Ocean Inspired Farm Sign In-Progress

This is my vector horseshoe in progress for my farm sign that was inspired by Illustration Friday's word "Ocean". I am building my vector art in Adobe Illustrator. In my background layer I place my picture of my horseshoe drawing. Then with the pen tool, on another layer I traced over my image. After I created two other layers. One for the bottom of the shoe, and the other for the shadow behind the shoe. Then I deleted my background image, as it was not needed anymore.