I drew this pepper in Adobe Illustrator using the Gradient Mesh tool. I made a YouTube video of the Gradient Mesh process and it is one of my most viewed videos. When I look at the views (more 10,000 at this writing) I feel like a superstar.

YouTube viewer, Sarah Marquez, asked, “How did you do the stem?” First, let me say, I owe my Gradient Mesh prowess to the Red Pepper Gradient Mesh Tutorial by Brooke Nunez of LifeinVector.com

The Gradient Mesh Tutoria from Lifeinvector.com

So, how did I do the stem?

It is a bunch of long, thin shapes filled with green and brown linear gradients—not gradient meshes, but the good old Gradient Tool. Drawing all those shapes and filling them with linear gradients is not a quick process, but I think it makes a good “wooden” texture.

I drew the entire stem shape and filled it with a linear gradient from dark green to light green.

I drew many long, thin shapes filled with linear gradients.

This shows all the little linear gradients that make up the stem.

Below are my YouTube videos showing the gradient mesh part of the pepper. I don’t show my work on the stem in the videos. I just mention it at the end.

Let me know if you have any Gradient Mesh questions. (You could be one of the first to comment on one of my posts.)