From the course: Illustrator One-on-One: Fundamentals
Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.
The best tools for painting - Illustrator Tutorial
From the course: Illustrator One-on-One: Fundamentals
The best tools for painting
“
- The subject of this chapter is one of the best tools in the entire software. We're talking Adobe Illustrator. Complex, beloved, unquestionably the best drawing package on the planet. And so, what is it's best free form drawing tool? This is not my idea. But it is kind of cute. Illustrator's best free form drawing tool if officially named by Adobe the Blob Brush. The Blob Brush lays down globs of paint. And while that may not sound great, it suits our needs very well. As with the Pencil the Blob Brush has grown more capable in recent years so that it produces exceedingly smooth and yet remarkably accurate results. Only unlike the Pencil, the Blob Brush paints closed path out lines instead of open ones. Better still, if you don't like what you see you can whittle at those closed path out lines with the eraser tool. A bit of blobbing, a bit of erasing. Sounds ridiculous. But trust me, this really is the drawing…
Practice while you learn with exercise files
Download the files the instructor uses to teach the course. Follow along and learn by watching, listening and practicing.
Download the exercise files for this course.
Get started with a free trial today.
Download courses and learn on the go
Watch courses on your mobile device without an internet connection. Download courses using your iOS or Android LinkedIn Learning app.
Watch this course anytime, anywhere.
Get started with a free trial today.
Contents
-
-
A first look at Illustrator1m 9s
-
Opening a document by double-clicking it5m 35s
-
Introducing the Home screen6m 54s
-
Creating a new document5m 44s
-
The units of design: Points and picas5m 45s
-
Creating very large artwork6m 54s
-
Overriding units of measure6m 14s
-
The advanced document settings6m 50s
-
Activating missing fonts4m 8s
-
Modifying your new document6m 54s
-
Saving Illustrator artwork6m 26s
-
Saving a cloud document3m 35s
-
-
-
Pages of any size, at any angle1m 10s
-
Using the Artboard tool11m 10s
-
Undo, Redo, and Revert3m 21s
-
Selecting multiple artboards8m 14s
-
Creating a new artboard6m 25s
-
Copying, pasting, and duplicating artboards5m 10s
-
Five ways to resize artboards8m 11s
-
Introducing the Artboards panel6m 6s
-
Navigating between artboards5m 43s
-
Aligning and distributing artboards7m 12s
-
Automatically tidying up your artboards7m 50s
-
Artboards and rulers7m 26s
-
-
-
Getting around your artwork59s
-
Zooming in and out8m 9s
-
Using the more precise Zoom tool6m 22s
-
Zooming on a selection (or not)2m 23s
-
GPU Performance and Animated Zoom8m 11s
-
Scrolling (or panning) a document4m 5s
-
Specifying a custom zoom level4m 18s
-
Working with multiple open documents5m 49s
-
Customizing your panels: Do not skip!9m 20s
-
Saving your custom panels as a workspace2m 48s
-
Cycling between screen modes6m 32s
-
Trim View and Presentation Mode4m 7s
-
-
-
Now, you draw1m 10s
-
Guidelines and center guides7m 38s
-
Positioning guides numerically4m 51s
-
Using the Line Segment tool6m 5s
-
Working with and without the bounding box6m 21s
-
Moving and duplicating objects7m 44s
-
Select Similar Objects and Global Edit3m 15s
-
Introducing the Scissors tool4m 4s
-
Joining your line segments6m 41s
-
Introducing the Eyedropper tool3m 11s
-
Using the Arc tool8m 28s
-
Using the Spiral tool7m 11s
-
Using the Polar Grid tool8m 11s
-
Duplicating and scaling spirals7m 5s
-
Using the Rectangular Grid tool4m 56s
-
Auto-blending fill colors6m 12s
-
A preview of shape building5m 34s
-
-
-
And now, you draw better1m 40s
-
Creating a time-saving template5m 17s
-
Using the Rectangle tool5m 54s
-
Creating a rectangle by the numbers3m 35s
-
Copying and pasting a hex color code2m 28s
-
Using the Ellipse tool4m 32s
-
Creating a circle by the numbers3m 59s
-
Live pies and custom guides4m 58s
-
Creating a pie with numerical accuracy4m 48s
-
Using the Polygon tool6m 1s
-
Using the Star tool3m 13s
-
Creating a star of a specific size6m 53s
-
Creating a series of evenly spaced rays5m 41s
-
Using the crazy Flare tool5m 23s
-
The top-secret tilde key trick4m 48s
-
-
-
How color works2m 27s
-
The color modes: RGB vs. CMYK8m 7s
-
Hue, saturation, and brightness4m 56s
-
Selecting a color from the Spectrum Ramp5m
-
Creating and applying swatches7m 57s
-
Working with global swatches7m 9s
-
Searching swatches by name5m 1s
-
Auto-deleting and adding swatches4m 43s
-
Using the Eyedropper tool5m 8s
-
Loading swatches from another document4m 18s
-
-
-
The rich world of strokes1m 3s
-
Adjusting the line weight4m 55s
-
How strokes align to path outlines6m 45s
-
Caps, joins, and miter limit6m 25s
-
Making practical use of caps and joins6m 7s
-
Dashes and arrowheads7m 24s
-
Variable-width strokes5m 58s
-
Numerically adjusting width points5m 25s
-
Custom aligning strokes to paths3m 21s
-
Creating a custom width profile7m
-
Creating a classic round-dotted outline3m 25s
-
Drawing a quick-and-dirty gear4m 58s
-
Outline Stroke and Compound Path4m 25s
-
Combining multiple strokes4m 18s
-
Offsetting strokes to simulate depth6m 8s
-
-
-
Text at its best2m 9s
-
Placing and flowing text5m 48s
-
Converting between area and point type3m 46s
-
Modifying the text frame4m 57s
-
Creating custom margins guides3m 55s
-
Changing the font and type style5m 6s
-
Introducing variable fonts4m 7s
-
Paragraph alignment3m 26s
-
Type size and leading8m
-
Dialing in custom variable styles6m 28s
-
Creating your own custom italics2m 28s
-
Kerning characters of type5m 53s
-
Roman hanging punctuation3m 24s
-
Filling and stroking text2m 18s
-
Vertical alignment and justification3m 33s
-
Snapping objects to characters of type4m 24s
-
-
-
Join and the Shape Builder1m 23s
-
Using the Join command6m 26s
-
Using the Join tool4m 43s
-
Object > Path > Outline Stroke3m 43s
-
Using the Shape Builder tool5m 4s
-
More ways to use the Shape Builder tool6m 20s
-
Creating a real-world project6m 23s
-
Creating an inset reflection6m 32s
-
Coloring a path with the Shape Builder tool5m 31s
-
Sculpting with variable-width strokes4m 42s
-
Converting text to path outlines7m 29s
-
Gap detection and path splitting6m 24s
-
Drawing with the Shaper tool5m 31s
-
Combining paths with the Shaper tool8m 20s
-
Editing paths inside a Shaper Group6m 50s
-
-
-
Freeform drawing at its best1m 24s
-
Drawing freeform path outlines5m 12s
-
The Smooth tool and Path Eraser tool4m 4s
-
Extending and connecting paths3m 23s
-
Drawing straight and perpendicular lines3m 26s
-
Creating a tracing template3m 28s
-
Combining the Pencil tool with a drawing tablet7m 21s
-
Coloring your Pencil tool art6m 28s
-
-
-
The best tools for painting1m 27s
-
Painting with the Blob Brush6m 57s
-
Fusing path outlines together6m 5s
-
Blob Brush size and strategies5m 54s
-
Introducing the Eraser tool8m 31s
-
Reassigning keyboard shortcuts3m 51s
-
Painting background paths5m 53s
-
Erasing all kinds of paths6m 49s
-
Erasing and smoothing away lumps6m 15s
-
The Blob Brush and the opacity value5m 50s
-
Painting with a drawing tablet6m 41s
-
Using the Simplify command6m 7s
-
-
-
Drawing one point at a time1m 41s
-
Drawing with the Curvature tool3m 49s
-
Working with smooth and corner points4m 41s
-
Creating and editing open path outlines6m 15s
-
Tracing a photographic detail6m 35s
-
Adding a basic textured fill3m 4s
-
Shape building a castle wall8m 21s
-
A first look at gradients7m 1s
-
Editing a shape with the Curvature tool5m 16s
-
A first look at object blends7m 31s
-
Duplicating and scaling a complex object4m 2s
-
Drawing a custom letterform4m 32s
-
Creating a rippling line segment6m 9s
-
Adding a piece of vector-based clipart3m 23s
-
-
-
The tool that can draw anything2m 15s
-
Creating corner points4m 16s
-
Adding and deleting anchor points5m 28s
-
How smooth points work7m 8s
-
Drawing smooth points8m 14s
-
Drawing cusp points9m 17s
-
Using the Anchor Point tool5m 42s
-
Real-world drawing with the Pen tool11m 53s
-
Drawing a very complex path outline7m 3s
-
Copying and repurpose path segments5m 28s
-
Drawing a lot with very few points10m
-
Creating dimension with shadows8m 54s
-
Shading the eye, ear, and nose8m 47s
-
Drawing smoothly waving path outlines7m 40s
-
-
-
Making corners smooth1m 7s
-
The round corner widget3m 44s
-
Rounding off corner points4m 54s
-
Changing the corner type3m 37s
-
Rounding characters of type6m 15s
-
Absolute vs. relative rounding7m 27s
-
Drawing with rounded rectangles4m 32s
-
Detailing your iPhone5m 8s
-
Combining round-corner shapes7m 1s
-
Create better, faster with round corners2m 57s
-
Turning corner points into organic curves6m 57s
-
Reshaping rounded paths6m 11s
-
-
-
Saving for devices and the web1m 49s
-
Aligning objects to the pixel grid4m 58s
-
Aligning objects as you draw or modify them6m 55s
-
Aligning text to the pixel grid5m 11s
-
Introducing the Save for Web command6m 31s
-
For devices and presentations, use PNG5m 6s
-
Saving an 8-bit graphic6m 32s
-
Saving a JPEG image5m 10s
-
Saving vector-based SVG files3m 48s
-
Assigning a copyright3m 7s
-
Using the Export for Screens command5m 57s
-
Using the Asset Export panel5m 27s
-
Asset Export time-saving tricks2m 39s
-