NOTEYou’ll also explore other methods for transforming artwork in Lesson 5, “Transforming Artwork.” Cutting with the Scissors toolThere are several tools that allow you to cut and divide shapes. You’ll start with the Scissors tool ( ), which splits a path at an anchor point or on a line segment and makes an open path.Drag the other anchor point, from where you originally cut the path with the scissors, up and to the left (see the figure).Notice how the stroke (the black border) doesn’t go all the way around the red shape. That’s because cutting with the Scissors tool makes an open path. A circle or rectangle are examples of closed paths, and a line or “S” shape are examples of open paths (the end points are not connected). If you only want to fill the shape with a color, it is not necessary to join the path to make a closed path. An open path can have a color fill.
![]()
Green tea leaves vector nature background. Buy this stock vector.
It is, however, necessary to join a path if you want a stroke to appear around the entire fill area. Joining pathsSuppose you draw a “U” shape and later decide you want to close the shape, essentially joining the ends of the “U” with a straight path. If you select the path, you can use the Join command to create a line segment between the end points, closing the path. When more than one open path is selected, you can join them together to create a closed path. You can also join the end points of two separate paths.Next, you will join the ends of the red path to create a single closed shape.Select the Selection tool ( ) in the Tools panel.
Click away from the red path to deselect it, and then click in the red fill to reselect it.This step is important because only one anchor point was left selected from the previous section. If you were to choose the join command, an error message would appear. By selecting the whole path, when you apply the join command, Illustrator simply finds the two ends of the path and connects them with a straight line. TIPIf you wanted to join specific anchor points from separate paths, select the anchor points and choose Object Join Path or press Command+J (Mac OS) or Ctrl+J (Windows).Choose Object Path Join.Notice that the two anchor points on the left side of the paths are now joined with a straight path and the stroke (black border) goes all the way around now.Choose Select Deselect to see the closed path.When you apply the Join command to two or more open paths, Illustrator first looks for and joins the paths that have end points stationed closest to each other. This process is repeated every time you apply the Join command until all paths are joined.
Cutting with the Knife toolAnother way to cut a shape is by using the Knife tool ( ). To cut with the Knife tool, you drag across a shape, and the result is two closed paths. Choose “3 Bird 2” from the Artboard Navigation menu in the lower-left corner of the Document window. Click and hold down the mouse on the Scissors tool ( ), and select the Knife tool ( ).Position the Knife pointer ( ) above the green shape toward the top of the artboard. Starting above the shape (see the red X in the figure), drag down all the way across the shape to cut the shape into two.Dragging across a shape with the Knife tool makes a very free-form cut that is not straight at all. NOTEYou cannot erase raster images, text, symbols, graphs, or gradient mesh objects.Next, you’ll use the Eraser tool to modify several shapes. Choose 2 Bird 1 from the Artboard Navigation menu in the lower-left corner of the Document window.With the Selection tool ( ), select the smaller white circle toward the upper-left corner of the artboard.By selecting the white shape, you’ll erase only that shape and nothing else.
If you leave all objects deselected, you can erase any object that the tool touches, across all layers. Combining shapesIn Illustrator, you can combine vector objects in a variety of ways. A lot of the time, creating more complex shapes from simpler shapes can be easier than trying to create them with drawing tools like the Pen tool. The resulting paths or shapes differ depending on the method you use to combine the paths.
In this section, you’ll explore a few of the more widely used methods for combining shapes. Working with the Shape Builder toolThe first method you will learn for combining shapes involves working with the Shape Builder tool ( ).
![]()
This tool allows you to visually and intuitively merge, delete, fill, and edit overlapping shapes and paths directly in the artwork. TIPYou can also press the Shift key and drag a marquee across a series of shapes to combine them. Pressing Shift+Option (Mac OS) or Shift+Alt (Windows) and dragging a marquee across selected shapes with the Shape Builder tool ( ) selected allows you to delete a series of shapes within the marquee.When you select the Shape Builder tool, the overlapping shapes are divided into separate objects temporarily.
As you drag from one part to another, a red outline appears, showing you what the final shape outline will look like when it merges the shapes together after releasing the mouse button. Notice that the new combined shape is now the same blue as the bird shape you created previously.Position the pointer off the upper-right corner of the shapes, and drag from the red X in the figure down and to the left into the red/orange rectangle. Release the mouse button to combine the shapes. NOTEPressing the Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) modifier key enables what’s referred to as Erase mode for the Shape Builder tool. Select the Selection tool. With the blue shapes still selected, change the Fill color to an orange/red color with the tooltip name that shows as “C=0 M=90 Y=85 K=0.”. Choose Object Group to group the now orange shapes together.
Choose View Fit Artboard In Window. Select the Selection tool and drag one of the orange shapes in the group to the right side of the artboard, above the yellow shapes. See the following figure for how to position them. Drag the orange/yellow shape (an arrow is pointing to it in the figure) into the center of the wing shapes.Choose Select Deselect, and then choose File Save. When a Pathfinder effect such as Merge is applied, the original objects selected are permanently transformed. If the effect results in more than one shape, they are grouped automatically. Choose 5 Bird 3 from the Artboard Navigation menu in the lower-left corner of the Document window.
Choose Window Pathfinder to open the Pathfinder panel group.With the Selection tool ( ), hold down the Shift key, and click the red oval and blue rectangle beneath it to select both objects.You need to create a shape that looks like a bird wing. You will use the Pathfinder panel and those shapes to create the final artwork. Choose Edit Undo Subtract to bring both shapes back. Leave them selected.Shape modes in the Pathfinder panelThe buttons in the top row of the Pathfinder panel, called shape modes, create paths just like the Pathfinder effects, but they can also be used to create compound shapes. When several shapes are selected, clicking a shape mode while pressing the Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) key creates a compound shape rather than a path.
The original underlying objects of compound shapes are preserved. As a result, you can still select each original object within a compound shape. Using a shape mode to create a compound shape can be useful if you think that you may want to retrieve the original shapes at a later time.With the shapes still selected, hold down the Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) key, and click the Minus Front button ( ) in the Shape Modes section of the Pathfinder panel. Creating a compound pathCompound paths let you use a vector object to cut a hole in another vector object. Whenever I think of a compound path, I think of a doughnut shape, which can be created from two circles.
Holes appear where paths overlap. A compound path is treated like a group, and the individual objects in the compound path can still be edited or released (if you don’t want them to be a compound path anymore).
Next, you’ll create a compound to create some art for the butterfly. Choose 4 Butterfly from the Artboard menu in the lower-left corner of the Document window. Choose View Fit Artboard In Window.With the Selection tool ( ) selected, select the white circle with the black stroke. Drag it onto the larger orange circle above it, a little off-center. TIPYou can still edit the original shapes in a compound path like this one. To edit them, select each shape individually with the Direct Selection tool ( ) or double-click the compound path with the Selection tool to enter Isolation mode and select the individual shapes.You can now see that the white circle has seemingly disappeared, and you can now see through the shape to the reddish-orange color of the butterfly wing.
The white circle was used to “punch” a hole in the orange shape. With the shape still selected, you should see “Compound Path” on the left end of the Control panel above the Document window.Option-drag (Mac OS) or Alt-drag (Windows) the new compound path to the right side of the orange wing shape.
Release the mouse button and then the key.
![]() Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
February 2023
Categories |