Making of a Valentine greeting card - Part 1: The Heart

Valentine’s is just a few days away so today we’ll be creating this Valentine Day Greeting card.


This tutorial will be divided in two parts. In Part 1 we will create the Heart itself. In Part 2 we’ll create the background for our card.

Let’s begin.


1. Create a big circle (L+Shift). Press Shift + C on your keyboard and choose circle’s bottom anchor point. It will turn from round to pointy.
2. Press A and choose the upper and bottom anchor points and pull them down a bit till it looks like a huge water drop.


3. On a new layer create another, smaller circle and duplicate it (Alt+ drag). Go to Window + Align and choose Vertical Align Bottom. Place as shown.


4. If needed, pull the upper point down a bit more to create a shape of a heart.


5. Choose all figures and go to Window - Pathfinder. Press Add and Expand.

6. Duplicate (Alt+drag) the heart twice and place as shown.


7. Choose both hearts, go to Pathfinder and choose Divide and Ungroup.

8. Choose the right part of the divided heart and place as shown. Alight to Top and Right. Erase the leftovers.



9. Create another copy of the original heart and move it aside. Press R and choose Hearts bottom anchor. You will see a small blue circle appearing above it. Press Alt and rotate to right as shown.


10. Choose both hearts, go to Pathfinder window again and press Divide and Ungroup (rightclick).


11. Choose the left part and place as shown.


12. Place it as shown. Make this detail a little smaller by moving corners. This will be the a white highlight
13. Another way to create this highlight is to draw a crescent shape with a Pen tool.

It’s time to color the heart.


14. Choose Cherry color for the right part and White for the Left. Delete Stroke for both.
15. The heart itself will be colored with Radial gradient colors - Red and Yellow. Apply by pressing from upper the left corner of the heart.

The heart is ready.

In Part 2 of this tutorial we'll be making a background for our Valentine greeting card.

If you have any question regarding this tutorial - don't hesitate to post it.

First thing first: Dicipline

I love drawing.

I love doing creative things.

And I love seeing the finished image going out to live its own life.

The thing is that I lack the discipline to create on a daily basis.
I slack. And I procrastinate.
So here I am. Making a commitment to myself.
And no, it's not another New Year resolution.

It's a goal.

A goal to develop my drawing skills during the next year and the years after.

This blog will be some kind of self report of this development. It will be the place for me to share my progress with everybody else. It will become my second art school.

This blog will also be a collection of useful exercises to practice basic art of sketching and doodling. Beside those I will publish my own drawing tutorials which will some kind be conclusions of my studies.

I hope I will keep this goal and make it happen.

Good luck to me and you.

Let the doodling begin!