Certificate in Introduction to Illustrator CS5 Online Course

Even if you're an absolute beginner, you'll feel right at home after we spend this first lesson touring Adobe Illustrator CS5's work area, toolbox, and panels. You'll learn how to arrange the panels to best suit the way you work. Then we'll jump right into using some of Illustrator's fun features by auto-tracing a drawing, turning it into a Live Paint Object (think of a digital coloring book), and recoloring it.

Precise Layout Skills and Tools

Today you'll discover Illustrator's shape tools, which are the first step on your gentle journey toward using the all-important Pen tool. Get ready to draw shapes and combine them to form illustrations.

Using Color

Now that you've learned to create shapes, it's time to cut loose and start playing with color. In today's lesson, you'll create your own colors, save them, and apply them to your vector art. You'll also learn more about the fabulous Recolor Artwork command and see how you can create and save color harmonies. After this lesson, you'll have a friend that's always there to advise you on what colors work together.

Introducing the Layers and Appearance Panels

Today you'll learn how to "read" an Illustrator document. If you know where to look, you'll see that an Illustrator document reveals every one of its creation secrets. Here's a secret: It all happens in the Layers panel. You'll also find out how to apply multiple strokes, fills, and effects to an object.

Creating and Editing Pencil Paths

You can use the Pencil tool to draw anything you wish in Illustrator. This tool creates a path with anchor points that you can edit. In this lesson, you'll create and reshape a Pencil path. You'll also draw with the Blob brush, a tool that creates filled shapes instead of stroked paths. Be sure to check out the assignment, which lets you draw more shapes and create a pop-art coloring book effect.

Designing With Type

Have you ever wondered what font you'd use to create type that looks like it belongs to Marilyn Monroe? Today you'll explore the basics of typography while you learn to use the Type tool. You'll discover how to fill a shape with text and how to flow text along paths and around shapes.

Drawing With the Pen Tool

The Pen tool is the basic instrument for creating vector art, and today you'll learn to use it. You already know what curve and smooth points are and how to edit them; now you'll learn how to create them with the Pen tool as you draw. You can do all your editing with the Pen tool once you understand its features . . . and you'll discover all the tricks today.

Working With Gradients

Now that you know the basics of typography and have mastered the Pen tool, find out how to dress up your text and objects with gradients and effects. You'll begin this lesson by creating beautiful color gradients. Then you'll explore some of the gradient libraries, which are collections of delicious preset gradients.

Brushes and Strokes in Illustrator

You may wonder what's left to learn about Illustrator at this point . . . but we've only just begun. Today we'll explore Illustrator's Brushes panel, which lets you create every manner of brush for embellishing your designs. You'll use the new Bristle brushes—these let you create original vector paintings that look like oil paints or other natural media but are really paths that you can edit at any time. Once you know how to apply and modify the available brushes, you'll be able to create hundreds more by borrowing from Illustrator's Symbols palette.

Using the Blend Tool

The Blend tool is just plain fun! You can use it for practical things, such as creating highlights and shadows in your drawings, but you can also use it for creating unbelievable special effects. You'll discover all the secrets in today's lesson.

Discovering the Mesh Tool

The Mesh tool scares almost as many designers as the Pen tool does. That's a shame, because you can get amazing shading and airbrush effects with this fun feature. Once you get the hang of it, the Mesh tool's easy to understand . . . and in this lesson you'll learn all you need to get going.

Playing With 2-D and 3-D Symbols

Did you know that you can change any set of objects (even an embedded raster image) into a symbol? And once you have a symbol, you can apply it to any drawing you want with a single click. This process makes your image reusable and saves storage space. Today we'll wrap up our course, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to pull all your skills together and begin your own journey with Illustrator.