Using Shapes to Create Artwork for a Postcard

By Brian Wood.
Sample Chapter is provided courtesy of Adobe Press.
Date: Dec 28, 2019.

Chapter Information

Starting the lesson
Creating a new document
Working with basic shapes
Converting raster images to editable vector using Image Trace
Working with drawing modes

Chapter Description

In this sample chapter from Adobe Illustrator Classroom in a Book (2020 release), author Brian Wood will teach you how to use shapes to create artwork. You'll learn the tools and commands needed to create a variety of shapes, understand live shapes, and work with drawing modes.

From the Book

Adobe Illustrator Classroom in a Book (2020 release)

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LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to do the following:

Create a new document.
Use tools and commands to create a variety of shapes.
Understand live shapes.
Create rounded corners.
Work with drawing modes.
Use Image Trace to create shapes.
Simplify paths.

This lesson will take about 60 minutes to complete. To get the lesson files used in this chapter, download them from the web page for this book at www.adobepress.com/IllustratorCIB2020. For more information, see “Accessing the lesson files and Web Edition” in the Getting Started section at the beginning of this book.

Basic shapes are essential to creating Illustrator artwork. In this lesson, you’ll create a new document and then create and edit a series of shapes using the shape tools for a postcard.

Starting the lesson

In this lesson, you’ll explore the different methods for creating artwork using the shape tools and other methods to add artwork to a postcard for a farmers market.

To ensure that the tools function and the defaults are set exactly as described in this lesson, delete or deactivate (by renaming) the Adobe Illustrator preferences file. See “Restoring default preferences” in the “Getting Started” section at the beginning of the book.
Start Adobe Illustrator.
Choose File > Open. Locate the file named L3_end.ai, which is in the Lessons > Lesson03 folder that you copied onto your hard disk, and click Open.

This file contains the finished illustrations that you’ll create in this lesson.
Choose View > Fit All In Window; leave the file open for reference, or choose File > Close.

2. Creating a new document | Next Section

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