Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

Filling, Stroking, and Stacking

In the previous exercise, we focused primarily on how to color ob-

jects, with a few instances of moving objects forward or back. In

this exercise, I’ll show you how to move shapes directly in front of

or behind the selected object, as well as how to manipulate entire

groups, even when those groups may be nested inside other groups.

We’ll wrap up by restoring the face in the center of the artwork.

This is our last exercise with the tonalpohualli (and the last exercise

of the lesson), and by the end you’ll have a complete (and complex)

high-quality illustration.

1. Open the calendar art. If you have your fi le from the

last exercise open, you can keep working with that; if

not, open the fi le Topo halfway.ai, found in the

son 02 folder.

2.

Fill the two outermost stars. Using whatever method you’d

like, fi ll the outermost star with Light Clay, and the star just

inside it with white, as in Figure 2-79.

3. Move the stars to their proper place in the stack. If you tem-

porarily turned off the Paths layer (by clicking its ), you’ll see

that the stars are supposed to be behind the thickly stroked

circle about halfway out from the center. You have to move

them, but how?

So much of Illustrator is a building process, rather than a traditional

pen-and-ink process. The stacking order is a crucial part of building

a successful illustration, and while the stacking order may seem

inscrutable at times, the next few tricks will prove indispensable.

Make the Paths layer visible again, and select both stars with

the black arrow tool. Rather than pressing Ctrl+

(or  - )

countless times, trying to get the stars into position, do the fol-

lowing to get them just where they need to go:

•

Press Ctrl+X (-X) to cut the stars. This moves them to

the clipboard.

• Select the heavy circle with the black arrow tool, as shown

in Figure 2-80.

•

From the Edit menu, choose Paste in Back, or press the

keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+B (-B). (The keyboard shortcuts

for Paste in Front and Paste in Back are extremely useful,

and I highly recommend you commit them to memory.)

Figure 2-79 .

Figure 2-80 .

74

Lesson 2: Lines, Shapes, and Color

Your illustration should now look like Figure 2-81. (I clicked the

background to deselect the stars to make them more visible.)

With the Paste in Back and Paste in Front commands, Illustra-

tor leaves the horizontal and vertical position of the elements

unchanged, and changes only the stacking order.

4.

Repeat for the ring of squares. See the ring of large white

squares, evenly spaced between the star points? Those squares

should be behind the dark outer ring they overlap so that only

the edges are showing. Click one square—and they all get se-

lected! I created these squares as a group, so they could be ma-

nipulated as one object. Press Ctrl+X (-X) to cut the squares,

and select the outer heavy ring. Finally, press Ctrl+B (-B) to

position the squares in back, as shown in Figure 2-82.

5. Fill some more shapes. It’s time to fi ll in some of the shapes

at the center of our artwork. Using the black arrow tool, click

the outermost four-pointed star, and then Shift-click the in-

nermost star. Fill both shapes with white by clicking the white

swatch in the Swatches panel. Click the middle four-pointed

star to select it, and fi ll it with the Light Clay color, as pictured

in Figure 2-83.

6.

Fill and move the circle just outside the god’s face. There’s

one circle left to fi ll—the one just outside the face. Click it

with the black arrow tool, and fi ll it with the Medium Clay

color swatch. Immediately, it obscures the rest of the face; it’s

sitting at the top of the stack. Press Ctrl+X (-X) to cut it, and

then click any of the rotated rectangles. (They’ll be selected

as a group.) Finally, press Ctrl+F (-F) to place the circle just

in front of the rectangles, as in Figure 2-84.

Figure 2-81 .

Figure 2-82 .

Figure 2-83 . Figure 2-84 .

75

Filling, Stroking, and Stacking