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Repeat this process, alternating medium and light pink swatches until you have a total of four vertical mesh lines. If you place a mesh point in the wrong place, you can use the Undo command, or click on the point you just placed using the Direct Selection Tool and delete it.

With the medium pink color selected as your foreground color, click just below the middle point on the right side of the image. Be sure to click on the outline of the balloon. This will add a horizontal mesh line that will extend the width of the image and follow the angle of the area where we are placing the point.

Click a second time just a bit above the first mesh point you added (above the center point of the balloon), thereby placing a mesh line towards the top half.

Click one more time in the middle of the balloon and add a third mesh line in the middle. The lines are following the angle of the curves of the shape.

Whenever you are adding mesh points, keep in mind the location of the point, what is around it and the direction you want the color to go in. If you click on an empty area of a shape, the mesh line will extend horizontally and vertically, and if you click on an existing point (either on a mesh line or an anchor point), the mesh line will extend perpendicular to the existing line. The lines follow the general direction of the shape, and angles of the curves. Sometimes the lines will seem to do crazy things and go in the opposite direction of where you want or expect.

Deselect your mesh object. As shown in the image, the color extends through the top half of the balloon. Given that the color is a gradient, it is strong at one part (in this case, the mesh point), and gradually lightens as it extends out. Since the shape is long, and the start of the color is at the top, it doesn't extend as far down as the bottom. If we want the color to appear in the bottom half of the balloon, we need to add color to the mesh points along the bottom. There are a few different ways to add color to a mesh that has already been placed.

One way is to click on a mesh point with the Direct Selection Tool and then click the color you want that mesh point to be. You can also add color as we did above, by selecting the color before placing the mesh point. Another way to add color is to select a color swatch and drag and drop it to the mesh patch (the space between the lines). This will add the color in the patch and it will radiate out. We will now colorize the bottom half of the balloon so it matches the top half.

Select the balloon and locate two mesh points at the top of the balloon that are light pink. Follow the lines visually to the bottom of the image and select them. To select both points, first click one, then shift + click the second one. With the two mesh points selected, click the light pink color swatch in your palette. The lines will change to light pink. Repeat this same procedure with the medium pink color and the other two mesh points. The end result should look similar to the image below.

There is more than one way to select mesh points. Click on them with the direct select tool, and use the Shift + Click option to select more then one; use the direct select tool to draw a box around a bunch of mesh points to select them all; or, you can use the Lasso Tool to draw a custom "lasso" around mesh points. The Lasso Tool is useful when working with a mesh that has a lot of tightly packed mesh points. Don’t forget---use your Zoom Tool whenever necessary to get in real close.

Ta Dah! You have completed the first half of creating an image using the gradient mesh. The image doesn't look finished yet, but it will as soon as we add more color, and shading. There are a few important points that should be reviewed before continuing this tutorial. Clicking an empty area of a shape will add a mesh point with lines that extend horizontally and vertically, following the general shape of the image. Clicking an existing point will add a line that extends perpendicular (either horizontally OR vertically) to the existing line.

When placing mesh points, keep in mind the general location where you want to add the highlights or shadows, and using the colors (light or dark), place the mesh points accordingly.
Now let’s add some shadows to make the image more lifelike.

Bringing the Image to Life
The first thing to do is add another color to our swatch palette. Using the color picker, create a burgundy pink color. I used RGB 114, 0, 5. That may be a bit too dark for your tastes, so feel free to adjust it as you see fit. Once you've mixed this color, drag it to your swatch palette for handy use.

Click the upper right point of the balloon with the Direct Selection Tool to select that mesh point. Then click the swatch of the new color we just created (burgundy color). As you can see from the image the edge of the balloon was accentuated with the very dark pink color. However, it does not extend the length of the image. This is due to the placement of the point. The way to fix this is to add more points along the edge of the drape that you can add color to.

With the mesh tool selected, and the very dark pink selected as the foreground color, click on the right edge of the balloon to add the dark color and mesh points the length of the image. You will notice that this places horizontal lines across the balloon, and that it also extends the dark color down the edge of the image as well. This is exactly what we want.

Take a look at your image; do we need to add more vertical or horizontal mesh points? To get a lifelike appearance, add where you think necessary.

There are a lot of vertical mesh points. The reason for this is that not only would do we need a dark color; we need a midtone as well. Therefore, add enough lines to allow you to add the very dark color, and the dark pink that we have in the swatch palette. Don't worry if you don't add the exact amount of mesh points that I do, or in the exact same spot, the main thing here is to add enough lines to be able to add the proper coloring and shading that is needed.

Experiment with placing mesh points in various places, using various colors on different mesh points, sometimes the best results come from accidents and trial & error.

Next, adjust the colors of the vertical lines by adding the burgundy, dark pink, and light pink to shape the highlights and shadows. Using the direct select tool, click on all the mesh points in a single vertical line on the top half only of the balloon. Then click on the colors in your color palette accordingly to add light, medium and dark shades to the balloon as shown below. Be sure to select the intersecting points on each vertical path so that the color doesn't stop halfway down the image. You can use the Direct Selection Tool and the Shift + Click option to select multiple mesh points or use the Lasso Tool to "collect" the mesh points.

As you progress look at your image, ask yourself the question - Does it need more mesh points? If so, add them. Zoom in whenever necessary.

Keep working in this manner adding color until the top half of the balloon is done. Just be sure to add color to the mesh points on the vertical lines, not the horizontal lines. You can add color to the horizontal lines, if you like, but what will happen is the color will start at the point you add the color, and radiate out from there and may not give you the look you want.

Let's finish adding the colors to the bottom of the balloon like the top half. Do this by repeating the steps above until you achieve the look you are satisfied with. The string on the balloon was added using the Brush Tool; no fill, baby pink, 1 pt. stroke, butt cap, miter join.

The Completed Balloon
Congratulations! You have now used the gradient mesh tool to create a basic mesh object.  Of course, this exercise was just general theory to get you started. Practice hard and you may eventually develop your skills to the level of enikone, who has a few of his works displayed below (yes, these are all meshes!).
 

As I said at the beginning of this tutorial, the gradient mesh tool is powerful and can be challenging to learn. The trick is to keep practicing. Placing highlights, shadows, and Midtones in an image can be very tricky and you may have long way to go before you can consider yourself a “master”.  That said, its a fantastic journey!  Have fun being creative!
 

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Quote from vikkib;30529: This definitely helped me to understand gradient mesh in Illustrator! Thanks for the time you spent in writing this tutorial.

thanks, great tutorial!!!

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I am always looking for easier ways to do this. Thanks for the tutorial.

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This definitely helped me to understand gradient mesh in Illustrator! Thanks for the time you spent in writing this tutorial.

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