1. Firstly, I needed inspiration for my vector landscape. I turned to the 2009 film Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I had just watched, as my blueprint. I loved the scenery from the movie so I decided I would create my own vector landscape inspired by it. When I entered Ai, I created a new, vertical canvas. With my pen tool, I drew a rectangle across my canvas and changed it to the orange-yellow gradient. I then used the eyedropper tool to match up the gradient to the original photo as much as possible. After that, I used the pen tool to draw out my mountains. I traced the original photo's hills. I then used the direct selection tool to round out some edges. I went to FX and created a drop shadow on my hills to make them look more 3D. For my sun, I used the pen tool to create an ellipse shape. I made it orange with the color options, and changed the texture in FX. I also used an FX tool, outer glow, and made it bright yellow as to make the sun look more bright and realistic. For my stars, I repeated the same steps for my sun, but then I went into FX and used the Pucker and Bloat option to make it look like a star. Afterwards, I used the symbol tool and made my star a symbol. I then used the symbol tool to scatter stars across my landscape. For finishing touches, I took silhouette photos off google and removed their backgrounds. My silhouettes were of trees, fences, rocks, grass, and an excavator. When done, I exported it as  PNG using all the artboards. 

2. Animators and color stylists use Ai to create interesting and unique art pieces.

3. I set to create the landscape of a still from Fantastic Mr. Fox. I would have liked it to have more detail, but since it's a vector landscape I ultimately decided not to worry too much. I think it turned out pretty nice. 

4. I believe I demonstrated that I met the criteria and understood it (3). I would like to give myself a 4 but there are still things I am confused about and not entirely comfortable using.