the vectorbot's playground

Creating a wood grain texture with the gradient tool


Difficulty: Intermediate

Many people have asked me how to create a wood grain like this before. So this is a guide to show how it is done in Adobe Illustrator (CS3 is the version I'm using).

First, we will need 2 shades of brown to create the effect of a wood grain. Let's add these 2 brown colors into the swatches palette. We can use other shades of brown depending on which type of wood texture we are trying to achieve here, like a lighter shades for pine or darker shades for walnut or mahogany.















Tips: It'll be easier and more flexible if the colors are saved as swatches. This way you don't need to remember the percentage of the colors if you are going to use it multiple of times. It'll also be easier to change the colors if the colors are used in a gradient.


Now open the gradient palette (Window>Gradient or Command+F9 on Mac and Ctrl+F9 on Windows.). Drag the 1st brown color from the swatches palette to the 0% or the left most of the Gradient Slider in the gradient palette. Then the 2nd brown to somewhere around 2-3% of the slider. We don't need to be very accurate here, as this is an organic texture we are trying to create. In the example here I'm placing it at 2.5%.

We can now duplicate the 1st color to somewhere around 5% by holding down option on Mac/alt on Windows and drag the 1st gradient stop (The one located at 0%) to somewhere around 5% (2.5% after the 2nd gradient stop). Then we do the same to the 2nd gradient stop and keeps on repeating, creating an alternate light and dark colors along the gradient slider with the gaps around 2-4%. As I've said before we don't need to do it accurately. The gradient stops can be closer to or further away between each stops.

After we filled up the whole gradient slider, remember to change the gradient type to "radial" and we can see now we have a circular pattern similar to the pattern on a tree rings. Now we can save the gradient as a swatch by dragging it into the swatches palette.

Tips: We should always save a gradient as complicated as this as a swatch so that we don't need to redo it later on.

But wait, this look a little too geometrical to be a real wood grain. So what we can do now is to set the center point of the gradient pattern to anywhere off-centered for an organic look. 1st we fill a square with the gradient we have just created, then with the square is still selected we select the Gradient tool from the Tools palette or press "G" to select it with a shortcut key. Now as in the 2nd diagram at the bottom, we drag a line in the square to somewhere out of the square with the gradient tool. This is going to set the starting and the end of the gradient fill. Now with the gradient tool still selected we click somewhere in the square to set the center point of the gradient as in the 3rd diagram at the bottom. Now we have a wood rings pattern. We can experiment with different starting, ending and center point for a different result. We have created our 1st wood rings pattern, but what if we want it to look like a plank. It's easy, we just need to scale down the square vertically as in the 4th diagram at the bottom to achieve the result.

Tips: When you expand or compress a shape with a radial gradient fill, the gradient will be scaled together with the shape. This is very useful to created an effect like this.

We are now able to create a wood grain with gradient, let's go a little further to create a wood planks texture with what we have learned here.

Let's start by drawing a square with the Rectangle Tool (press "M" for shortcut), then continue with the 4 sides like the 2nd diagram at the bottom to create a beveled look. I'm not going to cover the way to draw the shapes here as I presume you have already know the basic of using Illustrator. As we can see here, the top and the bottom of the beveled sides are made bigger then the left and the right sides because we are going to compress vertically later on for the 3D wood plank effect. Now filled it with the radial gradient we have created as in the 3rd diagram, drag with the gradient tool to set the starting and the end point of the gradient from the center to slightly out side of the shapes, and click somewhere in the shapes to set the off-centered center point (starting point) like the 5th diagram at the bottom.

Now compress the shapes down vertically to something similar to the top diagram to the right. The shapes and the wood grain are now look right, but it still look flat. In order to create a 3D feel to it, we are going to lighten the paths at the top and the right sides as in the 2nd diagram to the right and darken the bottom and the left sides to something similar to the 3rd diagram.

If we are using Adobe Illustrator CS3 or later we can use the "Recolor Artwork/Live Color" function to make the adjustment (Edit>Edit Colors>Recolor Artwork... or the button in the red circle at the following diagram found in the "Control Palette" located below the menu bar.)
After the "Live Color" palette popped up, click the "Edit" button and we will see a color wheel. Click the "Link harmony colors" button at the lower right of the color wheel so that both the lighter and the darker shades of brown will be adjusted together. Now drag the brightness slider to the left to darken or to the right to lighten the selected paths. Click ok when we are satisfied with the result. For a more realistic 3D look, we can adjust all the 4 sides separately. For example brightest for the top then 2nd brightest for the right path and darkest for the bottom and 2nd brightest for the right path.

What if we are using Adobe Illustrator CS2 or older? Then we will need to create a lighter and a darker wood grain gradient separately for the lighter and the darker paths. Or we can achieve the same result by copying the paths which need to be adjusted and place it on top (Command+C for Mac or Ctrl+C for Windows to copy then Comand+F/Ctrl+F to place in front) and fill the top paths with a brown color then choose "Screen" for lighter or "Multiply" for darker color in the "transparency" palette. We can also lower the opacity percentage for a more subtle effect.

After we get the result we want, group the paths together (Command+G on Mac or Ctrl+G on Windows) and duplicate it by option+drag on Mac or alt+drag on Windows to create a series of planks similar to the diagram to the right. This can be used as a wooden floor or crate or something like that. Happy with the result? but wait, the planks are identical to each other now. We have to make the planks to look different by setting the starting and end points of each plank separately. Now select the 2nd plank and choose the gradient tool and drag and click as we did previously and repeat it for the rest of the planks.

That's all for this tutorial and hopefully it's clear enough and I wish that you like it. Stay tune and happy vectoring.