Let's keep thinking about how we're going to use illustrator,
to make our, basic drawings.
So when we think about drawing, it is
perfectly fine if you have zero drawing skills.
Most people think, that you need to have, um, this like very fluid ability to use
a pen or a pencil or charcoal to make something hand drawn, with hand to paper.
When we're thinking of illustrator we're gonna start with a slightly
different format.
We're going to think about the way vectors, so here's a vector image,
the way vectors are really just made of basic shapes.
So the first way to tackle the idea of drawing in illustrator is to just break
apart any image, or any idea, into its most fundamental shapes.
So this is actually a really lovely drawing here, done in illustrator.
Uh, very nice sort of vector based portrait, we could call this.
I want you to see what this is.
What is this made of?
At its most basic form, we could think about this in terms of
basic, basic, basic, shapes.
So, we'll start at the bottom.
We've got this kind of, uh, black shape here.
We've got a blue one.
Basically got a soft kind of round triangle.
We've got some half circles, here's some more half circles.
Y'know the mouth is some sort of a circle with a layer of white over it.
Our hair is basically a circle that's broken up into some wavy shapes.
Our background is just one square of pink.
So we're thinking about sort of looking at illustrations and breaking them down
into their most basic forms.
From there, we can use our basic shapes
in illustrator to start drawing these objects.
Now this one has some, sort of complicated shapes that we'll get to.
We can do the same with any logo.
So think about how a logo looks.
I want you to start sort of diagnosing it.
Here we've got a circle of, a light, kind of mid-orange color maybe?
We've got a white circle,
and then we have these petal shapes, with some little white yellowish oblongs.
Our straw here is basically just like a line or rectangle, we have our leaf shape.
It's all about basic shapes layered on top of each other, to give the illusion
of a three dimensional object.
Here, water drops, it's all about the application of
color, shading, highlighting, but essentially,
these are all pretty basic shapes.
So, start to look at things for what they are, in terms of their most basic shape.
When we're in illustrator, I'm gonna go over the basic shapes today,
how we use them.
Um, you're gonna start practicing, and I'm gonna give you a practice file to work
with, where you end up drawing something using just basic shapes.
But let's start looking at our tools, so
here I have a single artboard document still.
You can zoom in or zoom out.
We're gonna do all of the work, on this white document.
So starting at the top, of illustrators tools, we have a selection tool,
and a direct selection tool.
These are gonna be important, we're gonna come back to them in just a minute.
These are the tools that we will use to edit, our shapes.
So in illustrator we're working with real basic shapes,
we're gonna start with the given tools.
So we got a rectangle tool here.
If you click and hold, we have rectangle
ellipse, circle, polygon, star, line segment.
So let's just start with our basic rectangle tool.
As you use your tools for shapes, you're simply gonna come into your document,
and click and drag.
Whatever shape you drag to will be the shape that is drawn, now,
automatically, you see this blue bounding box.
Might be a different color depending on your layers, but, each shape in
illustrator is considered to be live.
Unlike photoshop, where we would have something, and we would have to
transform it, with edit transform, menu option.
In illustrator, they're sort of just always live.
So they're kind of always ready to be edited.
And we know that because we can see the bounding box, all these blue lines,
and white boxes, indicate that we can edit the shape, in a number of ways.
When we're thinking about, drawing a shape and using color,
we have two opportunities.
We have the fill color, which is the entirety of the object,
as if a paint bucket has been dumped on it.
Or, we have the edge color, which we're gonna call stroke.
We can edit these colors, from a few different places,
we have our properties panel right in the middle.
The appearance is dedicated to how this object looks.
So if I click on the fill- here is my color panel,
I can choose a different color.
You have different kinds of swatches here.
You have color, gradient, pattern, color, etc.
So you can open up different swatches.
We can talk a little bit more about this panel later, um,
but all kinds of opportunities here.
If you don't like the swatch panel where you are sort of seeing
these little boxes of color, then you can use your little
palette where you pick from the color spectrum.
And you can always move these around too.
So two different opportunities there.
Now again, we are in the fill color.
If we choose the stroke color, we are talking about the outer edge.
So, lets pick something really noticeable here.
Lets pick this orange color.
And I am going to increase the weight.
So this is the point -- 10 point, stroke weight.
That is that outside line.
If you don't want to stroke, click back on that and
use the none.
Take that stroke off.
We also have opacity here, you are familiar with this.
So if we lower the opacity of this object, you are going to see-through,
especially if there was another shape behind it.
So that is our basic appearance opportunity.
We can also edit the color from our tools panel.
So here, same opportunity.
There's that fill, double click, you can choose another color.
If you want to use the stroke, double click the stroke,
choose a color.
Okay.
Now here, that stroke is set to one point so I would still
have to come over here and make it a little bit bigger
if I wanted to see it.
So there is a way to change things.
You also have an eye dropper.
I am going to make another shape really quickly here and
change its color just to give us an idea.
Okay.
So if I wanted to pick up a color from somewhere else in the document
and apply it to this object, it is very important that first
I select this object.
So I have used my black arrow, which is a selection tool,
and clicked on it.
I know I have it because of the bounding box.
Now if I wanted to use the eye dropper, middle of the tools panel,
to select another color, lets say I really want this
same exact blue I have here, I can just click on that blue
and all of the apperance properities of this blue box will be transferred
to my other box.
So that is another way to apply color to another object.
Okay, I am going to command Z and back us up,
close up this little color window and lets talk about our selection tools.
So, first one up is a basic selection tool,
it is a black arrow.
This is the tool you are going to use to grab your objects.
Notice, as I click on each object, I have selected it,
and now I can move it.
It also opens up the opportunity for the bounding box.
So the bounding box acts like the transform tool
in photoshop.
I can scale it up or down, it can be bigger, smaller,
taller, wider.
I am sort of free form scaling right now from this corner.
If you want to scale proportionally hold shift on your keyboard.
This will keep it in proportion, so same ratio but bigger or smaller.
Otherwise, you are sort of just free form, re-sizing objects
to fit your need.
As you are using this tool, the selection tool,
if you come over to the middle area, you are not on a bounding box,
you are just moving your object -- moving your object.
Other opportunities with our black selection tool.
If you zoom in -- I am going to zoom in real close
to one of these corners.
You can use your zoom and your pan.
You have a little white circle with a blue center on the corner.
This is a corner widget.
The corner widget controls the look of the corner.
So this softens or hardens.
If I click this and drag in, notice I have created a rounded edge.
So my hard edge rectangle now has a softer corner.
Zoom out and you will notice this has actually done all of the corners at once.
So when you are working with a selection in Illustrator,
we are thinking about vector paths.
These vector paths determine the shape.
We have points.
So this is end point, this is an end point,
and path.
Points are connected by paths.
These are the algorithms that Illustrator uses to make these connections.
Anything with the black arrow tool is working on the entire selection,
the entirety of the object.
Okay.
If, what we want to do instead is work on one portion of
the object -- lets move to a different object.
Zoom in.
If we want to target just one corner or one point of the path to make
an edit, then we are going to use our direct selection tool.
White arrow, second tool down.
So you are always going to be going back and forth between these.
Eventually you will get quick enough you can use the keyboard command.
Selection tool is V.
The direct selection too is A.
So if I hit A on my keyboard, I automatically go to that
white arrow tool.
So white arrow tool.
Look at the difference.
Remember black arrow, we have got a got a
certain type of bounding box.
White arrow, it changes.
Now, we actually just see the four points that compose the path,
that make up this rectangle.
So now, if I click on one of these, I have targeted just one point.
Notice it has gone blue and the other ones are white.
I have selected just this path.
Now as I move it, I am only editing that one point
which of course is determining the difference in the path
but this is how I have taken a basic rectangle and started to edit it.
If I want to target this corner, lower left,
click on that point, again, with the direct selection,
and drag it in.
So already I have sort of begun taking a basic shape and
making it more complex.
When I am done, I can simply click off.
If I wanted to move this or scale the entire thing,
back to that selection tool where I have got the entirety
in a bounding box.
Other opportunities, if we want to use the corner widget
only on one corner, use that direct selection tool.
Here, lets soften this.
Notice before, oops, it is actually doing it again.
Command Z.
I need to grab just this corner, so I have now clicked on it once
to select just this one and now drag it in.
So now I have edited one corner with a corner widget
by using direct selection just on that one corner.
So I am starting to get more complex shapes.
Now again as always, you are thinking about
your layers panel, you are thinking about layer order.
Lets look at our layers over here.
Layer one has both objects.
Path and rectangle.
Same kind of thing, if you want to edit them,
remember you need to target them.
You can target by simply clicking in your document or
over here.
If I target on the right, it gives me a little blue box.
That means I have selected it.
Now you can see I have selected it.
If we need to re-order, we can change the layer order.
Notice, I can tell I have selected this object and it is targeted,
this blue one.
I can see its path, it is kind of hidden behind this,
that is layer order.
So always thinking about layer order.
When we are targeting our objects, we can also thinking about our
other transformations, we can rotate from the corners,
very easy, scale up and down.
We, um, can think about how to fill the background with color.
A lot of times people say 'how do I make a background layer?'
You could make a new layer if you want to create new layer,
bring it down to the bottom, then simply think
'well, how would I make it?'
All I need to do is actually have a shape that fills the entirety
of the space.
So lets make a shape.
Rectangle tool.
I am just going to click and drag, I am going to go a little bit over
the boarder and that is fine and it is filling to that default color.
So, if I want it I can double click it over here and bring it back.
Lets say I want it to be kind of a light blue, a purple color.
That now is my background color.
So background color is simply a filled shape, often a rectangle.
Okay, so we have started to build up our ideas here.
Lets continue looking at the properties of our basic shapes.
I am going to turn the visibility off of these for now.
Remember, layer of visibility is the same,
its got this little eyeball icon.
If you want to work on a layer make sure you go to it.
I am going to keep working on this layer one.
Layer two lets rename background color, so we just know.
Okay layer one.
So we have got our rectangle, we explored that one.
A couple other things to think about- we have quick commands.
If I hold shift while drawing an object, it will keep it perfectly one to one
ratio proportional.
Perfect square.
That is how I make a perfect square.
Now look, I can't really see this shape because it is being drawn in the same
color that I last used for the background.
Lets go to properties, change the color.
Okay, so shift gives you a one to one ratio.
I am going to delete this.
You can also delete your objects by simply clicking on them and
hitting the delete button.
Your other option is to use the ALT or option key.
Notice when you do that you get this sort of targeted appearance.
Look at the way its drawing, it is drawing out from the center point.
So if we want to draw out from the center point
hold ALT or option.
Lets do that again.
Normally you would draw from a corner.
Notice I have drawn left, I could draw right,
but it is drawing out from the corner.
ALT, option, draws from the center.
If you want it to be proportional hold that shift key.
Now it is proportional.
Okay, I am going to delete this object.
So selection tool, grab it, delete.
Other shapes.
Here is our circle, ellipse, same idea- click and drag.
If you want it to be a sort of oblong, draw that.
If you want it proportional, shift key.
There is the way to go.
Sing, direct selection vs selection.
Our selection tool grabs the whole thing.
You can scale it up or down.
Oops.
See there, be careful, you can always grab your
other objects very easily.
So make sure to grab the object you want.
You have this little tool right here, this is an angle tool.
If you didn't want a full circle, that can be interesting for you.
Lets back up.
You also have the ability to kind of squash it or squish it.
This is taking it out of proportion by using the left or right
bounding box areas.
Lets look at the direct selection on an elipse.
So here is my direct selection, I am going to zoom in so
we can get a closer look at this object.
Here are the points that make up this path.
We have got four points- left, right, top, bottom.
Clicking on a point reveals the way the path is working.
We are going to talk more about this but we have handles here.
Handles control the curves.
So if I edit this handle, notice I am changing
this circular shape.
So maybe I really want something that is kind of funky, I don't know,
strange, edema like shape.
You can draw things in, out, and you can affect the rotation.
So that is how the shape of a circle is made with four points
and handles, using your direct selection to edit it.
Okay, lets use our selection, delete, and move on in our tools.
Polygon, just like it sounds, multi sided.
So when you are thinking of a polygon, you need to think of
'how many sides do I want?'
The first time you click with a polygon, it is going to ask you
'how many sides?'
So if you want a triangle, click three.
If you want something else -- lets do it again.
Remember every time you click with the shape tool it is going
to draw a shape.
You always need to make your shape and then go to a selection tool
if you are ready to move it.
Lets do something with six sides.
Okay, there is my six sided.
Now again, every time you click and draw it is going to draw another one.
So I don't want that.
Actually what I want to do is edit this one.
So I am going to go in my selection tool,
make it bigger, maybe I want to change the color of this one,
maybe layer order is more important or I want to play with opacity.
I can lower the opacity and see through the blue object
to this orange one.
Remember if you are trying to move something and
you can't move it, pay attention to your layer order,
you might have to come in here and take a look at what is happening.
So now I have got a triangle.
Same thing- I can edit it on its individual points.
I can edit the softness, the corner widgets, or I can use my tool to grab just one.
Maybe I want one to be hard and the rest to be soft,
same kind of corner widgets here if I want to edit just this one.
Target it with that direct selection tool and make your shape.
The only other shape tool that we might be interested in using
right now is the star tool.
That thing draws a line that might be useful
but most often we are drawing more complex shapes.
Our star tool is as it says.
When your using your star tool, if you want to change the number
of shapes, I am sorry, the number of points,
you have to use that ALT option key again.
So before drawing it, hold ALT option and click.
That will open up the dialog box for changing the number of points.
You could have many, many points.