Creating leaf shape illustrator CS6

Question

Trying to recreate this shape. I've got this far but would like to add smooth curvature my attempt is the purple stroked shape.

Answer 1

Use the Pen Tool to draw the shape. There's nothing particularly difficult here if you learn how to use the tool. If you don't get the curves perfect first time, you can adjust them later using the Direct Selection tool to tweak the Bézier handles.

Example

Answer 2

You can create this by merely drawing a perfect circle. It's several extra steps but it takes absolutely no skill with the Pen tool.

To draw a circle, hold down the Shift key while dragging with the Ellipse Tool.

Obviously, you can start by merely drawing a path for the arc (step 4) if you are at least that confident with the Pen Tool.

Once you have the final shape, you can use Object > Envelope Distort > Make With Warp again using Flag to tweak the shape more...

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_{Incase the image gets lost or broken...}

• Draw a circle
• Use the Convert Anchor Point Tool and Click the side anchors, changing them to corner anchors
• Double-click the Scale Tool - Non-Uniform - 150%H, 50%V
• Delete the bottom anchor point
• Object > Envelope Distort > Make with Warp - Flag +100% Bend
• Object > Expand
• Object > Ungroup
• Double-click Reflect Tool - Flip Horizontal COPY
• Double-click Reflect Tool - Flip Vertical
• Manually move to align ends
• Join end anchors

Answer 3

In case you want to make both 'edges' of the leaf look same, you can use pen tool and copy & rotation.

1. First draw on edge using any method which works best for you. There are many ways. I'd use a pen tool. You can use Object > Path > Simplify to make it a bit smoother or manually adjust the anchor points.

2. Then copy the same path, reflect it (using Transform tools) both horizontally and vertically and then drag it so it snaps to the end of 1st path. Then you can join them using Object > Path > Join option.

Note: I'm not very sure if CS6 has all of these features, especially snapping, but I just saw some tutorials about CS6 and I think it should work fine. But importantly, it's more of a practice and what works best for you, rather than using some particular tool or feature that exists or doesn't exist. You can spend some time on learning to draw with pen tool which will make things easier.