Gradient Art

You might be wondering what a gradient art is. It is simply any design piece whose main feature is a gradient or collection of gradients. The following OS X wallpaper is a popular example of this style:

The above image can easily be re-created using Flash, and we will try to get something close to it in this tutorial. Before I proceed, let me display the few drawing tools that you might use.

You can find the following icons in your Tools toolbar:

	Fill Allows you to change your shapes' fill color.
	Gradient Transform Tool When you select a gradient fill and click on this toolbar item, you can change the orientation and spread of your gradient beyond the default horizontal effect.
	Resize/Skew/Rotate Any selected shape can be resized, skewed, and rotated when this toolbar item is selected.
	Pencil The pencil allows you to draw freehand on your stage.
	Draw Rectangle You can draw a rectangle using this tool.
	Draw Line Allows you to draw a straight line.
	Envelope Allows you to skew and transform your rectangle in non-linear ways.

Let's get Started
Basically, from my view, the above image can be recreated using gradient colors and transparencies. With that in mind, let's proceed.

First, set your background to be a solid color. I'll use a darker shade of blue:

Now, let's create a shape. To create a shape, you can start with whatever you are comfortable with. You may use the pen tool or create some basic shape and then modify it. I created a rectangle and created a curve by dragging the right edge of it:

After a shape is created, now it is time to give it a gradient fill color. You can change the gradient settings from the Color Mixer panel. Here, I have selected a lighter color than what I had for the background. On the left side, I set the alpha to 0, and on the right side, I set alpha to 33:

Feel free to use whichever colors you want. Regardless of which colors you picked, you will notice that you have now created a fading gradient. A fading gradient essentially means that the one side of the gradient will tend to blend to the original background color thanks to our low Alpha setting.

After you have your gradient setup, the shape you created will reflect the new color. If it has not, select the Fill Color tool from the toolbox and click on the shape you created to give it the gradient fill:

Let's add a few more shapes and gradients on the next page!

Onwards to the next page!

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