Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

Drawing Primitive Shapes

So far we’ve been working primarily with open paths, that

is, paths that have endpoints. In this exercise, we’ll be

working with closed paths—simple shapes known as

primitives. A primitive is a basic shape, such as a rect-

angle, a circle, an ellipse, a triangle, a polygon, or

a star. These primitives, along with the basic

line shapes, are the elements that make up every

drawing produced in Illustrator.

For the rest of this lesson, we’ll be working on one fi le

that will continue from exercise to exercise. But this isn’t just

any old piece of art. It’s a stylized tonalpohualli, an ancient 260-

day Mesoamerican calendar used primarily by the Aztecs. In the

fi rst exercise, you’ll create a tracing template and draw many of the

basic shapes that make up the illustration.

1.

Open the tonalpohualli. Navigate to the Lesson 02

folder inside the Lesson Files-AIcs5 1on1 folder. Open

the fi le named, appropriately enough, Tonalpohualli.

ai. You’ll be greeted with a round piece of artwork, replete with

primitive shapes like rectangles, circles, ellipses, and stars.

2.

Examine the Layers panel. Bring up the

Layers panel (if it’s not already visible)

by pressing the F7 key. You’ll see that

this document has a total of fi ve layers.

One issue I have with the Layers panel

as it stands is that the thumbnails are

so small as to be nearly useless. That’s

something you can easily rectify. Click

the

button in the upper-right corner

of the panel, and choose Panel Options

from the panel menu. This brings up the

dialog box as seen in Figure 2-26. You

could change the thumbnail option to

Large, but why when you can create your

own custom size? Select Other in the

dialog box, and enter a value between

60 and 100, depending on your avail-

able screen real estate. (I went with 70.)

Now your thumbnails are large enough

for you to see the details on each layer.

Figure 2-25 .

Figure 2-26 .

51

Drawing Primitive Shapes

3. Make a tracing template from the Calendar layer. Now it’s

time to turn the existing artwork into a tracing template to fol-

low. You can accomplish this in a few simple steps:

• In the Layers panel, click the

icon (affectionately known

as “the meatball,” shown in the left side of Figure 2-27) to

the right of the Calendar layer name. This selects the layer

and all the artwork on it.

• In the control panel, set the Opacity to 25 percent.

• Finally, back in the Layers panel, click the square to the

right of the

to lock the Calendar layer (indicated by the

icon, shown in the right side of Figure 2-27). Note that

locking the layer also deselects all the artwork on that layer.

4.

Repeat for the Circles layer. You’ll notice that I’ve placed some

other tracing templates in this document: three additional lay-

ers that provide templates for the primitive shapes you’ll be

drawing. For now, focus on the Circles layer:

•

Make the Circles layer visible by clicking the leftmost

square, waking up the icon.

•

“Meatball” the layer (by clicking the icon). This time, set

the Opacity to 50 percent via the control panel.

• Lastly, lock the layer.

5. Turn on and lock the Guides layer. Using the same methods,

make the Guides layer visible, then lock it to prevent the guides

from being moved.

6. Create a new layer. One layer that is conspicuously missing

from this document is a layer for drawing your artwork. Create

a new layer by clicking the icon at the bottom of the Layers

panel. Double-click the new layer (by default named

Layer 6) to bring up the Layer Options dialog box,

as seen in Figure 2-28. Name the layer “My drawing”

and change the layer’s default color. I chose orange,

because it stands out well from the other layer col-

ors, but feel free to pick whatever color you’d like.

P E A R L O F W I S D O M

A shortcut when creating new layers will save you a lot of time in the long

run. Rather than creating a layer by clicking the

icon, then double-clicking

the layer to edit its options, you can Alt-click (or Option-click) the

icon.

This creates a new layer and brings you directly to the Layer Options dialog

box without the need for a second step.

Figure 2-27 .

Figure 2-28 .

52

Lesson 2: Lines, Shapes, and Color