You might remember these flowers from the Tattoo Flags tutorial. They are simple and very aesthetic. Start with a shape like this. Draw it with the pen tool. Make the color settings like this: Fill-Null (Transparent); Stroke - black.

Draw another shape on top of it, slightly longer and thinner.

Now select these two shapes. Copy them (Control-C) and then Paste them in front (Control-F). Now choose the Rotate Tool and click the bottom intersection of the two petals (This first click marks the rotation center). Then rotate the petals downward. Repeat this process one more time so you get a total of six petals. (Just remember, Control-C, Control-F, Rotate Click in center, Rotate move.)

Apply these color and fill settings. Make the stroke white. To apply the gradient, select all the petals. With the gradient tool, click in the center and drag out towards the tip of one of the petals. Make sure the gradient is set on radial and apply colors of your choice but in the same order as mine (White, Neutral Color, Bright Color.) The bright color will bring attention to the tips. (Image below is final product, your’s will look different.)

On your flower you will now notice that one of the petals is always in front, no matter how much you arrange them. Zoom in on this area to fix it.

First, add a point on the line where the intersection happens (Note, add it on the petal on top)

Then with the Convert Point tool and the White Pointer tool bend the line downwards so it aligns with the petal behind.

Do the same at the center point.

With the Convert Point tool and the White Pointer tool bend the line downwards so it aligns with the petal behind.

Now it should look perfect.

Now with the White Pointer tool, edit some of the tips’ direction so the petals don’t look like repeats:

In my final I made the stroke width thinner. All the flowers here are the same one, only rotated at different angles, and with colors changed.

Keywords: Adobe illustrator tutorial, flowers, how to draw flowers, how to decorate an image with flowers, flowers in illustrator, gradient based flowers.