#adobe illustrator basics

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How to Create Patterns in Illustrator l Adobe Illustrator Master Classes

Tutorial link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNMwjdy5pZk

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What Is Adobe Illustrator?

Adobe Illustrator was utilized for multiple purposes like printed images, cartoons, charts, diagrams, logos, and illustrations.

Illustrator allows users to trace an object from a photograph using the source image. Using this software is used to retouch a photo and give it a sketch-like appearance.

It is also used to create visual designs that contain text & images such as postcards, posters & banners! In Illustrator, we can also place text in round curves especially when we work on logos.

Read More...

[suumin]

Adobe Illustrator Tutorials - The Appearance Panel

Hello again, and welcome back to my Adobe Illustrator for Beginners Series! If you're just joining me, click through here to the original post and you'll see what we'll be covering in this series. We've already been over the Pen Tool (Part 1 & Part 2), and today we'll be taking a closer look at the Appearance Panel.

The Appearance Panel allows us to control some of the key features of our shape. There's no better way to learn how than actually seeing it in action, so today we're going to make a simple badge:

Step 1

Create a new document in illustrator, 300px by 300px and RGB. 

Step 2

Double click on the fill colour square, and set it to 00A99D. Click OK. Double click on the stroke colour square and set it to FFFFFF. Click OK.

Step 3

Bring up your rectangle tool (M) and click once on the artboard. You'll see a dialog box pop up with spaces for you to set the dimensions of your square. Make it 250px by 250px. Click OK.

Go to Window-->Align in your menu bar (at the top of your screen), to bring up the align menu. Make sure your options are set to Align to Artboard, and then use the buttons that I have circled below to center the square both vertically and horizontally on your artboard. 

Step 4

Now we are going to start using the Appearance Panel. From your menu bar, go to Window-->Appearance. Your appearance panel should pop up. (You can also click on the icon that looks like a circle with a dotted line surrounding it in the toolbar on the right hand side of your window.)

I'll just quickly run through the basics of what we're looking at, starting from the top of the panel and working my way down.

The square with the turquoise colour and the word "Path" show us what we have selected at the moment. If you click away from your shape, anywhere else on the art board, then this row will now say "No Selection". The changes you make will only affect the one object that you have selected, so if this row says "No Selection", then nothing will happen, and you'll need to click on your shape again to make it active.

The stroke is the line around the outside of your path.

The fill is the inside colour of your path

The opacity is how opaque/transparent your shape is.

Each of the above three rows has an eye symbol next to it. If the eye is there, then it means we can see that effect. If the eye is not there, it means we can't see it. To test this out, click the eye next to your Fill row and see what happens.

The row of icons at the bottom of the panel are, in order from left to right:

Add a stroke

Add a fill

Apply an effect

Clear the Appearance

Duplicate the selected item

Delete the selected item

If that all doesn't make sense, don't worry, we'll be dealing with each of these options as we go through the tutorial.

Step 5

The first thing we want to do with our shape is give it rounded corners. Click on the row that says Path, as this means that whatever we do will affect both the fill and the stroke of the shape. Look at the bottom row of icons of your Appearance Panel, and click on the fx option, which is the third icon from the left.

 This will bring up a drop down menu with a lot of different options. Go to Stylize-->Rounded Corners. Set this to 50px. Click OK.

You will see now your appearance panel has another row at the top, called "Round Corners". If you click on this, it brings up the Round Corners option again, and you can adjust the effect.

Step 6

Now we want to look at the stroke of our shape. Click on the Stroke row to make it active. Click on the word Stroke, and you'll see another menu pop up. First, enter "4pt" in the first box - this will change the stroke weight to 4pt, and your line becomes thicker.

Next find the row called Align Stroke, and click on the middle icon. This will align the stroke to the inside of your path.

Step 7

We can't really see the effects of what we've done yet. With your Stroke row still selected, look to the bottom row of icons in your appearance panel. Click on the icon that is second from the right, it looks like a sheet of paper with the corner folded up. This will duplicate your stroke.

Your new stroke is above your original stroke in the appearance panel. Holding down your Shift key, click on the box directly to the right to the word stroke.

This will bring up a box where you can set the colour directly. Enter the value 00A99D into the box indicated.

Now your stroke is the same colour as your fill, but it's covering up your white stroke. We need to move it to the outside. Just like we did with our previous stroke, click on the word Stroke to bring up the stroke panel. Change your Stroke Width to 5pt. Find the row called Align Stroke, and click on the third icon from the left. This will align the stroke to the Outside of your path.

Step 8

Now we have a shape which has a white stroke on the inside, and a teal stroke on the outside. Looking good so far! 

Now we can turn our attention to the fill of your shape. Click on the Fill row to make it active. Look again to the bottom row of icons in your appearance panel. Click on the second icon from the left, a white square with a white outline, to add a new fill.

Click on the colour option box to open up the swatches menu. In the bottom left hand corner of this menu, you'll se an icon that looks like some books leaning up against each other. This is your Swatch Libraries Menu. Click on it. From that menu, go to Patterns-->Basic Graphics-->Basic Graphics_Dots.

This will bring up a new selection of swatches:

As you click through the swatches, you'll see them affect your shape - choose a pattern of dots that you like.

Step 9

It's looking good but the black dots are a bit harsh for our design. Click on the triangle next to the word Fill. It will reveal an opacity option. Click on the word Opacity and set it to 50%.

Step 10

We've finished with this shape, so click somewhere else on the art board to deactivate it. Now change your fill colour to FFFFFF, and your stroke colour to 00A99D. Bring up your Ellipse Tool (L).

Click once on your art board and set the dimensions of your ellipse to 200px by 200px. Align it with the centre of your art board, like we did in Step 2.

Step 11

Take your Selection Tool (V) and click on your ellipse to make it active. Open up your appearance panel, and click on your Stroke. Set the stroke width to 4pt, and align it to the Inside of your path.

Step 12

Duplicate your stroke, change the colour to FFFFFF, and align it to the Outside of your path. (Check back to Step 6 if you're having trouble with changing the colour)

Step 13

Bring up your Type Tool (T), and draw a text box on the art board, a little bit smaller than your white circle, in the same manner that you would draw a rectangle. Look to the top of your window, you will see some Character options. Set the Font to Didot, Font Style to bold, and Font Size to 100pt. Align your paragraph to the center.

Type Hi! into your text box.

Step 14

Press ESC to leave the text box, or click on your Selection Tool, which is the black arrow in your toolbox. This is the one time where I'm not going to tell you to use the normal key command of V for the selection tool, because you will only end up typing a V into your text box. Change the font colour to 00A99D. Click on your text and drag it down a little bit so it's a bit more centered. 

Step 15

Finally, we'll rotate the text a little bit. Bring up the Rotate (R) tool. Click inside your text box and drag towards the top left hand corner of your art board to rotate the text.

And, we're done!

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of your Appearance Panel and how it works. Next time we'll be looking at the Pathfinder Panel, and how we can use that in our illustrations. I hope you'll join me! If you get stuck on any part of this tutorial, please feel free to leave your question in the comments, and I'll be happy to help you out!

[suumin]

Adobe Illustrator Tutorials - The Appearance Panel

Hello again, and welcome back to my Adobe Illustrator for Beginners Series! If you're just joining me, click through here to the original post and you'll see what we'll be covering in this series. We've already been over the Pen Tool (Part 1 & Part 2), and today we'll be taking a closer look at the Appearance Panel.

The Appearance Panel allows us to control some of the key features of our shape. There's no better way to learn how than actually seeing it in action, so today we're going to make a simple badge:

Step 1

Create a new document in illustrator, 300px by 300px and RGB. 

Step 2

Double click on the fill colour square, and set it to 00A99D. Click OK. Double click on the stroke colour square and set it to FFFFFF. Click OK.

Step 3

Bring up your rectangle tool (M) and click once on the artboard. You'll see a dialog box pop up with spaces for you to set the dimensions of your square. Make it 250px by 250px. Click OK.

Go to Window-->Align in your menu bar (at the top of your screen), to bring up the align menu. Make sure your options are set to Align to Artboard, and then use the buttons that I have circled below to center the square both vertically and horizontally on your artboard. 

Step 4

Now we are going to start using the Appearance Panel. From your menu bar, go to Window-->Appearance. Your appearance panel should pop up. (You can also click on the icon that looks like a circle with a dotted line surrounding it in the toolbar on the right hand side of your window.)

I'll just quickly run through the basics of what we're looking at, starting from the top of the panel and working my way down.

The square with the turquoise colour and the word "Path" show us what we have selected at the moment. If you click away from your shape, anywhere else on the art board, then this row will now say "No Selection". The changes you make will only affect the one object that you have selected, so if this row says "No Selection", then nothing will happen, and you'll need to click on your shape again to make it active.

The stroke is the line around the outside of your path.

The fill is the inside colour of your path

The opacity is how opaque/transparent your shape is.

Each of the above three rows has an eye symbol next to it. If the eye is there, then it means we can see that effect. If the eye is not there, it means we can't see it. To test this out, click the eye next to your Fill row and see what happens.

The row of icons at the bottom of the panel are, in order from left to right:

Add a stroke

Add a fill

Apply an effect

Clear the Appearance

Duplicate the selected item

Delete the selected item

If that all doesn't make sense, don't worry, we'll be dealing with each of these options as we go through the tutorial.

Step 5

The first thing we want to do with our shape is give it rounded corners. Click on the row that says Path, as this means that whatever we do will affect both the fill and the stroke of the shape. Look at the bottom row of icons of your Appearance Panel, and click on the fx option, which is the third icon from the left.

 This will bring up a drop down menu with a lot of different options. Go to Stylize-->Rounded Corners. Set this to 50px. Click OK.

You will see now your appearance panel has another row at the top, called "Round Corners". If you click on this, it brings up the Round Corners option again, and you can adjust the effect.

Step 6

Now we want to look at the stroke of our shape. Click on the Stroke row to make it active. Click on the word Stroke, and you'll see another menu pop up. First, enter "4pt" in the first box - this will change the stroke weight to 4pt, and your line becomes thicker.

Next find the row called Align Stroke, and click on the middle icon. This will align the stroke to the inside of your path.

Step 7

We can't really see the effects of what we've done yet. With your Stroke row still selected, look to the bottom row of icons in your appearance panel. Click on the icon that is second from the right, it looks like a sheet of paper with the corner folded up. This will duplicate your stroke.

Your new stroke is above your original stroke in the appearance panel. Holding down your Shift key, click on the box directly to the right to the word stroke.

This will bring up a box where you can set the colour directly. Enter the value 00A99D into the box indicated.

Now your stroke is the same colour as your fill, but it's covering up your white stroke. We need to move it to the outside. Just like we did with our previous stroke, click on the word Stroke to bring up the stroke panel. Change your Stroke Width to 5pt. Find the row called Align Stroke, and click on the third icon from the left. This will align the stroke to the Outside of your path.

Step 8

Now we have a shape which has a white stroke on the inside, and a teal stroke on the outside. Looking good so far! 

Now we can turn our attention to the fill of your shape. Click on the Fill row to make it active. Look again to the bottom row of icons in your appearance panel. Click on the second icon from the left, a white square with a white outline, to add a new fill.

Click on the colour option box to open up the swatches menu. In the bottom left hand corner of this menu, you'll se an icon that looks like some books leaning up against each other. This is your Swatch Libraries Menu. Click on it. From that menu, go to Patterns-->Basic Graphics-->Basic Graphics_Dots.

This will bring up a new selection of swatches:

As you click through the swatches, you'll see them affect your shape - choose a pattern of dots that you like.

Step 9

It's looking good but the black dots are a bit harsh for our design. Click on the triangle next to the word Fill. It will reveal an opacity option. Click on the word Opacity and set it to 50%.

Step 10

We've finished with this shape, so click somewhere else on the art board to deactivate it. Now change your fill colour to FFFFFF, and your stroke colour to 00A99D. Bring up your Ellipse Tool (L).

Click once on your art board and set the dimensions of your ellipse to 200px by 200px. Align it with the centre of your art board, like we did in Step 2.

Step 11

Take your Selection Tool (V) and click on your ellipse to make it active. Open up your appearance panel, and click on your Stroke. Set the stroke width to 4pt, and align it to the Inside of your path.

Step 12

Duplicate your stroke, change the colour to FFFFFF, and align it to the Outside of your path. (Check back to Step 6 if you're having trouble with changing the colour)

Step 13

Bring up your Type Tool (T), and draw a text box on the art board, a little bit smaller than your white circle, in the same manner that you would draw a rectangle. Look to the top of your window, you will see some Character options. Set the Font to Didot, Font Style to bold, and Font Size to 100pt. Align your paragraph to the center.

Type Hi! into your text box.

Step 14

Press ESC to leave the text box, or click on your Selection Tool, which is the black arrow in your toolbox. This is the one time where I'm not going to tell you to use the normal key command of V for the selection tool, because you will only end up typing a V into your text box. Change the font colour to 00A99D. Click on your text and drag it down a little bit so it's a bit more centered. 

Step 15

Finally, we'll rotate the text a little bit. Bring up the Rotate (R) tool. Click inside your text box and drag towards the top left hand corner of your art board to rotate the text.

And, we're done!

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of your Appearance Panel and how it works. Next time we'll be looking at the Pathfinder Panel, and how we can use that in our illustrations. I hope you'll join me! If you get stuck on any part of this tutorial, please feel free to leave your question in the comments, and I'll be happy to help you out!

[suumin]

Adobe Illustrator Basics - The Appearance Panel

Hello again, and welcome back to my Adobe Illustrator for Beginners Series! If you're just joining me, click through here to the original post and you'll see what we'll be covering in this series. We've already been over the Pen Tool (Part 1 & Part 2), and today we'll be taking a closer look at the Appearance Panel.

The Appearance Panel allows us to control some of the key features of our shape. There's no better way to learn how than actually seeing it in action, so today we're going to make a simple badge:

Step 1

Create a new document in illustrator, 300px by 300px and RGB. 

Step 2

Double click on the fill colour square, and set it to 00A99D. Click OK. Double click on the stroke colour square and set it to FFFFFF. Click OK.

Step 3

Bring up your rectangle tool (M) and click once on the artboard. You'll see a dialog box pop up with spaces for you to set the dimensions of your square. Make it 250px by 250px. Click OK.

Go to Window-->Align in your menu bar (at the top of your screen), to bring up the align menu. Make sure your options are set to Align to Artboard, and then use the buttons that I have circled below to center the square both vertically and horizontally on your artboard. 

Step 4

Now we are going to start using the Appearance Panel. From your menu bar, go to Window-->Appearance. Your appearance panel should pop up. (You can also click on the icon that looks like a circle with a dotted line surrounding it in the toolbar on the right hand side of your window.)

I'll just quickly run through the basics of what we're looking at, starting from the top of the panel and working my way down.

The square with the turquoise colour and the word "Path" show us what we have selected at the moment. If you click away from your shape, anywhere else on the art board, then this row will now say "No Selection". The changes you make will only affect the one object that you have selected, so if this row says "No Selection", then nothing will happen, and you'll need to click on your shape again to make it active.

The stroke is the line around the outside of your path.

The fill is the inside colour of your path

The opacity is how opaque/transparent your shape is.

Each of the above three rows has an eye symbol next to it. If the eye is there, then it means we can see that effect. If the eye is not there, it means we can't see it. To test this out, click the eye next to your Fill row and see what happens.

The row of icons at the bottom of the panel are, in order from left to right:

Add a stroke

Add a fill

Apply an effect

Clear the Appearance

Duplicate the selected item

Delete the selected item

If that all doesn't make sense, don't worry, we'll be dealing with each of these options as we go through the tutorial.

Step 5

The first thing we want to do with our shape is give it rounded corners. Click on the row that says Path, as this means that whatever we do will affect both the fill and the stroke of the shape. Look at the bottom row of icons of your Appearance Panel, and click on the fx option, which is the third icon from the left.

 This will bring up a drop down menu with a lot of different options. Go to Stylize-->Rounded Corners. Set this to 50px. Click OK.

You will see now your appearance panel has another row at the top, called "Round Corners". If you click on this, it brings up the Round Corners option again, and you can adjust the effect.

Step 6

Now we want to look at the stroke of our shape. Click on the Stroke row to make it active. Click on the word Stroke, and you'll see another menu pop up. First, enter "4pt" in the first box - this will change the stroke weight to 4pt, and your line becomes thicker.

Next find the row called Align Stroke, and click on the middle icon. This will align the stroke to the inside of your path.

Step 7

We can't really see the effects of what we've done yet. With your Stroke row still selected, look to the bottom row of icons in your appearance panel. Click on the icon that is second from the right, it looks like a sheet of paper with the corner folded up. This will duplicate your stroke.

Your new stroke is above your original stroke in the appearance panel. Holding down your Shift key, click on the box directly to the right to the word stroke.

This will bring up a box where you can set the colour directly. Enter the value 00A99D into the box indicated.

Now your stroke is the same colour as your fill, but it's covering up your white stroke. We need to move it to the outside. Just like we did with our previous stroke, click on the word Stroke to bring up the stroke panel. Change your Stroke Width to 5pt. Find the row called Align Stroke, and click on the third icon from the left. This will align the stroke to the Outside of your path.

Step 8

Now we have a shape which has a white stroke on the inside, and a teal stroke on the outside. Looking good so far! 

Now we can turn our attention to the fill of your shape. Click on the Fill row to make it active. Look again to the bottom row of icons in your appearance panel. Click on the second icon from the left, a white square with a white outline, to add a new fill.

Click on the colour option box to open up the swatches menu. In the bottom left hand corner of this menu, you'll se an icon that looks like some books leaning up against each other. This is your Swatch Libraries Menu. Click on it. From that menu, go to Patterns-->Basic Graphics-->Basic Graphics_Dots.

This will bring up a new selection of swatches:

As you click through the swatches, you'll see them affect your shape - choose a pattern of dots that you like.

Step 9

It's looking good but the black dots are a bit harsh for our design. Click on the triangle next to the word Fill. It will reveal an opacity option. Click on the word Opacity and set it to 50%.

Step 10

We've finished with this shape, so click somewhere else on the art board to deactivate it. Now change your fill colour to FFFFFF, and your stroke colour to 00A99D. Bring up your Ellipse Tool (L).

Click once on your art board and set the dimensions of your ellipse to 200px by 200px. Align it with the centre of your art board, like we did in Step 2.

Step 11

Take your Selection Tool (V) and click on your ellipse to make it active. Open up your appearance panel, and click on your Stroke. Set the stroke width to 4pt, and align it to the Inside of your path.

Step 12

Duplicate your stroke, change the colour to FFFFFF, and align it to the Outside of your path. (Check back to Step 6 if you're having trouble with changing the colour)

Step 13

Bring up your Type Tool (T), and draw a text box on the art board, a little bit smaller than your white circle, in the same manner that you would draw a rectangle. Look to the top of your window, you will see some Character options. Set the Font to Didot, Font Style to bold, and Font Size to 100pt. Align your paragraph to the center.

Type Hi! into your text box.

Step 14

Press ESC to leave the text box, or click on your Selection Tool, which is the black arrow in your toolbox. This is the one time where I'm not going to tell you to use the normal key command of V for the selection tool, because you will only end up typing a V into your text box. Change the font colour to 00A99D. Click on your text and drag it down a little bit so it's a bit more centered. 

Step 15

Finally, we'll rotate the text a little bit. Bring up the Rotate (R) tool. Click inside your text box and drag towards the top left hand corner of your art board to rotate the text.

And, we're done!

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of your Appearance Panel and how it works. Next time we'll be looking at the Pathfinder Panel, and how we can use that in our illustrations. I hope you'll join me! If you get stuck on any part of this tutorial, please feel free to leave your question in the comments, and I'll be happy to help you out!

[suumin]

Adobe Illustrator Tutorials: The Pen Tool Part Two

Hello again! In this tutorial we're picking it up where we left off in my last tutorial here. This is part of my Beginner Adobe Illustrator Tutorials series, and we're covering the Pen Tool. Last time we were looking at using the pen tool to manipulate shapes. Today we're going to practice using the pen tool to create a path, and end up with an image that looks like this:

Step 1

Open up your document from last time. We need to duplicate our heart a couple of times. Take the Selection Tool (V), which is the black arrow in the toolbox. Click somewhere above the top left corner of your heart and drag down to below the bottom right corner. This will select both the red heart shape and the white highlight. You could also just click on one shape, and then hold down shift and click on the other shape.

Step 2

Hold down ALT on your keyboard and drag your selected shapes to another place on the art board. You can then resize your shapes by holding down shift (to keep the proportions the same) and dragging any of the four corner points outward (to make the shapes bigger) or inward (to make them smaller).

Step 3

Repeat Step 2 to create two more hearts. Click on the smallest heart and change the fill colour to 000000.

Step 4

We want to make some strings for the hearts to be attached to. See if you can find your layers panel, it looks like this:

Mine is in the bottom right hand corner of my window. If you can't see yours, Go to your menu bar and go to Window-->Layers, and the panel should pop up. 

Create a new layer, click on it and drag it below your current layer. Lock your hearts layer by clicking here:

Step 5

Click on Layer 2 in the layers panel to activate it. Change your fill colour to none, and your stroke colour to 000000. Bring up your pen tool again and click once at the bottom point of one of your hearts. Click again near the bottom of your art board and as you click, drag your mouse to the left - see the path will create handles as you drag.

Step 6

The line is a bit thin so look to the top of your window and find the Stroke Weight option. Change this to 3pt. 

(Note: if nothing happens, you might need to take the Selection Tool (V) and click on the path again to activate it. You can tell a path or shape is active if you can see the coloured points and path, which I have pointed out in the following image. On our previous layer they were blue, on this layer (for me) they are red)

Step 7

7. Repeat Step 5 for your other hearts. If you like, you can Add Anchor Points (+) to your paths and use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to adjust the handles and points of the paths to make them the shape that you prefer. If you want to remove any anchor points, use the Remove Anchor Points Tool (-), which is in the toolbox beneath the Add Anchor Points Tool.

Step 8

Finally, we are going to use the pen tool to trace around our hearts. Of course, you can just add a stroke to each of your heart shapes, but doing it this way will give you practice in using the pen tool to create a path, and also give our hearts a bit more of a hand drawn quality. 

Create a New Layer and make sure it is above the layer that contains your hearts in the layers panel. Click on the layer to make it active. Bring up your Pen Tool again and start clicking around the outline of one of your hearts. You may want to zoom in (CMD + on a Mac, CMD + on a PC) to get a better look at what you're doing. 

At this stage, just click on a few key points around the heart, kind of like connect the dots. We just want points and straight lines at this stage, so just click to create the path, don't click and drag to make curves as you will soon have a path with curves going in all different directions and it will make things much harder in the long run. Try to make as few points as possible - you'll end up with a smoother path in the end. 

Don't forget to close your path! You'll end up with something that looks like this.:

Step 9

Now, take your Direct Selection Tool (A) and, whilst holding down Shift, click on all the points that you want to make curves. Click on the Convert Selected Anchor Points to Smooth Button.

Move your handles about on each of the points until you get a smooth line that matches the outline of your heart. It doesn't have to be perfect - remember we are going for a hand drawn look here!

Step 10

10. Repeat Steps 8 and 9 with your other red hearts. Once you've done that, we're finished! Congratulations, now you know the basics of how to use the pen tool - you can start to scan in and trace around your own line art, or create your own work in illustrator from scratch!

If you have any questions about this tutorial, please ask in the comments!

In the next tutorial we'll be looking at some of the key features of The Appearance Panel. Have a great week, and I hope you choose to join me!

[suumin]

Adobe Illustrator Tutorials: The Pen Tool Part Two

Hello again! In this tutorial we're picking it up where we left off in my last tutorial here. This is part of my Beginner Adobe Illustrator Tutorials series, and we're covering the Pen Tool. Last time we were looking at using the pen tool to manipulate shapes. Today we're going to practice using the pen tool to create a path, and end up with an image that looks like this:

Step 1

Open up your document from last time. We need to duplicate our heart a couple of times. Take the Selection Tool (V), which is the black arrow in the toolbox. Click somewhere above the top left corner of your heart and drag down to below the bottom right corner. This will select both the red heart shape and the white highlight. You could also just click on one shape, and then hold down shift and click on the other shape.

Step 2

Hold down ALT on your keyboard and drag your selected shapes to another place on the art board. You can then resize your shapes by holding down shift (to keep the proportions the same) and dragging any of the four corner points outward (to make the shapes bigger) or inward (to make them smaller).

Step 3

Repeat Step 2 to create two more hearts. Click on the smallest heart and change the fill colour to 000000.

Step 4

We want to make some strings for the hearts to be attached to. See if you can find your layers panel, it looks like this:

Mine is in the bottom right hand corner of my window. If you can't see yours, Go to your menu bar and go to Window-->Layers, and the panel should pop up. 

Create a new layer, click on it and drag it below your current layer. Lock your hearts layer by clicking here:

Step 5

Click on Layer 2 in the layers panel to activate it. Change your fill colour to none, and your stroke colour to 000000. Bring up your pen tool again and click once at the bottom point of one of your hearts. Click again near the bottom of your art board and as you click, drag your mouse to the left - see the path will create handles as you drag.

Step 6

The line is a bit thin so look to the top of your window and find the Stroke Weight option. Change this to 3pt. 

(Note: if nothing happens, you might need to take the Selection Tool (V) and click on the path again to activate it. You can tell a path or shape is active if you can see the coloured points and path, which I have pointed out in the following image. On our previous layer they were blue, on this layer (for me) they are red)

Step 7

7. Repeat Step 5 for your other hearts. If you like, you can Add Anchor Points (+) to your paths and use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to adjust the handles and points of the paths to make them the shape that you prefer. If you want to remove any anchor points, use the Remove Anchor Points Tool (-), which is in the toolbox beneath the Add Anchor Points Tool.

Step 8

Finally, we are going to use the pen tool to trace around our hearts. Of course, you can just add a stroke to each of your heart shapes, but doing it this way will give you practice in using the pen tool to create a path, and also give our hearts a bit more of a hand drawn quality. 

Create a New Layer and make sure it is above the layer that contains your hearts in the layers panel. Click on the layer to make it active. Bring up your Pen Tool again and start clicking around the outline of one of your hearts. You may want to zoom in (CMD + on a Mac, CMD + on a PC) to get a better look at what you're doing. 

At this stage, just click on a few key points around the heart, kind of like connect the dots. We just want points and straight lines at this stage, so just click to create the path, don't click and drag to make curves as you will soon have a path with curves going in all different directions and it will make things much harder in the long run. Try to make as few points as possible - you'll end up with a smoother path in the end. 

Don't forget to close your path! You'll end up with something that looks like this.:

Step 9

Now, take your Direct Selection Tool (A) and, whilst holding down Shift, click on all the points that you want to make curves. Click on the Convert Selected Anchor Points to Smooth Button.

Move your handles about on each of the points until you get a smooth line that matches the outline of your heart. It doesn't have to be perfect - remember we are going for a hand drawn look here!

Step 10

10. Repeat Steps 8 and 9 with your other red hearts. Once you've done that, we're finished! Congratulations, now you know the basics of how to use the pen tool - you can start to scan in and trace around your own line art, or create your own work in illustrator from scratch!

If you have any questions about this tutorial, please ask in the comments!

In the next tutorial we'll be looking at some of the key features of The Appearance Panel. Have a great week, and I hope you choose to join me!