Before we get too carried away with Illustrator, let’s slow down and practice some of the amazing tools available in the program.

You’ll work through some tutorials. Show me the completed examples when you are done.

You can get all of the practice files from the HAND OUT folder. If you download them from the tutorial page, you will need to EXTRACT the files from the .zip file.

Tutorial 1: Create with Drawing tools

Tutorial 2: Start creating with the Pen tool

Tutorial 3: Edit Paths you Draw

Tutorial 4: Transform and edit artwork

Using Illustrator, you are going to create your own peaceful, beautiful Mandala art.

What is a Mandala?

Look BELOW for examples (or Google it!)

I recommend starting with a SQUARE artboard. Make it fit on an 11 x 17 piece of paper (11 inches by 11inches) and we might just print out your creation for you!

Here’s how to do it:

Have fun and take your time! These should be colourful and creative, not plain and boring. Try to come up with a colour scheme that works together. Draw different shapes!

If you want a challenge and have more patience than me, this looks really, really cool:

SAMPLES:

We did some work with Illustrator last year but we’ll take it even further this year. It might be wise to review that info from last year.

I highly recommend having a look at some of the things that you can do in Illustrator by checking out some of the tutorials in the program under the Learn tab on the Home screen

or in the Help menu

or by going here: Adobe Tutorials

Step 1, for today, is just to use the tools in Illustrator and show me what you can come up with! Some of you did really neat things last year. Let’s see what you remember and what you can create this year!