- Getting Started
- Setting Up the Document
- Using Basic Shape Tools
- Drawing the Pencil Shape
- Drawing the Piece of Stationery
- Drawing with the Rectangular Grid Tool
- Decorating the Stationery Border
- Tips for Drawing Polygons, Spirals, and Stars
- Painting the Logo
- Copying and Scaling Shapes
- Review Questions
- Review Answers
Painting the Logo
In Adobe Illustrator, you can paint both the fill and the stroke of shapes with colors, patterns, or gradients. You can even apply various brushes to the path of the shapes. For this logo, you’ll use a simple method to reverse the default fill and stroke of your shapes, painting the fill with black and the stroke with white.
- Select the Selection tool () in the toolbox, and then click the eraser shape to select it.
- Click the Swap Fill and Stroke button in the toolbox.
The black stroke of the rounded rectangle is transposed with the rectangle’s white fill.
Next you’ll paint the grid with a white fill and the stroke with a 50% screen of black.
- Click anywhere on the grid, and choose Window > Color to open the Color palette.
- In the Color palette, make sure that the Fill box is selected (in front of the Stroke box); then click the white color box to the right of the color bar to paint the fill color of the grid white.
- In the Color palette, click the Stroke box to bring it in front of the Fill box. The color value of the stroke is 100% black.
- Change the black value from 100% black to 39% black by either typing 39 in the color value field or dragging the slider under the color bar to the left until the value is 39%.
- Click the line beneath the bands on the pencil to select the line. In the Color palette, click the White swatch at the right of the color bar to stroke the band white.
- Click one of the two rectangles that make up the pencil body to select it, and then Shift-click to select the other rectangle. Click the Swap Fill and Stroke button in the toolbox to swap the white fills of the pencil body with the black strokes and paint the pencil black with a white stroke.
- Select the designs around the border by Shift-clicking them. Then select the Default Fill and Stroke button.
- Click the outer rectangle (not the inner rectangle) of the stationery border to select it, and click the Swap Fill and Stroke
button.
Now you’ll paint the pencil’s lead tip with both a black fill and a black stroke.
- Click the small triangle that represents the lead tip to select it.
- In the toolbox, click the Default Fill and Stroke button, and then drag the black Stroke box onto the Fill box to paint the
triangle black.
To complete the design, you’ll draw a curvy line using the Pencil tool.
- Click away from the artwork to deselect it.
- With the Fill box selected, click the None button in the toolbox to indicate no fill setting. The Stroke is set to the default of black.
- Select the Pencil tool () in the toolbox and draw a curvy line below the pencil’s tip in the logo.
The curvy line remains selected after you draw it.
- To adjust the path of the curvy line, drag the Pencil tool along part of the selected line and then continue dragging.
- If the Stroke palette isn’t visible, choose Window > Stroke to display it, and then increase the stroke weight of the selected
line to 3 pt in the Weight text box. Press Enter or Return.
For information on drawing and editing shapes with the Pencil tool, see “Drawing freeform paths with the Pencil tool” in online Help.