Basic Drawing in Illustrator
with
Don Schechter
Illustrator CS allows you to draw vector-based images with ease. But before you start your next masterpiece, you need to know the basics. Learn several ways to draw a simple heart shape.
Transcript: Basic Drawing in Illustrator
Hi, I'm Don Schechter for About.com Computing. Today I'm going to show you several ways to draw using Illustrator CS. You can use Illustrator to create vector-based drawings and images.Begin Drawing in Illustrator
Go ahead and open a new Illustrator file. In the tool bar on the left, you will see some tools you may want to use to draw your heart. Select the brush tool and then draw a heart. The heart will appear in black outline. You can change the heart color by clicking the direct selection tool and then clicking on a color in the palette box.Pencil Tool in Illustrator
You can do the same with the pencil tool, which is located right next to your brush tool. I can change the outline color with this tool by selecting the image and then clicking color. Ill choose the same color as the fill for my other heart.Pen Tool Settings in Illustrator
If you are not satisfied with your hearts, you can use the pen tool to make a perfect heart. First, change some settings to help the effectiveness of the tool. Go to view and click on 'show rulers.' Then go to 'Edit, preferences, and Guides and Grid.' In the pop-up window, set the gridlines to 36 px and 1 subdivisions. If you do not see the grids after this, go back to view and select 'show grids.' Then click 'snap to grids.'Draw With an Anchor Point
Click on the shape tool and click and drag to create a circle. Now go to the tool bar and click and hold down the pen tool. A menu will appear. Select the arrow with no bottom. This is called the convert anchor point tool. Use this tool over the bottom of the circle and click. The points will convert to the anchor point you selected at the bottom.Next, click on the 'Direct Selection' tool. Use this to click on either of the sides of the shape. The anchor points will appear and use the upper half anchor points to adjust the curve between the top and side anchor points. Click the sides and drag the shape upward until they are symmetrical.
At the top of the shape double click the top with the direct selection tool. This should activate the anchors on both sides. Then while holding down the ALT button or option key on your Mac, select the middle points and pull them up to form heart shape.
Finally, pull the sides out by selecting the middle of the side anchor points. There is additional tweaking you can do, including changing the outline and the fill color. Click on the selection tool and click the heart and then the color on the palette. To change the outline go to window, stroke. In the new window on the right, change the stroke to 15 and then add color with the palette. To change outline color go to object, path, outline stroke.
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