Adobe Illustrator for Beginners - Let's Learn Pen Tool

1. Introduction: Welcome to Adobe Illustrator for beginners. In this class, you will learn how to use the very powerful tool, pen tool. We are going to learn the basics of the pen tool, the advanced options of this tool. And I will give you some exercises to practice and master it. So if you want to learn and master the pen tool, this class is for you. Open up Adobe Illustrator and let's start. 2. The Basics of Pen Tool: Hello and welcome back. In this class we are going to start with the very beginning. And for a better understanding how Pen tool works, we need to learn what is a path and an anchor point. Let's start. Path is the line that unites two or more anchor points. There are two types of paths, open paths. This kind of path can be, for example, a simple line with two endpoints, closed paths. It's a closed path that have no endpoints, can be, for example, a circle or a rectangle. A path is made up of anchor points and lines that connects these anchor points. If we click with the direct select tool on an anchor point of a closed path like encircle to control handles and to control handle lines will appear. The control handles are too small squares on the path which allow you to control the direction of the curved path. There are two types of anchor points. One, smooth points. This points have two linked control handles and doesn't allow the path to change direction abruptly. Two corner points, this points allow the path to change direction. There are three types of corner anchor points. Straight corner point, this point have no link control handles. If we click with the direct select tool on the anchor point, we will see that no control handles will appear. We can use as example, the corner of a rectangle. Curved corner points. This point have two linked control handles and the angle is formed by two curved lines, straight and curved corner point. This point have only one link control handle and the angle is formed by one straight line in one curved line. 3. How Pen Tool Works: Hello and welcome back. In this class we are going to learn how Pen tool works. Let's start to select the Pen tool. You can go to the Tools Panel and click on the Pen tool icon, or you can press the key P with the pen tool selected. We are going to create the same paths that we have here to create with me, go to the Projects and Resources section and download the resources I have prepared for you. For this part of the class, open the file named how Pen tool works. Before we start, let's go to the fill and stroke section. Delete, fill and choose for the stroke 20 points and the color red. Let's start with the simplest path, the straight path. We're going to click here in the center of the square, which represent an anchor point, and go to the other square in the center of which we will click again. We will notice that after we have created a straight line, if we move the cursor, we still have a thin line connected by it. This line helps us see the direction in which we want to create another anchor point. But we want to create only this straight line. We will press P and the path is complete. To create a curved path, we first click in the center of the first anchor point, and then in the second anchor point we click and drag. As you can see by clicking and dragging the control handles will appear in by moving these handles, we can curve the path and the way we want to, we will finish this path by clicking in the last anchor point. We will do the same with the next curved path. Click in the center of the first square. Click and drag in the center of the next square, and click in the center of the last square. 4. Pen Tool Practice: Hello and welcome back. In this class I have prepared some exercises for you. Go and download the file named Pen Tool practice. And let's start. Before we start, let's go again and select the stroke with 20 points in red color. The Pen Tool practice number one, we are going to trace the paths in the example. If we press and hold Shift key, we will have a straight angle. We will click here in the center of square, press and hold shift and click in the center of the second square. Then we press the key P to finish the path and start a new one. Again, we click here, press and hold shift and click in the next square. Press and hold Shift and click again in the last square. We're going to do the same thing with all the paths in the example. The Pen Tool practice number two, we're going to click in the first square, click and drag in the next square and click again in the third square, where we see only square, we will only click and where we see the square and the control handles, we will click and drag the Pen Tool practice number three, we are going to draw some simple shapes with straight corner points. The Pen Tool practice number four, we are going to draw some simple shapes with smooth point. We will click and drag in the first square, click and drag in the second square and click and drag again in the first square to close the path. 5. Pen Tool Master Practice: Hello and welcome back. In this class we're going to trace a more complex image. Go and download the file named Pen Tool master practice. And let's start. It may seem difficult to use this tool at first. Even if you can't trace it exactly, It's perfectly normal. The more you practice, the easier it will seem to you. Re-create the paths from the Pen Tool practice file as many times as you can. Once you understand how this tool works, it will be easier and easier for you to use it. 6. Additional Options of Pen Tool: Hello and welcome back. In this class we are going to learn some additional options of this incredible tool. Add anchor point tool, delete anchor point tool, and the Anchor Point Tool. Add Anchor Point tool. This tool, as its name suggests, adds a new anchor point. We can find it by going to the toolbar and clicking and holding on the Pen tool icon. The shortcut for this tool is p and plus key. If I have a square and I want to add an anchor point, I will go to the pen tool icon, click and hold and shows that anchor point tool, the Add Anchor Point tool selected. We will go to our square and click where we want to add an anchor point. We can add as many anchor points as we want. Delete anchor point tool. Now, if we want to delete one or more anchor points, we will use Delete Anchor Point tool. We can find this tool in the same place as Add Anchor Point tool. Click and hold on the Pen tool icon and choose Delete Anchor Point tool. The shortcut for this tool is p and minus key. With the Delete Anchor Point Tool selected, go to our shape and click on the anchor point that we want to delete. We will see that that the anchor point will be deleted. We can click again and delete as many anchor points as we want. Anchor point tool. We can find this tool in the same place as the other two. Press and hold on Pen Tool icon and choose Anchor Point tool. This tool help us to add or remove control handles. If we click on the anchor points of a path that have control handles, we will see that the control handles will be removed. If we click and drag on the anchor points of a path that don't have control handles. We will see that the control handles will be added and the street corner point will be transformed into a smooth point. 7. The Project: For this class project, I want you to go and create again all the exercises from the Pen Tool practice file. Then choose an image like the one I traced in the example and trace it. 8. Conclusions & Thank You!: At the end of this class, I want to thank you for choosing to study with me. I want you to know that everything I've taught you is just the basis. You will need a lot of practice and it will take a while for you to master this tool very well. If you have any other questions, please leave them in the comments section. Thank you again for choosing this course. I hope you found it useful and see you in the next one.