Overview Illustrator rev -02/14/2014

We use it to create vector graphics

  • Can resize without losing quality
  • Place dots (anchor points)
  • Connect the dots with paths
  • Creates shapes, with or without fill and stroke

Creating Shapes

  • We use various tools to create the shapes, and thenmayfill inside the shapes and maybe add a stroke (border)
  • Can use predefined shapes or create your own: anchor points and paths

  • Once we have the anchor points, can fill the resulting areas, push, pull the points and paths to change the shapes.
  • Start Illustrator and choose a newprint document; set units to inches, portrait, 8 ½ x 11 “, save the document as practice.ai inside InClass/Illustrator

  • What you will see is called theartboard (drawing area)

The document (page) also has a scratch area, aka. canvas area. Store stuff there so you can access it later

  • Change workspace to Essentials, or reset Essentials

Don’t see my Artboard

What if I can’t find the artboard?

Maybe you held down the space bar, clicked and held the left button and moved artboard so can’t see it anymore. Solutions:

  • View>Fit Artboardin Window
  • Or left mouse and spacebar at same time

Change toolbox to two columns, rather than one…personal preference: click tiny double-arrow top left:

Basic Shapes

  • Draw a red ellipse (circle). Black stroke
  • Find, choose the Ellipse Tool
  • Hold down shift key to draw a perfect circle/square

  • Or, click once on the artboard and enter the desired size:

  • Choose Red as fill, black as stroke

Or, select Swatches panel:

  • Use black arrow(selection tool) and select the circle…look for anchor points.

Add a 4 pt black stroke

Bring stroke tool to top

Choose color (black)

Set size using Window>Stroke or

Use control area at top:

Paths connect the anchor points

  • Select>Deselect

Choose white arrow (Direct select) and double-click an anchor point, drag it:

  • Ctrl-Z

Draw a small blue rectangleand drop on top of circle…

Assumes square ends up in layer above circle (Window>Layers)

  • Drag the circle layer above the square…what happened?
  • Ctrl-Z

Adding Anchor points

  • Click and hold on the Pen tool, choose Add anchor pointTool
  • Go ahead and add a few additional anchor points to the blue square along a path…
  • Use the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) and pull and push the anchor points…look for the word anchor:

Scaling and rotating

And

Example: Scaling

  • Select the objects by dragging over them using Selection tool (Black arrow)

Method # 1

  • Double click the ScaleTool and resize by 200%

This opens

And:

Objects have a box around them: Rotation is relative to that box; called a bounding box. You can rotate using it

  • Add two perfect yellow circles:

Rotation Method # 2:

  • Undo rotation
  • Use the Transform panel to rotate:
  • Select the entire object (drag over all of it)
  • Open the Transform panel (Window>Transform)
  • Use Rotation tool:
  • Select the red circle
  • Use the Transform panel to resize W, H to 3”:
  • Set width and height to 3” see above…look for link symbol:

Rotation Method 3:

  • Make sure the Bounding Box is visible (Window ShowHide Bounding Box)
  • The Swatches panel shows colors, gradients, and patterns.You can add additional ones from built-in libraries, or “mix your own” colors.

Panel Menus and Color Management

The Swatches panel,

like mostIllustrator panels, has a panel menu…find the small arrow in upper right

Panel Menu Example

Adding a new swatch library member ( Library: A group of related items)

  • Click upper right corner, just below the “x”
  • Choose Open Swatch Library… then Celebration
  • Drag Celebrationpanel onto to Swatches panel:

Choose colors that are indicative of the purpose; i.e. use Foliage colors for a wildlife project,

Process Colors versus Spot Colors

  • Swatchcolors can be processorspot. Spot adds in additional colors other than CMYK
  • In general, stay with process colors-made with CMYK inks…cheapest …

Review: Gamut=number of colors a given color model can reproduce…Red Green Blue gamut on monitor larger than CMYK (paper) and Spot colors have largergamutthan process

Use spot only when:

  • Publication needs a color that cannot be accurately reproduced with CMYK inks, such as precise color matching of a corporate or logo color.
  • Need more vibrant colors than what CMYK inks produce.
  • Project requires special effects such as metallic or fluorescent spot inks.
  • Basically, spot colors are more expensive, try to not use them

Close, don’t save

  • Start new document, practice2

Practice using anchor points, Fills, strokes and tracing objects

Drawing using Pencil tool

  • It draws using the current stroke color, andsize
  • Turn Fill off

Draw a 4-point black line:

  • Look for anchor points

Click the white arrow (Direct Select)

  • Click the line
  • Find an anchor (Direct Select) and drag

Drawing using Pen tool

  • Click once, move cursor, click again to draw a straight line
  • Make a triangle

or

  • Click once, Click again at another location but drag cursor to create a curve with handles

Practice: Use the pen tool to create a shape like this:

Viewing SmartGuides

if Smart Guidesturned on , and you pause over a corner of a selected object, you will see the word anchor.

If you hover near the center of an object, look for centerto appear

Same for paths

Try it

Fill with a Gradient

A gradual change from color to color

  • Draw a couple yellow circles
  • Use the black arrow (Selection tool) to select any object…select the fill, NOT the stroke
  • Now click the GradientFill tool
  • Result: A default gradient is applied
  • Now click the Gradient tooland manipulate the bar:
  • Just drag across the circle:
  • Try another gradient in the Swatches panel:
  • Try the orange, green gradient
  • Choose Fade to Black gradient again

Roll your own

  • Double-click the Gradient tool (Not the gradient fill) or Window>Gradient

Result:

  • Drag a start and end stop color
  • Move the middle diamond left and right to see the effect on the gradient fill
  • You can drag the cursor to apply the gradient from any angle (Drag from right to left so darkest is on the right)
  • The icons on the bottom of the horizontal bar are called stops There are two at the present time
  • Can drag a color from the swatch panel to any stop, can add, delete stops
  • Drag a red swatch to the leftmost stop:
  • Add a new stop in the middle of the line (choose a new color)
  • Pull down to delete a stop

OK, so those are the most often used fill options (There is a fill with Pattern, which we skipped

Using the Transform Panel…Precise Placement

  • Can verify size (and location) of an object viaTransform panel, which we opened at the beginning of this module.
  • Select the rectangle and look at Transform panel values: Note the 9 references...center one is selected below…can also use the control panel reference object
  • Draw a rectangle and fill it with blue with black stroke

Open the Transform panel:

  • Select the rectangle and use the Transformpanel to position its center at X=4, Y=4. Click the middle proxy :

Selecting Objects

  • Use the Black Arrow (Selection Tool)
  • Drag or shift-click to select more than one object

Selecting part of an object-

  • Deselect everything first (Can “click away” with Selection tool or Select>De-select)
  • Use white arrow…called Direct Select tool
  • Click a cornerof any rectangle using Direct Select
  • Pull a corner anchorpoint to deform the rectangle

Note:

Look at corner anchor points…only the one you selected should be filled in…if not, click away (deselects), then click a corner anchor again click each anchor point and turn the fill color be hollow:

Save yourdocument (practice2.ai)

Symbol Spray Tool

  • Choose Window>Symbols
  • Click on a symbol ( I chose grime)
  • Find Symbol Sprayer tool on left side

Spray away!

Add more symbols:panel menu>

Symbol Libraries

There are many collections of symbols. To see then, Choose Window>Symbol Libraries and choose a category

Here is the flowers library:

  • Drag one to the document and resize

Cropping esp for Web

Maybe want a piece of your artboard for a web site you’re doing. Of course, the object then becomes a bitmap

The cropping tool is actually called the artboard tool

It puts sizing handles around the artboard: try it

Here is mine after I resized the box:

Crop and then save for Web

The Blend tool

  • Use pencil tool and draw two lines with zero fill, 4 point stroke, two different colors
  • Select both lines
  • Object>Blend>Make
  • Another gradient!

As long as we’re on blend, let’s blend a rectangle to a star (a morph)

  • Draw an orange rectangle and a star
  • Startool is under Rectangle tool, just select and say OK, color it green
  • Draw an orange square
  • Select both: (Drag over both, or select one, then shift-click on the second object)
  • Object>Blend>Blend Options:

Says to Blend in 8 steps

  • Then, Object>Blend>Make:

Back to basics…

Anchors and Paths

  • Start a new document named AnchorsAndPaths.ai
  • Recall there are two selection tools: Selection (black arrow) and Direct Select(White arrow). The Selection tool selects entire objects. Direct Select: a part of an object
  • Goal: Createthis:
  • Set Fill to none, stroke to 1 point black
  • Create a new rectangle 5” wide by 2”, (no fill), black stroke, 1 point
  • Show rulers
  • Click away
  • Use the Selection arrow and select, then move, the rectangle:
  • The small circles are theanchor points
  • Can resize/reshape the object using the anchor points
  • Click on a path(Turn SmartGuides on to see the word “path”, indicating you did, in fact, select a path)
  • a path connects two adjacent anchor points

Moving an Object

  • Select the rectangle using Selection tool
  • Move it
  • Shift-Drag constrains to 45 degree angles.
  • Alt-Drag makes a copy of the object being moved

Summary: We use the direct selection tool to select part of an object; the Selection tool to select the entire object

Adding Anchor points

Want to add twoadditional anchor points along the top path of the rectangle

Ctrl-Z to return the rectangle to its original 5” x 2” shape

  • Show rulers (if not already showing)
  • Drag out two vertical guides from the rulers
  • To precisely position where we want the new anchor points

Initially will be locked

To unlock:

View>Guides

Check the Lock Guides box

Rearranging stacking order

  • Open the Layers panel
  • Expand Layer 1…
  • The guides are on top,but we want the paths to be on top so we can add anchor points along a path…

Bring the rectangle to the top

  • Method # 1: drag the <Path> Layer to the top:
  • Method # 2: select the rectangle (black arrow)
  • SelectObject>Arrange>Bring to front:
  • Select the rectangle using the Direct select(White arrow) tool

Now, select the Add Anchor Pointtool

  • Click where your guides meet the path:look for “intersect” via smart guides
  • Deselect all
  • Select both by dragging over both with Direct Select tool (or select one, then Shift-click the second
  • Make sure both anchors are filled-in (i.e. Direct selected)
  • Anchor points are solid when selected, open when not selected.
  • Pull down the path between the two new points

Hiding the guides

  • View>Guides>Hide Guides

Now : Pathfinder

  • Draw a black ellipse and two smaller ones (Black also)…unite takes on the color of whatever is on top
  • Now find Pathfinder panel
  • Select all three objects, then “Unite”

To subtract the top:Minus Front

Result:

Divide:

  • Draw a rectagle and a circle:
  • Select both
  • Choose pathfinder Divide
  • Use direct select to pull the objects apart:

Save

Close the document

Illustrator overviewPage 1