Getting Started in Illustrator
I highly recommend that you go to
adobe.com/downloads and download the free 30-day trial of Illustrator CS5.5 before beginning this class. This version is a major upgrade from the previous versions. However, many of the movies you will be watching and learning from are from the
Adobe Video Workshop and were made using CS3. The two interfaces are slightly different but the CS3 movies have files that can be downloaded and used by both you and your students, and everything that can be done on CS3 can also be done on CS5.
UNIT 1
The Interface
Screenshot taken from the online Illustrator Help menu.
Click on the image above to be taken to a description of the Menus, Toolbar, Control Panel, Document Window, and Panels in the Illustrator interface. Familiarize yourself with the terminology to be prepared for what lies ahead.
UNIT 2
Customizing, Setting Up, and Manipulating
These are the first steps in learning Illustrator. I use these movies with students and then ask questions as a way of assessing if they are ready to move on.
Click on the
Adobe Video Workshop link, scroll and select Illustrator on the left, Getting Started on the right (highlighted in blue in the screenshot below,) and watch the following three movies:
- Customizing the Interface
- Creating and setting up a document
- Selecting and manipulating objects
UNIT 3
Line, Shape and Eraser Tools
Screenshot from Adobe Video Workshop
Geometric shapes are the base of Illustrator. In my Accelerated Drawing class, my students learn to draw by breaking down any object into circles, rectangles and triangles. Add volume to those and you have spheres, cubes and prisms.
Play around with shapes, combining different shapes to draw. The example below shows how to combine a rectangle with an ellipse (or oval) to make a simple vase.
Mondrian Assignment
Piet Mondrian was a Dutch artist that used only black, white, and the primary colors of red, white and blue. He was part of the De Stijl movement, and used nonrepresentational shapes to express ideas like movement and rhythm.
Screenshot of Google results from the Image search of 'Mondrian."
This is a simple assignment that students (and you!) can do to start using the rectangle tool. First, under the Illustrator menu, select Preferences, Guides and Grid.
Make a gridline every 1 inch with 4 subdivisions to make a quarter inch grid.
Next, under the View menu, select Guides, Show Guides. Also under the View menu, select Snap to Grid. Now students can make their own Mondrian and practice using a fill with no stroke to get a Mondrian in minutes.
UNIT 4
Drawing and Painting with the Pencil and Paintbrush Tools
Watch the following movies at
Adobe Video Workshop in the Drawing and Painting section:
- Using the Paintbrush Tool
- Using the Pencil Tool
- Using Brushes from Brush Libraries
One thing that students tend to do is draw an image with the straight line tool, and then wonder where the paint bucket is. The sad fact is that there is no paint bucket in Illustrator. You need a closed path like the Shape tools provide in order to fill it consistently.
UNIT 5
Using Live Trace and Live Paint
Watch the Using Live Trace and Using Live Trace movies at
Adobe Video Workshop. I have my students download the files and work along with the movie. Every year there is some rather withdrawn student that is either a cartoonist or a manga or anime artist that finds themselves in Live Trace and Live Paint. Bookmark these videos; I had to watch them several times before remembering all of the steps.
UNIT 6
Color, Gradients, Blends and Color Groups
Ellen Lupton has written the best graphic design book I have ever found, called
Graphic Design, the New Basics. She has a companion website that gives an excellent overview of the basics of color theory. Here is a link:
http://gdbasics.com/index.php?s=color
Here’s a link to a great intro movie from Adobe Video Workshop on
Gradients and Blends:
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop
Color Groups in Illustrator could be a new way to teach or spiral back to Color Theory.
Here’s a video from Adobe Video Workshop on how to use Color Groups:
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop
The color assignment I use in class is a food illustration for the annual cookbook that is a collaboration between my class and the Food Service class at the NE Metro Career and Technical Center. The book is called “Our Favorites,” and each Food Service student chooses a favorite recipe. My students find a photo of the food on the Internet, Place the photo in Illustrator, Lock it, and draw over it, changing it into an illustration that is unrecognizable from the original. (This is a good time to talk about copyright law.) Then the students Place their illustrations into an InDesign file, where we assemble the book.
Recolor is also an amazing tool:
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop
UNIT 7
Typography
Most people never give a thought to the art of typography, but it is the hallmark of graphic design. Ellen Lupton )can you tell she is my favorite graphic design author) has a great site to accompany her book
Thinking With Type. Browse through her site; maybe have the students take a look. She even has some games there.
This unit’s movies from
Adobe Video Workshop are in the Filters and Effects topic:
- Creating Point and Area Type
- Creating Type on a Path
Logo Assignment
This is the point where my students design their Corporate Identity: it all starts with a logo drawn in Illustrator. The other components are done in InDesign: letterhead, envelope, resume, cover letter, and business cards.
UNIT 8
Avatar Portfolio Piece
When my students finish this project, I put their avatars up on the board. Most students like this project, and the ones who are slow to finish are motivated by wanting to get theirs on the board.
Step 1: Take a Picture of Yourself
We use Photobooth on the Mac. But you could also upload a photo from your camera or phone. This should be a talking head type of photo of head and shoulders only.
Step 2: Place the image.
In Illustrator, go to the File menu , and choose Place… Navigate to your photo and place the image.
Step 3: Lock the image
With your photo selected, choose Lock, Selection. This will keep your photo from moving around while you draw on top of it.
Step 4: Start from the back and proceed forward.
Every object you draw on your document is stacked on top of the last one you drew, so if you start at the back, your objects will be in order when you are finished. Draw your neck and shoulders, as much as you can see of them. You can draw behind your clothing and head, this is just the backdrop. Use a stroke color you can see, and no fill. As you get pieces drawn, select them and move them out of the way.
Step 5: Draw the Head
I start with the Ellipse tool and press Option (Alt on PC) to make the circle draw from the center. Have a stroke color you can see, and no fill. Get the oval as close to your head shape as possible. Then, get in there with the White Arrow tool and move points, handles, or lines. You only need to be perfect on the parts of your face not covered by hair. Under the Window menu, go to Swatch Libraries, Gradients, and open the Skintones and Earthtones swatch libraries. Make sure you have the Gradient libraries selected; these both exist as flat color libraries as well.
Choose a skintone that matches yours and fill your head and neck with the color. Remove the stroke. A Radial gradient on the head and a Linear gradient on the neck makes them look 3d, but play around until you are satisfied.
Step 6: The Eyes
Start with the Ellipse tool and hold down Option and Shift to get a circle that draws out from the center, and draw the iris. Even though you don’t see the whole circle in the picture, draw it as a circle and we’ll mask it later. Fill it with an earthtone radial gradient that is close to your eye color, or a color you’d like. Change the gradient color points if you’d like to. When you are satisfied, use the same process to draw the pupil. Fill the pupil with the black to white gradient on the default swatches. To get a little spark of life, get the gradient tool and go just inside the upper left corner of the pupil and draw a short diagonal, so there is a little white but mostly black. Select the iris and pupil, align their horizontal and vertical centers, and go to the Object Menu and select Group.
Next, select the Ellipse tool and draw an oval that is as wide as the corners of your eyes and as high as your eyes are open. Get the Convert Anchor Point tool from the Pen Tool pod, and click on the left and right anchor points of the oval to make them into corner points. Use the White Arrow tool to manually move the corners of your eye to match the photo below. Make two more copies of the eye opening shape.
Place the eye opening shape on top of the grouped iris and pupil. If they don’t stack up right, select the eye opening shape, go to the Object menu, and select Arrange.., Bring to Front. When you have the iris, pupil and eye shape set up the way you want them, select them and go to the Object Menu, Clipping Mask, Make. This will mask the iris outside of the eye shape. Now make one of your eye shapes the white of your eye and make the other have no fill and a stroke to your liking and get them all in position.
Don’t worry about the other eye yet. We’ll get the eyebrow done and use the Reflect Tool to pop it into place.
Step 7: The Eyebrow
Most people can get a fairly realistic eyebrow by using the brush or pencil tool and tracing the arc of the eyebrow. From the Window Menu, open the Brush Libraries, Artistic, Chalk Charcoal Pencil. Scroll down to the thinnest brushes and see if you can find one that looks right to you. Alternatively, use the brush or pencil and draw the main shape and fill it, or draw the individual hairs.
Step 8: Reflect the Other Eye
Select the eye and eyebrow with the black arrow tool. Get the Reflect Tool (it’s in the same pod as the Rotate Tool), hold down the Option key (Alt for PC) and click right between your eyes to set the point of reflection and also bring up a dialog box. Select Vertical for the axis, and Copy. Bingo! Your other eye may need a little moving or rotating to perfect it.
Step 9: The Nose
The best thing I can say about the nose is less is more. One strategy is to find a color from your face gradient that barely shows up and draw just the bottom of the nose. Another is to show one side. If you draw nostrils, think of them as apostrophes, not ovals, or you will get a piggy nose. Experiment.
Step 10: The Mouth
This can be done many different ways. I usually draw the lips separately and fill them with one of the pinker skintones. The boys in my class struggle with color on lips, but by editing the gradient color points, they come up with something they are satisfied with. If you are smiling and showing teeth in your photo, one strategy is to draw the lips as two separate objects, select them, go to Window, Pathfinder, and choose Exclude, to make the shepe in the middle see-through. Make your teeth nice and white and don’t put the lines between the teeth in or you almost always get George Washington teeth.
Step 11: The Hair
I usually use the pen tool to start the hair. It always looks like a swimming cap until I go to the Effect menu, choose Distort and transform, and then ____________. Turn on Preview so you can adjust as you go. Some people use a gradient to fill their hair and brush strokes over it. Spiky hair can be achieved using the Crystallize or Wrinkle tools (in the same pod as the Warp Tool.) Double click the tool to customize the presets.
Step 12: Finish up
By now all you have left is your clothing. Use the pen or pencil to draw it. Sometimes students fill with a pattern if they are wearing a patterned shirt. Otherwise, a nice gradient with a few wrinkle lines over it works well. Put everything back together, go to the Object Menu, Select Unlock All. Your photo will be selected. Delete it. Done!
UNIT 9
Opacity Mask
http://layersmagazine.com/creative-masking-techniques-in-illustrator.html
is a great tutorial on opacity and clipping masks.
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