| St. Patrick's Day Shamrocks in Illustrator, p. 5 | |
(If you arrived on this page from a search, you should begin the tutorial from page one.)
Step 5 . Notice you now have even more bezier handles you can use to adjust the mesh curves as well as the ability to move the points by dragging them to place the color where you want it. If you need to, you can use the Direct Select tool (the white arrow, keyboard shortcut A) to click and drag to move the bezier handles to make the mesh fit the shape of the shamrock. Zoom in if you need to get closer to see well enough to grab a handle.
Step 6. Change to the selection tool (V). Make sure the leaf is selected. Activate the Rotate tool in the toolbox, and Option/Alt + click on the leaf in the same place as you did on step 8 of the "Drawing the Shamrock" section above.
Step 7. In the Rotate options enter 100 for the angle, and click the Copy button. This will rotate the leaf and make a copy at the same time. Clicking the preview checkbox allows you to see where the new leaf will be placed.
Step 8. The Rotate tool should still be active in the toolbox. Select the first leaf again, set the point of origin as before, and using the option key (Mac) or alt key (Windows), click the cursor just above the bottom point of the leaf. This time set the Angle of rotation to -100°, and once again, click the Copy button. You should now have three shamrock leaves.
Step 9. Use the selection tool or the arrow keys to move the leaves into a shamrock formation. Click the first leaf (the top one) with the selection tool to select it and move it to the front (Object > Arrange > Bring To Front).
Continued on page 6...
©2005 Sara Froehlich
