How to Paint a Portrait Digitally
- 1). Open a high resolution photo in Adobe Illustrator. Hit "Z" on your keyboard to activate the Zoom tool. Select a portion of the photo on your screen (most appropriately, the portion of the photo on which you want to start your trace).
- 2). Activate the layers in the Windows panel or click F7 to do so. Rename layer 1 "photo" and then create a new layer, renaming it appropriately, depending on what feature you would like to start your drawing with (e.g., the left eyebrow). Lock the "photo" layer but keep the eye icon activated on it.
- 3). Select the Pen tool by clicking the icon in the tools panel or by pressing the "P" key. Then, trace around the feature you wish to start with, making sure there is no fill or stroke open on the colors panel (hit the question mark key to remove a color on fill and/or stroke).
- 4). Close the feature you just traced by using the Pen tool to connect the last click to your starting point. To select a color with which to fill it, go to the colors panel and chose an appropriate hue. You may play around with the color palette to create your own hue. If you do that, click on the color and drag it into your swatches panel so that you have it for later use.
- 5). Use the Smooth tool to correct any ragged edges in your drawing by placing your cursor on the Pencil tool, clicking and scrolling down to select the second object in the list. Run your cursor over the object you drew to smooth it out. You can adjust the depth of the smoothness by double-clicking on the icon.
- 6). Select another section of your digital photo and repeat the steps until you have completed the portrait.
