In this Adobe Illustrator Essentials lesson, you'll learn how to create and edit custom paths and shapes using the Pen Tool, Anchor Point Tool and Direct Selection Tool. Create straight or curved lines by drawing with the Pen Tool. Then, edit the path (open shape) or closed shape by adjusting anchor points and bezier handles using the Direct Selection Tool. You’ll learn how to add and subtract anchor points, cut paths, join paths, and turn straight lines into curved lines by adding bezier handles with the Convert Vertex Tool and vice versa. Plus, learn how to adjust the thickness of the stroke at different points along a path.
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With the Pen Tool, click to create a point. Then move your mouse and click to create another point, and repeat. Straight lines will be created that connect the points.
To finish creating a path, either hit return/enter, select the Selection Tool in the toolbar, or hit the V key to get the Selection Tool.
While drawing lines with the Pen Tool, hold the shift key to make perfectly horizonal, vertical, or diagonal lines at 45º increments.
To create a closed shape, click on the first anchor point. You should see a little circle icon next to the Pen Tool so you know you're joining the path.
To create a line with curves using the Pen Tool, click to create a point but keep holding the mouse down and drag to create handles. These bezier handles will be tangental to the curve of the line and they can always be adjusted later. Then repeat to create another point. The line that connects the point will be curved according the the orientation and length of the bezier handles.
While clicking, holding, and dragging out bezier handles with the Pen Tool, hold the shift key to make perfectly horizontal, vertical, or diagonal handles at 45º increments.
There can be a learning curve to drawing custom, curved paths with the Pen Tool, so here's an alternative way that may be easier using the...
Using the Pen Tool, click to create points, but just create straight lines. Then, switch the the Anchor Point Tool and click somewhere in between two points on the path and drag to curve the line.
If you hold shift while curving a line with the Anchor Point Tool, the bezier handles will snap to be purpendicular to the path at the points, creating a curve with a slightly different shape.
It can be difficult to draw a path exactly how you want it right from the start, so here are some tools to edit the paths:
Using the Pen Tool, hover over the anchor point on the path that you want to add to. You should see a slash icon next to your cursor. When you see that click the anchor point then click to create more points to add to the path.
When working with the Pen Tool, the icon next to your cursor will change...
If you're drawing curves with the Pen Tool and you have handles on an anchor point, but you don't want a curve on the next segment of the path, hover over the anchor point until you see the Anchor Point Tool icon (and upside down V). When you see that icon, click the anchor point to remove the handle to get a straight line.
The Anchor Point Tool can be found under the Pen Tool in the side toolbar. Click and hold the Pen Tool to find it.
Turn a straight line into a curved line: With the Anchor Point Tool, click somewhere in between two points on a path and drag to curve the line.
If you hold shift while curving a line with the Anchor Point Tool, the bezier handles will snap to be purpendicular to the path at the points, creating a curve with a slightly different shape.
Make a curved anchor point pointed: With the Anchor Point Tool, click an anchor point with bezier handles to remove them.
Make a pointed anchor point curved: With the Anchor Point Tool, click an anchor point without bezier handles to add them and make the line curved.
Adjust bezier handles independently: When you click and drag a bezier handle with the Anchor Point Tool, each side of the handle will act independently (unlocked). When you use the Direct Selection Tool to adjust bezier handles, they move together (locked).
Hold shift while dragging bezier handles to snap the handle to 45º increments, including horizontal and vertical.
Using the Direct Selection Tool, you can click on an anchor point, hold shift, and click on more anchor points to select multiple. Or, you can click outside of the anchor points and drag a marque box over the points you want to select to select them quickly.
Once you have anchor points selected, you can switch to one of the transform tools (Rotate, Scale, Shear) to transform the selected points only.
This is a great way to make symmetrical custom shapes.
To round the corners on a custom path or shape (closed path), select the shape with the Direct Selection Tool. This will bring up the rounded corners widgets that you can click and drag to create rounded corners. Learn more about all the options for rounding corners here.
Note that when you have a custom path or shape, you have to use the Direct Selection Tool in order to see the round corners widgets. When you have a shape created with one of the shape tools, you can see the round corners widgets when selecting the shape with the Selection Tool.
If you're missing a round corner widget where there is a corner (and the anchor point doesn't have bezier handles), there are probably two anchor points really close together or overlapping. Zoom into the corner and delete one of the extra anchor points (using the Delete Anchor Point Tool), then the round corner widget should appear.
The Scissors Tools lets you cut paths. With the Scissors Tool, click anywhere on the path or on an anchor point to make a cut.
You may want to cut in multiple places and then delete the cut out section by selecting it with the Direct Selection Tool and hitting delete.
Select the two anchor points you want to join. Then go to Object > Path > Join, or use the keyboard shortcut ⌘/Ctrl J. This will add a segment of line to join the paths.
If instead you want to join the paths by moving two anchor points together, go to Object > Path > Average, or use the keyboard shortcut ⌘/Ctrl option/alt J.
This averages the positions of the two points, but it doesn't merge the two points into one. To do that, use the Unite option in the Pathfinder panel.
In the Stroke panel, you can adjust the ends (caps) of paths to be flat (butt cap), rounded, or projecting (a flat cap that extends past the anchor point). You can also create dashed lines and add arrowheads to paths. Learn about the other options in the stroke panel here.
In the Stoke panel, you can use the dropdown menu to select a width profile for the stroke.
Or, if you want to customize the thickness of the stroke in different places along the path (or shape), there's a tool for that:
With the Stroke Width Tool, hover over the path until you see a + icon next to your cursor. Then, click and drag outwards to make the stroke wider or inwards to make it thinner. You can do this at as many places along the path as you want.
You can reposition the stroke width along the path by clicking and dragging it.
You can also go back and edit an existing width, just by clicking and dragging it with the Stroke Width Tool.
Hold option/alt to adjust the width on only one side of the path.
To delete a width, select it and hit the delete key.
To reset the line and get rid of any widths you've added, go to the Stroke panel and choose the uniform width profile.
In the next lesson, you'll learn all about coloring your graphics.
