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In this lesson, you’ll learn how to do the following:
The pen tool is a powerful tool for drawing straight lines, Bézier curves, and complex shapes. While the pencil tool is easier for drawing and editing lines, the pen tool can be more precise. You’ll practice drawing with the pen tool by creating a trace of the letter D.
Getting started In this lesson, you’ll create an illustration of a letter of the alphabet. Before you begin you’ll need to restore the default preferences for Adobe Illustrator.
Click here to download the PT.ai file for this lesson
1 To ensure that the tools and palettes function exactly as described in this lesson, delete or deactivate (by renaming) the Adobe Illustrator preferences file. 2 Start Adobe Illustrator. 3 Choose File > Open and open the start file, PT.ai. 
4 Choose File > Save As, name the file tracingLetters.ai, and click Save. In the Illustrator Format dialog box, select version 11.0 of Illustrator and click OK. 5 Hold down Shift and press Tab once to hide all of the palettes. (Pressing Shift + Tab toggles between hiding and displaying the palettes. Pressing Tab alone toggles between hiding or showing the toolbox as well.)
Before we begin working on tracing the “D” we will learn the basics of the pen tool. Practice these skills in the “Practice Area” region of the artboard.
Drawing straight lines You draw straight lines by using the pen tool to create a starting anchor point and an ending anchor point. You can create straight lines that are vertical, horizontal, or diagonal by holding down Shift as you click with the pen tool. This is called constraining the line.
You’ll begin by drawing a straight line for the arrow.
1 Choose View > Straight Line to zoom into the upper-left corner of the Practice Area. Separate views that show different areas of the template at a higher magnification were created for this document and added to the View menu. (To create a custom view, choose View > New View. Choose View > Normal at any time to resume a 100% magnification view of the artboard). 2 Select the pen tool ( 3 Click point A at the left end of the line to create the starting anchor point—a solid square. 4 Click point B at the right end of the line to create the ending anchor point. 
When you click a second time, a carat (^) appears next to the pen tool. The carat indicates that you can split the anchor point to create a direction line for a curve by dragging the pen tool from this anchor point. The carat disappears when you move the pen tool away from the anchor point. You must end the path before you can draw other lines that aren’t connected to the path. 5 End the path using one of the following methods:
Now you’ll make the straight line thicker by changing its stroke weight.
Splitting a path To continue creating the arrow for this illustration, you’ll split the path of the straight line using the scissors tool and adjust the segments.
1 With the straight line still selected, select the scissors tool (
Cuts made with the scissors tool must be on a line or a curve rather than on an endpoint. Where you click, you see a new selected anchor point. However, the scissors tool actually creates two anchor points each time you click. Because they are on top of each other, you can see only one.
2 Select the direct-selection tool (  
Adding Arrowheads Adobe Illustrator lets you add premade arrowheads and tails to open paths by applying a Stylize filter. Now you’ll add an arrowhead to the ending point of one line segment and a tail to the starting point of the other line segment.
You can reapply the same arrowhead style to other selected objects by choosing Filter > Apply Add Arrowheads.
Drawing Curves In this part of the lesson, you’ll learn how to draw smooth curved lines with the pen tool. In vector drawing programs such as Adobe Illustrator, you draw a curve, called a Bézier curve, by setting anchor points and dragging to define the shape of the curve. Although this takes some getting used to, this type of drawing gives you the most control and flexibility in computer graphics.
You’ll begin by examining a single curve and then drawing it, using the template to guide you.
As their names imply, the anchor points anchor the curved segments, and the direction lines control the direction of the curves. You can drag the direction lines of their endpoints, called direction points or handles, to adjust the shape of the curve.
Anchor points, direction points, and direction lines are aids to help you draw. Anchor points are square, and when selected appear filled; unselected, they appear unfilled, like hollow squares. Direction points are round. These lines and points do not print with the artwork. 
By selecting the curve, you also select the paint attributes of the curve so that the next line you draw will have the same attributes. (For more on paint attributes, see the “Painting” tutorial.)
Next, you’ll select the second anchor point and its direction lines.
If you make a mistake as you draw, you can undo your work by choosing Edit > Undo (or Ctrl + Z). Adobe Illustrator by default lets you undo a series of actions—limited only by your computer’s memory—by repeatedly choosing Edit > Undo.
Drawing the D Now you’ll draw the letter D. We’ll start by drawing the outside.
Before beginning the inside of the D, drag the outside away to another part of the artboard so that the template is visible.
We will now complete the D by drawing the inside. Drawing the inside will be very similar as drawing the outside, they are even the exact same number of anchor points.
Now we will pull the two parts together and group them to form one shape.
You’ve completed the pen tool lesson and created the letter artwork, try a more difficult letter such as S, or trace your own initials.
To create another tracing template using a letter, simply insert it into the artboard and then lock it in place.
Click here to download a Microsoft Word version of this tutorial.
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Copyright © 2005, Bloomsburg University Department of Instructional Technology. |
) in the toolbox and move the pointer to point A in the artwork. Notice that the pen tool pointer has a small x next to it. This indicates that clicking will begin a new path. 
) in the toolbox and click the straight line to select it. 
) in the toolbox and click in the middle of the line to make a cut. 
) in the toolbox and position it over the cut. The small hollow square on the pointer indicates that it’s over the anchor point. Grab the new anchor point and drag it up to widen the gap between the two split segments. 
), select the bottom line segment and choose Filter > Add Arrowheads to open the dialog box again. Select the number 18 style of arrowhead, choose Start from the pop-up menu, and click OK to add a tail to the starting point of the line. 
) and position it over point A on the template. Press the mouse button and drag from point A to point B. Then, release the mouse. 
) in the toolbar, located directly under and fill and stroke boxes. Now your fill is white and your stroke is black. 
) in the toolbar, located directly above the fill and stroke boxes. Now your fill is black and your stroke is white. 
) position it over the outer D shape and click to select it. 
) in the toolbar. Now your fill is white and your stroke is black. 
) and placing it over point M. Click the mouse button once to start the inside of the D. 
) from the toolbar. Click on the outer D shape and pull it to match up with its outline on the template. 
) from the toolbar. Click on the empty space at the bottom of the “Practice Area” and type whichever letter(s) you wish to trace. 
) from the toolbar and click in one of the empty boxes that appears around the outside of the letter. Do not let go of the mouse button.