Mother Theresa Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

Angeline Chen – Mother Theresa – Vector Genius Adobe Illustrator Tutorial – February 2012

Mother Theresa Sketches

After collecting the references of Mother Teresa, I sketched on the tracing paper quickly, trying to keep it loose. Each sketch takes around less than one minute in order to catch Mother Teresa’s personality which is the most important foundation of the whole process.

I like the third sketch from left and decided to go with it, improving on it by putting another tracing paper on top of it and eventually rendered it in order to see what it looks like, the form, shape and mood.

Rendered Sketch of Mother Theresa

Then I scanned it and placed it in illustrator. Using the pen tool, I created shapes over it, trying to simplify it, working from bigger shapes such as the headdress, face to smaller shapes like the wrinkles. I also keep in mind on two to three values for each area, from light to dark. Pathfinder tool is my most favorite tool as it really helps you to save a lot of time and allows you to experiment with different shapes quickly.

Step 1, 2 and 3

In the final step, I added in textures and adjusted the blend mode: multiply and overlay, and opacity. This will give it a more interesting, old vintage look and help to create the overall warm mood too.