How to give vector art a watercolour paint effect

Watercolour and other paint filter looks come from the live pixel effects in Vectornation by Zaweba. There are 56 of them under the Effect menu, grouped as Artistic, Blur, Brush strokes, Distort, Pixelate, Sharpen, Sketch, Stylise, Texture and Video. Effect > Effect gallery shows them with thumbnails and lets you stack several together. Because they are live, the vector artwork underneath stays editable.

That combination is the useful part. You keep the clean, scalable shapes of a vector drawing, with a painted or textured finish on top, and can still change the drawing at any point.

How pixel effects work on vector art

A vector shape is maths, not pixels. To give it a painted look, the effect is rendered as an image at a resolution you choose, applied on top of the shape. Vectornation does this live: change the shape and the painted version is redrawn.

The resolution is set in Document raster effects settings, at 72, 150 or 300 ppi or a value of your own. Use 72 or 150 while you are designing, as it is quicker, and 300 for print so the texture doesn't look soft. For a large poster, 150 is often enough because it is seen from further away.

Using the Effect gallery

Select the artwork and choose Effect > Effect gallery. The gallery shows thumbnails of each effect so you can compare them rather than guess from names. Pick one and adjust its options; each effect has its own.

The gallery also stacks effects. A painterly result often comes from two or three together, such as an Artistic effect for the paint, a Texture effect for the paper and a slight blur to soften edges. Stack them, reorder them, and switch them off and on to compare.

Ideas for a painted finish

Look in Artistic and Brush strokes first. These groups hold the painterly effects. Try several on the same artwork, as each responds differently to flat colours, gradients and edges.

Add paper with Texture. The Texturiser can use your own texture pictures, so a scan of real watercolour paper or canvas gives a convincing surface.

Use Sketch for drawn looks, and Stylise for effects such as Glowing edges.

Keep some parts clean. Apply effects to a background or an illustration and leave crisp type on top. The contrast between painted image and sharp text tends to look intentional.

Mistakes to avoid

Effects look different at different resolutions. An effect set up at 72 ppi can look finer or coarser at 300 ppi. Switch to your output resolution before final tweaks.

Many stacked effects on big artwork can slow things down. Work on a small area while you set up the look, then apply it more widely.

Very small artwork can lose detail under heavy effects. Text especially can become unreadable, so don't put painted effects on small type.

Other painterly tools

Pixel effects are one route. Vectornation's brushes are another: calligraphic, art, scatter, pattern and bristle brushes give strokes a hand made quality while staying fully vector. Freeform gradients and gradient mesh give soft, blended colour. Combining these with a light texture effect often looks more natural than a heavy filter on its own.

For exporting, PNG, TIFF and PDF keep the effects as they look on screen. If the file goes to someone else's software, check it there, as not every program understands live effects.

A watercolour finish no longer means choosing between a painting program and a vector editor. Vectornation by Zaweba layers paint and texture over shapes you can still edit.