Adobe Illustrator: Using Shaped-Drawing Tools with Restraint, Outlines and Color Changes

When you drew as a child, you drew in terms of shapes, and that is where you need to start when drawing in Adobe Illustrator, too. Without changing any of the original settings, you should open the program to a gray screen with a toolbox, and a set of palettes including color and stroke. To get your work area/canvas, you need to click on the file menu and choose new. This will open a dialogue box of choices including standard paper sizes. Once you choose your size, the canvas will appear as a white area on the screen. The dotted line that appears inside of the canvas denotes the printable area; anything that hangs over this dotted line will not appear on the printed page. In Illustrator, you can draw anywhere on the screen, but only what is in the printable area will be printed in the end.

The first basic shape is a rectangle/square you can make them in all sizes and dimensions by using the rectangle tool; it's in the second column, fourth row of the toolbox. Click on it once and your cursor will change, indicating you are now using that tool. Find a place on your canvas left click and drag. When you let go of the button you will have drawn a rectangle. Under the rectangle tool in the toolbox you will also find a rounded rectangle, elliptical, polygon, and star tool (left click and hold with the cursor over the rectangle tool and additional tools appear in a row to the right) that will work the same way. To choose one click and hold the left button while dragging over the tool you would like to use, let go of the left button and you have the tool.

There are a few settings you should be aware of. Under the edit menu choose preferences then units & undo. In the units area you will have three drop down boxes. The first space is titled general and you can choose which increment you draw in; inches, points, picas, millimeters, centimeters, or pixels. Because I learned English measure I use inches.

The second drop down box is the stroke. This is the weight of the line that will outline your drawing. Again you have the same choices, inches, picas, etc. Stroke is the weight of the line around what you are drawing. Even though I draw in inches I use the stroke in points.

The third drop down menu is to pick the size of your type. Though this has nothing to do with drawing shapes I will say I always use points because where I worked we needed to make type in certain point sizes for it to be readable.

Two things you may have noticed about your shapes are that they draw from corner to diagonal corner and they are white with a black outline. First, the drawing from corner to diagonal corner: I draw from left to right so it doesn't bother me. I start at the point I want the edges to sit at. You can however draw from the center if you so desire by holding down the 'Alt' key on a PC or the 'option' key on a Mac.

To constrain the images you draw; i.e. create a perfect square or circle hold the shift key. To draw exact sizes choose your tool and click once on the canvas. Depending on which tool you are working with a dialogue box will appear asking you to enter dimensional values such as height, width, radius, and number of points.

To change the color of your objects they first need to be selected. To select your item choose the selection tool, the black arrow in the top row left column of the toolbox then click on the object you would like to alter. This will highlight that item with what is known as a bounding box.

The stroke/outline and fill color work together. At the bottom of the toolbox is a full square and a bordered square. The full square represents fill color and the bordered square represents outline color. If you click on either of them a box will come up allowing you to change the colors. (Spectrums available are grayscale, RGB, HSB, CMYK, or web safe RGB to choose one clicking on the arrow at the top right corner of the color palette and an option menu will present itself.) Whichever square, the fill or border, is the front icon is the one you are choosing the color for. To move back and forth between them click on one or the other. Choose your color by assigning values to each of the colors that make up your spectrum by using the slides on each of the value bars or entering a specific numeric percentage of that color in the white box to the right. You can also use the cursor to choose from the full spectrum bar at the bottom of the dialogue box. To the left of the spectrum slide is a box with a red line through it representing transparency, or non-existence. If you use this as your stroke there will not be an outline around your shape. If you use it for fill color you will be able to see through your shape like it is a picture frame. On the right side of the spectrum bar you have black and white.

With the standard settings the stroke palette should come up below the color palette. There is a box called weight for you to enter a number setting the weight of your outline. The numeric value here does not have to be a whole number; you can use decimal points.

I admit that I don't know it all and I don't intend to learn it unless I need to use it. I have learned a lot by playing with the settings that show up when you choose a tool. My best advice to you is to play with the tool after you know its basics and see what happens. Feel free to post questions in the comment section and I'll respond as best I can. Good luck.