Hi, I'm fairly new to Illustrator and have been going through a lot of tutorials on using the program with the goal of converting a number of paintings into vector artwork.
I can't seem to find any techniques that will help me shade and color what I have so far.
Here is the original, which I used as a tracing template:
And here is what I have managed to do so far in Illustrator, exported as a PNG:
My question is, how would I go about achieving the blend of coloring in the front blue wave? I have tried gradient meshes, but they don't handle the curves of the waves very well.
Any tips on the techniques I could use to color this artwork would be greatly appreciated!