Archive for July, 2008
Day 9: Creating Compound Paths
Almost all objects in over daily life can be built with basic shapes. By drawing shapes using our basic shape tool, we can use compound path to combine or subtract shapes to create what we need.
What is Compound Path?
Compound path is made out of at least two objects. You can add, subtract and intersect shapes to form a compound path.
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Slogan Contest at Templates.com
Templates.com has come up with a new contest for coming up with the best slogan for their company this month. The idea of the contest is simple. Everyone is welcome to think up of a slogan for their company, leave a message in comments to the blog post, and stand to win $100 in cash or credits from Templates.com. The contest starts on July 15th 2008, and the results will be announced at the beginning of August. Each participant of this contest who has an account on Templates.com will get 4 credits, so everyone will win!
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Day 8: Using Brushes
Using the Brush Tool, you can add styles to your lines. It can also be used to mimic calligraphy, crayon and brush strokes. This will help you add more life to your line works.
Applying Brush Stroke
Select the Brush Tool and draw your object. Then go to your Brushes Palette and select the crayon brush to apply the effect.
Day 5: Drawing with Pen Tool
The Path Tool will be the hardest tool to learn in Illustrator. It usually take weeks to learn and beginners always end up in frustration while figuring how it works. So don’t give up and practice it every day and soon you will be able to draw any shape.
Drawing Straight Lines
Select the Pen Tool and click once to add the first anchor point. Move your mouse to the next position and click again to create the second point. The two anchor points will be connected together. Continue doing this to create a W shape as shown.To draw a new line, click the Selection Tool(The Black Arrow Icon) and click back the Pen Tool again.
Day 4: Drawing with Pencil Tool
We can quickly draw shapes and lines quickly using the Pencil Tool. This lesson will show you some of the tricks in drawing smooth and fluid lines.
Drawing a Line
Select the pencil tool and click and drag to draw a free hand line drawing.
Day 3: Drawing Basic Shapes
In this lesson, we will look at how to use the shape tools to draw our basic shapes in illustrator. But before we start, we will look at how to select a basic shape so that you have no problems in selecting and editing shapes in Illustrator.
Selection Tools
There are 2 types of selection tool in Illustrator used for selection objects.
Selection Tool: Used for selecting and moving a shape. It can also be used to resize a shape.
Direct Selection Tool: Selects a single anchor point instead of the whole shape. Used for editing anchor point of a shape. Click once on a point to select and hold Shift to select multiple anchor points.
Day 2: Getting Started in Illustrator
If you haven’t gotten your Illustrator, you can download the 30 days trial from Adobe’s download page. After installing, we will run Illustrator for the first time.
Create New Document
Go File>New Document to create your first document. Type in a Name for the document and click Advanced to select RGB for Color Mode as we will be working for the screen. Click Ok after that.
