same layer in your layers palette
• select both shapes and right click and select "Make Clipping Mask"
• you should now see the texture applied to your shape, the color of the shape is gone

Step 5 : Setting up the color scheme

For this Sheep theme, i selected a lot of beige and brown colors in combination with orange for the texture.

You can download the swatches if you like as an ASE file to import into your swatches palette

Step 6 : setting up the background

For the background, I combined a textured background with the Scribble effect in Illustrator. I found this scribble effect a good metaphor for the sheep because it reminded me of real wool.

Start by hiding all viewable layers (click on the eye icon next to the layer) and make a new layer, put it beneath all other layers. Select File > Place and select the texture file you want to use as a background. Once it's placed, click Mask and give it a color.

Next, draw a rectangle the size of your canvas and give it a color, next set the Opacity to 100% multiply. With the rectangle selected go to the menu Effect > Stylize and choose Scribble.

In the Scribble dialog box, set these Options:

• Settings : Custom
• Angle: 0
• Path Overlap: -1.25px - Variation: 0px
• Line Options: Stroke Width: 0.8px
• Curviness: 35% - Variation: 100%
• Spacing: 0.3px - Variation: 7px

You can adjust these options to your liking,check Preview to see the changes you make and when you're finished click OK. You can adjust these same settings from the Appearance Panel (doubleclick the Scribble Effect to adjust)

Now the background is finished, we can just click the eye icons again to view the other layers.

Step 7: Setting the type and Shapes

To finish this illustration, use the sheep shape and copy it by clicking and holding down "Alt" while dragging. This creates a duplicate of the current selection. Do this twice to have 3 sheep shapes. Flip the second shape by selecting it and in the menu Object > Transform > Reflect. Scale the little sheep by selecting it and choose Object > Transform > Scale and check Preview to see the changes. Click 50% or smaller. I put a heart shape on top of the 3 shapes and set the Opacity to Multiply.

Type the text on a new layer and place it on top of all the other layers. I choose the Ziggurat font for the text "Sheep Love". I set the Opacity of the font to Color Burn 100% so that the texture and Scribble Effect shines through the letters.

So, hopefully your creative engine has started and feel free to drop me a line or download the wallpaper. Thanks for reading this.