Spirograph

Tip from Ross Macintosh

First step is to create an appropriate brush: Draw a circle. Give it a line thickness, line colour, and no fill. With your friend the circle selected, click on the freehand line tool and choose "make brush". It will ask you for a name - I called mine "Sammy".

Second step is to create the shape the brush will be applied to. Draw another circle - again without any fill. It should have a visible line weight. I drew mine about the same size as the one that became the brush.

The third step involves applying the circle brush (Sammy) to the circle. I did that by dragging and dropping from the line gallery. In the line gallery I found Sammy and dragged him over to the line edge of the circle. As you get close enough for dropping to work, the arrow cursor modifies to have a little line - see that, release the mouse button you've been holding while dragging, and you've dropped the brush onto the line.

The fourth step is to modify the brush to generate an interesting pattern. With the circle that has the brush applied selected, click on the freehand line tool and choose "edit brush". Now play with the settings and you'll see the patterns generate interactively. Most of the editor's little sliders do nothing to this brush. The important ones to adjust are the "offset" and the "spacing". Random settings kind of mess things up in my opinion. Do what you want - see if I care!

The fifth step is the most important! Remind yourself you are having fun. After you make one, you can easily create others in fewer steps by simply making clones and editing each one's brush settings.

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