Day 4
Objectives
General objectives
- Students will be able to draw complex shapes with a variety of tools
Specific learning outcomes
- Students will be able to draw freehand using the pencil, brush, and shaper tools
- Students will be able to draw by creating anchor points with the curvature and pen tools
Practice files: https://files.learnsoftware.org/illustrator/
Outline
Intro/Hook [completed project you have made using drawing and/or pen tools]
Free Drawing Tools
- Pencil tool
- freehand draw, fine lines
- Example Question: How is drawing with the pencil tool different from drawing with a pencil? How is it the same?
- Brush tool
- freehand draw, thicker lines, smoother than pencil
- Example Question: How are the brush tool and pencil tools different?
- Smooth tool
- trace over lines created by pencil or brush tools to smooth them out
- Shaper tool
- freehand draw shapes, will detect shape you are drawing and create it for you
- scribble with your mouse to delete shapes/parts of shapes (can use like the shape builder tool!)
- Pen tool
- use Pen tool tutorial.ai to demonstrate how the pen tool works
- Example Question: What do you find difficult as you are working through this tutorial? How is drawing with the pen tool different from drawing with an ordinary pen?
- Example Question: How do (alt, shift) affect the functions of the pen tool?
- Curvature tool
- Example Question: What is the keyboard shortcut to make corners when drawing with the curvature tool?
- Width Tool
- Adjust the thickness of any stroke
Conclusion
- Recap
- Drawing tools
- Next time
- Painting
- Badges
Example Activities
Drawing practice.ai
This file has images in a variety of shapes. Have students try tracing different shapes with the pencil, brush, shaper, curvature, and pen tools. Demonstrate each tool, then have students draw as many of the shapes as they can. Encourage students to start rough and not worry too much about undoing over and over to get things perfect. They can always edit the shapes they’ve created with the direct selection, add anchor point, delete anchor point, convert anchor point, pencil, and smooth tools.
Each shape tends to work better with some tools than others. More geometric, smooth shapes (such as the Nike or McDonalds logo, or the Sombrero) tend to come out nicely with the pen, curvature, or shaper tools, where more organic shapes (like the avocado or lips) are easy to create with the pencil or brush. Mastering the pen tool gives you the most control and flexibility, but also takes the most time. The brush is easiest to learn, but has some quirks.
Pen tool tutorial.ai
This file contains detailed instructions to walk students through all the options and some basic skills in using the pen tool. Do a few exercises together, spend some time modifying the shapes you created to see how their anchors and handles work, then set students loose to complete the worksheet on their own. Make sure students get how each keyboard modifier works.
This file is also an excellent time to teach about fill and stroke. As students draw the star, they will hit a point where part of the template layer disappears. this is because the star has the default white fill and black stroke. Have students set the shape to no fill (they can do this while in the middle of drawing the star) so they can finish drawing it, and explain the basics of how fill and stroke work.