Struggling to achieve this gradient effect

Question

I'm attempting to recreate these paintings digitally, but having a very difficult time achieving a similar gradient. I'm pretty new to illustrator, so I'm not sure if it's meant to be a gradient stretched across a grid, or if there are opacity masks involved. I know it's not possible to completely replicate the touches of a real life painting, but I would love some guidance, or if there are any resources that touch upon the techniques used to create something like this..

Answer 1

In your first example, there is no gradient in those fills, it's an optical illusion. If you take just one of these pieces in isolation, you will see there is no gradient in it.

Anyway, I would use blends to create such designs, rather than gradients.

Here's a very rough example below, showing some elements. Although, I'm sure you will get the general idea, adjusting these into a repeating pattern may be quite complex.

Another simple blend example showing the optical illusion

Answer 2

Here I suggest this method:

• This method is non-destructive.
• For such design, you better stay neat and precise at first.
• Here I prefer a main file with resolution of 1000px square, a symbol object with size of 100px square as those gradient tiles, and another file as texture Gradient background with resolution of 10px square.

1. Create a file with an artboard sized 10 x 10px.

1.1. Create a rectangle in middle of artboard same size as it, and start gradient it as you like, to get exact square/pixels for that gradient, change the DPI of the raster effects from -> Effect/Document Raster Effect Setting to 72 dpi.

1.2. Save this file somewhere.

2. Create a file with an artboard sized 1000 x 1000px.

2.1. From -> File/Place add that file with gradient you've drawn and resize it to fit the 1000 pixels in width and length; Now you see that tiley-gradient you wanted is formed here.

2.2. Now create a new layer above current one and into that, add a rectangle with size 100x100px and place it in very top-left corner of the artboard.

2.3. Add a favorite gradient to that.

2.4. Open Symbols Panel from-> window/symbols - in symbols panel right top corner press three-line options and press "New Symbol" while tile rectangle selected to save it as symbol.

2.5. Now alt-drag it to right to duplicate it and align new one edge-to-edge with original, while you selected new one start pressing ctrl-D to repeat that duplicate until you reach to the right edge of the artboard.

2.6. Select row of the gradient tiles you created and duplicate them down and repeat the copy with same method before to reach the bottom edge of the artboard.

Now you have a 1000x1000px artboard, with two layers, below one contains the placed pixelated gradient from another file, and above layer contains 10 by 10 symbols sized 100x100px (rectangles with a gradient applied to) which fits whole of height and width of the artboard. Now you can change blend mode of all gradient tiles by selecting them from top layer and change it from -> window/Transparency.

** You can change the Background gradient by opening that file you created first, change it and save it and back to the main file.

• You can change the gradient tile by double click one of tiles and inside edit mode of symbol, change the gradient to your desire.
• You can add that noises by creating a new layer on top off all, create a rectangle sized the artboard make it white, add effect from -> effect/[photoshop effect section]/texture/grain - then change the blend mode of this noise effect as you like.*

Comment me if any more helps required.