Corners & Curves: Free Illustrator Tutorial

Topics covered in this Illustrator tutorial:

Drawing corners & curves with the Pen tool, Adjusting anchor points

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

Corners can be tricky to draw, but this template walks you through drawing them and makes it quite easy.

1. From the Illustrator Class folder, open the file Corners & Curves Template.ai.

2. Select File > Save As, naming the file yourname-Corners & Curves.ai.

3. Click Save.

4. In the dialog that appears, leave the default options checked and click OK.

Selecting Colors & Using the Template

1. In the Tools panel, click the Default Fill and Stroke button .

2. In the Tools panel, click the Fill icon and then click the None button .

3. Follow the on-screen directions in the file. When you have completed the directions, save your changes and move on to the next section in this exercise.

Finishing Up Once You’re Done with the Template

You’ve drawn the shapes that make up the complete image of the vase and flower, so let’s put them all together.

1. If you closed the yourname-Corners & Curves.ai file, please open it again.
2. Using the Selection tool , click on the Stem you drew.
3. Shift–click the Vase, Leaf, and Tulip so they are also selected.
4. Now that all four shapes are selected, copy them (Edit > Copy).
5. Go to File > New to create a new document.
6. At the top of the dialog that opens, click on the Print tab.
7. Double–click the Letter preset to open the new file.
8. Select File > Save, naming the file yourname-flowers.ai.
9. Click Save, and in the dialog that appears, click OK.
10. Now paste your objects (Edit > Paste).
11. Click away from the artwork to deselect the shapes.
12. The shapes need to be arranged. Let’s start with the Vase. Using the Selection tool , drag it by one of its lines to the center of the page.
13. Drag the Stem into place above the Vase.
14. Drag the Tulip to the end of the Stem.
15. Drag the Leaf into place above the Vase and to the right of the Stem.
16. Click away from the artwork to deselect the shapes. The composition is now complete, but some color would really enhance this.
17. Click on the Vase to select it.
18. Click on the Fill icon (in the Tools panel).
19. In the Properties panel under Appearance, click on the swatch next to Fill.

20. In the Color Mixer panel, enter 60 next to M (M agenta) and 90 next to Y (Y ellow). C yan and blacK should remain at 0.

    For the rest of this workbook, when we ask you to enter CMYK values, we will use a shorthand direction. The above values would be written 60m and 90y.

21. To close the Color Mixer panel, press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows).

22. Click on the Tulip to select it.

23. In the Properties panel, click on the Fill icon. Then in the Color Mixer panel, enter 7c and 94m.

    NOTE: When you type in color values, Illustrator will sometimes reinsert the values from the last color you specified into the remaining fields. So for any color values you are not specifying, be sure to make them 0 if Illustrator didn’t.

24. To close the Color Mixer panel, press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows).

25. Click on the Leaf to select it.

26. In the Properties panel, click on the Fill icon. Then in the Color Mixer panel, enter 66c and 100y.

    NOTE: Once you click in a number field in the Color Mixer panel, just hit Tab to jump to the field below. This makes entering numbers for colors faster!

27. To close the Color Mixer panel, press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows).

28. Click on the Stem to select it.

    The Stem and Leaf should both be the same green. The Stem is just a line, so it needs a stroke color, not a fill color.

29. In the Properties panel under Appearance, click on the swatch next to Stroke. (It should be a black outline.)

30. At the top middle of the panel that appears, click the Color Mixer button if it isn’t already selected.

31. In the Color Mixer panel, enter 66c and 100y.

32. To close the Color Mixer panel, press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows).

33. With the Stem still selected, go back to the Properties panel and in the menu to the right of the Stroke swatch, change the weight from 1 pt to 5 pt.

    TIP: You can also do this in the Control panel at the top of the screen.

34. Let’s get rid of those black strokes on everything else.

    With the Selection tool , starting outside the shapes, click and drag a selection marquee over everything. When you let go, they will be selected.

35. Shift–click the Stem to deselect it. (Because the stem only consists of a line, it would disappear if we removed its stroke!)

36. In the Tools panel, make sure that the Stroke icon is active and is black. If it is showing question marks, the stem is probably still selected.

    Question Marks?

    When multiple objects are selected, sometimes the Stroke and Fill icons show question marks.

    

    This means that there are multiple Fill or Stroke colors for those objects. Illustrator doesn’t know which color to show. If they are all the same color, Illustrator will show that color.

37. Click the None button .

38. Click off the artwork to deselect it.

39. Select File > Save and close the file.

    Spring has sprung!