Syllabus

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week 1

Wednesday - Lesson 01

If you're an absolute beginner, you'll feel right at home after we spend this first lesson touring Adobe Illustrator CS4's work area, toolbox, and panels. The first thing you'll learn is 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.

Friday - Lesson 02

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 other shapes and more complex illustrations.

Week 2

Wednesday - Lesson 03

Now that you've learned how to create shapes, it's time to cut loose and start playing with color. In today's lesson, you'll discover how to 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.

Friday - Lesson 04

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.

Week 3

Wednesday - Lesson 05

You can use the Pencil tool to draw anything you wish in Illustrator, and it creates a pretty decent path. In this lesson, you'll learn how to create, smooth, and reshape a Pencil path. Be sure to check out the assignment, which lets you turn a photo of a person into an abstract or stylized vector shape.

Friday - Lesson 06

Have you ever wondered what font you would 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.

Week 4

Wednesday - Lesson 07

The Pen tool is the basic instrument for creating vector art, and today, you've finally gotten to the lesson where we'll go over how to use it. You already know what curve and smooth points are and how to edit them, but now you'll learn how to set them with the Pen tool as you draw. You can do all of your editing with the Pen tool once you understand its features, and you'll discover all the tricks today.

Friday - Lesson 08

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

Week 5

Wednesday - Lesson 09

You may wonder what's left to learn about Illustrator at this point, but in reality, we've only just begun. Today, we'll explore Illustrator's Brushes palette, which lets you create every manner of brush for embellishing your designs. Once you know how to apply and modify the available brushes, you'll be able to create hundreds more brushes by borrowing from Illustrator's Symbols palette. This opens up a world of opportunities.

Friday - Lesson 10

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.

Week 6

Wednesday - Lesson 11

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 is easy to understand, and you'll learn all you need to get going in this lesson. First, you'll learn the anatomy of mesh objects, how to create them, and how to apply color to them. Then you'll see how you can use a mesh to create a watercolor background for a stylized piece of art.

Friday - Lesson 12

Did you know that you can change any set of objects (even an embedded raster image) into a symbol? 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. We'll wrap up our course with plenty of opportunities for you to pull all your skills together and begin your own journey with Illustrator.