Pen Tool Tutorial -- a work in progress

[mgeduld]

What do XaraX, PhotoShop, Illustrator, Flash, CorelDraw and After Effects have in common? The pen tool!

When I teach graphics classes, I find this is the tool which frightens students the most. In the past, I've been of little help. I've quickly demoed the tool, and I've mumbled something like "you'll just need to practice this one until you get it." From what my students tell me, other teachers do pretty much the same thing.

So many people give up on the pen tool. And while it's possible to do interesting work in Xara without touching it, for some apps, like After Effects, it's vital! And surely even in Xara, most people would benefit by learning to use it.

So I'm no longer content to skip over this tool. I'm trying to develop a pen-tool tutorial. You can view a rough draft of part one here:

http://www.grumblebee.com/bezier/pen.gif

I'm posting this, because I'd love some suggestions. When you first leaned to use the pen, what made the lightbulb go on for you?

If you struggle with the pen, what is your biggest hang up?

Have you ever taught anyone to use the pen? What method did you use and how effective was it? Did you use any clever analogies?

Note: I know one can draw beziers in Xara with the shape-editor tool instead of the pen (perhaps this is even the best way to draw curves in Xara), but I want to stick with the pen tool, because it's a standard. I've found that once I learn how to use it in one app, it's pretty easy to modify the same steps slightly to get it to work in another app.

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

[mgeduld]

What do XaraX, PhotoShop, Illustrator, Flash, CorelDraw and After Effects have in common? The pen tool!

When I teach graphics classes, I find this is the tool which frightens students the most. In the past, I've been of little help. I've quickly demoed the tool, and I've mumbled something like "you'll just need to practice this one until you get it." From what my students tell me, other teachers do pretty much the same thing.

So many people give up on the pen tool. And while it's possible to do interesting work in Xara without touching it, for some apps, like After Effects, it's vital! And surely even in Xara, most people would benefit by learning to use it.

So I'm no longer content to skip over this tool. I'm trying to develop a pen-tool tutorial. You can view a rough draft of part one here:

http://www.grumblebee.com/bezier/pen.gif

I'm posting this, because I'd love some suggestions. When you first leaned to use the pen, what made the lightbulb go on for you?

If you struggle with the pen, what is your biggest hang up?

Have you ever taught anyone to use the pen? What method did you use and how effective was it? Did you use any clever analogies?

Note: I know one can draw beziers in Xara with the shape-editor tool instead of the pen (perhaps this is even the best way to draw curves in Xara), but I want to stick with the pen tool, because it's a standard. I've found that once I learn how to use it in one app, it's pretty easy to modify the same steps slightly to get it to work in another app.

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

[gwpriester]

Marcus

For some reason the tutorial starts out OK and then reduced to fit the screen and everything is too small to see.

I have heard some people complain that Xara's Pen Tool does not work in quite the same way as say Illustrator's Pen tool.

On the other hand, because it is so easy, and so much more intuitive to shape lines with both the Pen Tool and/or the Shape Editor Tool by dragging on the line segment, there does not seem to be much percentage in learning how to draw with Bezier curves.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

[mgeduld]

Hmm. Looks okay on my screen, but I'll fool around with it and see what I can do.

If the only app you're ever going to use is Xara, you don't necessarily have to learn the pen tool. But many programs rely on it, and Xara DOES have a pen tool.

It doesn't seem that different from Adobe's pen to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

[mgeduld]

Gary, when you draw a curve -- since you don't use the pen tool -- do you just draw a straight line and then pull its segment to get the curve you want?

What is your starting point? Is it like working with clay: you start with a vaguely-shaped blob and then pull it into shape?

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

[Luciano]

To Gary,
MS Internet Explorer has a new "function" which automatically reduces bitmap to screen size.
Going with the mouse on top of the reduced image, you should notice a small icon at the right bottom which allows you to enlarge again.

ciao
Luciano

[Mike Bailey]

Hi Marcus, I think the easiest way to learn to use it is to practice drawing something simple that can easily be drawn with a pencil, not to worry about accuracy, just get the lines down and use the shape editor to make corrections. Then trace a bitmap that is a bit more complex. I would say the hardest thing to do is closing a path, sometimes ya got to zoom in. Myself, I love to paint bitmaps, most of the time I use Xara's pen tool to clean up the edges and make sharp lines on a bitmap, it is a very important tool for my style of drawing and I would not do very well without it.

MB

[noticies]

Good work, Grumblebee!

In my bookmark I've found the url of a very interesting site that features step-by-step instructions to master vector shapes using the pen tool, and they provide exercice files for several illustration programs. the url is

http://www.sketchpad.net

Best wishes,

-------------------------
Joan M. Mas
TypePhases: Dingbats and Fonts for yer computor!
http://inicia.es/de/jmas
-------------------------

[gwpriester]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> MS Internet Explorer has a new "function" which automatically reduces bitmap to screen size.
Going with the mouse on top of the reduced image, you should notice a small icon at the right bottom which allows you to enlarge again. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So that is what that button is for ;-) Thanks Luciano.

Marcus -- I do not draw very much. Rather I use primatives and modify them. If I need to draw, I either use the Freehand Tool, or use the Pen or Shape Editor Tool and draw a series of straight line segments that approximate the shape I am trying to create and then drag the line segments into elegant, gracefull curves :-)

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

[Klaus Nordby]

Marcus, your tutorial looks good - keep it up. My pen tool advice to folks is duh-simple: just click and drag!

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara