Basic drawing tools

I will first tell you the different ways of drawing with the basic drawing tools and then with the more complicated drawing tools.

We have five basic drawing tools, everyone is familiar with them, but I will enumerate them here anyway.

1st The Rectangle, 2nd The Rounded Rectangle, 3rd The Oval, 4th The Polygon and 5th The Star. The 6th button, the “Flare”, I do not call it a basic shape, so I’ll discuss this later in this lesson.

I have torn loose the submenu with various drawing tools, from the tool bar.

To be clear, before you can start drawing, first select the tool.

As an example I choose the “Rectangle”.

We have three choices to draw a rectangle.

This is in fact so, for each of the five drawing tools.

One way is, you click in the upper left corner and you drag the mouse pointer to the lower right corner (1). You release the mouse button when you’ve reached the desired size.

This draws the rectangle from left to right.

A second way is, you hold the Alt key on your keyboard pressed, you click the center of the rectangle and you drag the mouse pointer to the lower right corner (2).

This draws the rectangle from the center of the rectangle to the outside.

And a third way, you click once in the document. This opens a dialog box (3), in which you can type the desired size.

All of these ways are precisely the same for all of these tools.

 

Of course, the options in the dialog box that appear in the third way are different for each drawing object.

Quite logical. A circle has no corners and a rectangle never has more than four sides.

To create a perfect square or draw a perfect circle, hold the Shift key on your keyboard while you click and drag.

By clicking on the fill (1) and edges (2) buttons, you can provide the selected object with a color and an edge. But more about color in one of the following lessons.

 

Tip 1!

If you want to change the position of the object while you are drawing, hold the Space key on your keyboard while you move the mouse. Warning, DO NOT release the mouse button.
If you wish to continue drawing, release the Space key.

Tip 2!

When you draw a rectangle with rounded corners, you can change the radius of the corners by the upward and downward arrows on your keyboard.

Tip 3!

When you draw a polygon, you can change the number of angles by the upward and downwrd arrows on your keyboard.

Tip 4!

Same for the star sign. Use the upward and downward arrows on your keyboard to change the number of points.

Tip 5!

When drawing a triangle, or any other polygon and if you want to make the edge of the object parallel to the edge of your document, hold the Shift key on your keyboard pressed.

Tip 6!

When you draw a star and you want to align it with the edge of the document, hold the Shift key on your keyboard pressed (1).

Tip 7!

When you draw a star and you want the “shoulders” of the star parallel to the edge of the document, hold the Alt key on your keyboard pressed (2).

Tip 8!

When you draw a star and you want to adjust the outer radius, hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard while you drag.

 

What you should know and remember from this lesson is that by using the Shift, Ctrl, Alt keys and the spacebar on your keyboard plus a combination of these buttons, you can bring many different results in your drawing.

 

Flare

We use the “flare” tool to give a lens-flare effect.

You can also do more here.

As an example I made a drawing of a “Christmas card” (1) where I want to add this effect.

The first thing we do of course is to select the tool.

The “flare” tool consists of two parts.

In the first part, we determine the number and length of the rays in the first “flare”.

Click and drag this into the document (2).

The farther you drag, the longer the rays from the “flare” are.

To provide more or fewer rays from the “flare”, you click the upward and downward arrows on your keyboard.

To provide more or fewer rays from the “flare”, you click the upward and downward arrows on your keyboard.

In the second part, we will create the second flare.

Just click on some other position in the document (3) and determine the number of circles in the flare by clicking on the arrow keys on your keyboard.

Remove excess circles. This is done by the “Direct Selection” tool option and clicking on the edge of the circle while holding the Alt key on your keyboard pressed.

When this is selected, click the Delete key on your keyboard. Repeat this for each circle that you want to delete.

At last, you have just the sun shine (4).

If you wish to edit the settings of the “flare”, select it and double click the “flare” in the tool bar.
This opens the “Options for flare” dialog, where you can customize all the options of the “flare”.

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