The Pen Tool

The difference between the pencil and the pen tool is that when you draw lines with the pencil, Illustrator defines the anchor points. And when drawing with the pen tool, Illustrator provides you with the anchor lines.

How the shape of the lines changes is later determined by Illustrator depending on the way you move the mouse pointer after placing the anchor point.

When the above statements are in your head and after a little practice, it is very easy to work with the pen tool.

You can use the pen tool to draw straight lines, curved lines and a combination of both.

In this part of the course I will show you how to draw a heart from a triagle with the pen tool.

When you draw with the pen tool, it is always easy when you use the “Show Grid” and “Snap to Grid” options.

First, it allows us to align everything easily and second it makes it easy to correct the position of the anchor point in the grid.
How you set these options you should know, but I will repeat it again.

Click “View” in the menu bar and select “Show Grid” in the drop-down menu. Click “View” again in the menu bar and choose “Snap to Grid” in the drop-down menu.

 

Ok, if these options are set, we can start drawing.
We start with the simplest, the straight line.
First, we select the pen tool of course.
To draw a straight line (ie path) in the document, click where you want to place the first anchor point.
When you begin a new path, there is an x-mark next to the cursor which is in the shape of the pen tool.
Then place the cursor to the position in the document where you want the second anchor point and you click.
What you have is two nodes connected by a line.

Then move the cursor to the position in the document where you want the third anchor point and you click again.
This gives you three anchors, two black lines and white fill.
Here we speak of an “open path”.
The lines are still blue, but this is because the drawn object is still selected. Once you de-select this you will see that this is indeed blackened.

Finally, we close the open path, by a fourth anchor point.
Move the cursor above the first anchor point and click it when the cursor appears as a circle (1), this means that when you click, the path will close.
When you de-select the object by selecting any selection tool in the toolbar and click anywhere in the document, you will see that we have just drawn a white triangle with black borders (2).
Why is this triangle white and has black borders?
These are the default settings for Illustrator.
If you want to change it again, select the triangle with the “Select” tool and choose a different color in the options bar (a).

Now I hear you thinking, I might as well draw a triangle with the “Polygon” tool.
That’s right.
But, with the “Polygon” tool you can only draw a triangle with equal angles and with the “Pen” tool, you can draw a triangle of your choice.

To change the shape of the triangle further into the shape of the “heart”, we must add a number of anchor points.
The first thing you should do is to select the triangle again, if it is not selected.
Then select the “Pen” tool again in the toolbar and move the mouse pointer over the edge (1) of the triangle.
This places a + sign in addition to the cursor (2).
Click the mouse on the position that you want to add the anchor point.

 

I need three additional anchors, so I click three times on the edge of my triangle, at the positions where I’d like to have.

And finally for this lesson, we move the position of two additional anchors around so that we get a somewhat angular heart.
Select the “Direct Selection” tool (a) in the tool bar, place the mouse pointer over the hotspot you want to move, when it changes into a white arrow with a square (b), click and drag to the desired position. In this case up to (2 & 3).

What you will undoubtedly have noticed, is that three other tools are present under the pen tool.
Namely “Add Anchor Point”, “Delete Anchor Point” and “Convert Anchor Point” (c).
What the first two do seem clear to me, the difference in adding the anchor points, the way that I have shown on that object, in this case the triangle and adding or deleting an anchor points, is that the object should not be selected to add or delete anchor points.
We will see the third tool, “convert anchor point”, in the next lesson, when we start changing the rectangular center into a round-shaped heart.

Just some information here.
To delete an anchor point, move the mouse pointer over the anchor point you want to remove.
And when a minus sign appears next to the cursor, click.

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