Adobe Illustrator Workshop

Unlike Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator used vectors as opposed to pixels, and is mainly associated with block colour and shape.

Arrow Tools

Black-(V) Select

White-(A) Direct Select (selects anchor points)

Artboards- like a canvas- they appear clear if you save them as they are.

Illustrator is handy because it allows you to work outside the canvas too.

Shapes and Strokes

Shapes are made up of points and have white fills by default. Strokes are the outline pathway of each shape, illustrator gives you the option to adapt this either by changing the colour or texture.

Stroke Weight ups the value and increases the thickness of strokes.

Uniform -line profile- creates more interesting shapes.

Basic -brush definition. Don't use these too because they are easily accessible.

Pathfinder allows you to distort and manipulate shapes. There are four options:

• Unite- joining shapes together
• Minus front- cuts up the front shape (if you want it the other way around press object- arrange- send back)
• Intersect- cuts the path out of the two overlapping shapes
• Exclude- The opposite of intersecting

An example of intersecting two circles to create a crescent moon shape.

Using Pathfinder I had a go at creating a little character.

Grids are a really useful alignment tool, there is also an option to 'snap to grid' which automatically aligns the shape to the nearest grid line.

Task: Using the skills we have just learnt, create a piece of illustration around the theme of Culture.

I decided to base my theme around british culture and compose an illustration of a fry up. Using points and anchors I was able to distort shapes such as eggs, sausages and beans quite simply. However when it came to the bacon it was a lot more difficult to create a wavy shape.

At first I attempted to use pathways in the 'minus front' format to cut out the waves and use the anchors to curve the sharp edges, but this didn't allow me to create the correct emphasis on the curves.

Instead, I used the pen tool to create extra points on a rectangular shape. I dragged each anchor out to make a zig-zag shape, then curved the edge of each point to create a wave bacon shape.

The finished result!