Basic Pen
page threeWith a new white document open (or use the History palette to start fresh on your previous document by clicking on the opening snapshot), create another custom shape with the moon shape found in the pop-up palette in the custom shape’s options bar.
I’ve colored the points red so you can tell them from the handles. You might find it interesting to choose Edit > Free Transform Path, and squash the shape around a little while watching to see how the handles correct, in length and angle.
Back to the exercises. With the moon work path selected, save it and give it a name by choosing Save Path from the Paths palette menu. Then click the Load Path as a Selection button at the bottom of the Paths palette.
Go to the Layers palette, and click on the New Layer button.
Then choose Edit > Stroke, and enter 2 px in the Width box. Pick any color you like. I used black. Press Ctrl-D, or choose Select > Deselect to deselect the stroked selection.
Turn off the visibility of this new layer, Layer 1, which has the stroked moon. Do this by clicking on the eyeball icon on the left side of the layer (the box to the left of the paintbrush icon in the illustration below—shown already turned off).
The reason you have to put the stroked moon on its own layer is so you can turn off the visibility. You can’t do this if you have only one (background) layer.
Now, go back to the Paths palette. With the component selection tool (the black arrow) select the path. Then choose the convert anchor point tool, and click once on each point to turn them all into corner points.
Go back to the Layers palette, and restore the visibility of the stroked moon by clicking, again on the eyeball.
Your task, now, is to recreate the moon by clicking on the points with the convert anchor point tool, and dragging out the correct handles.
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You should try and match the stroked curve, but remember that the other points will help correct the shape as you get to them.
Next, I dragged downward from the point in the inner curve. The direction that you have to drag, up or down, is a legacy of the way the shape was originally created. Paths go in one or the other direction, clockwise, or counterclockwise according to how they were first drawn.
Last, I dragged handles from the bottom, outside point. This one needs to have its left handle shortened to match the original moon shown at the top of this page. You would do that by clicking on the handle with the convert anchor point tool, and retracting the handle to the desired length.
For the next exercise, I want to use custom shapes that you probably don’t have loaded. To do this, go to the custom shape’s pop-up palette again. Click on the arrow in the upper right corner of the palette to access the menu shown below. Choose Custom Shapes.csh from the bottom of the menu.
In the alert box that appears, click Append. This will add the new shapes to your current shapes, rather than replacing them. If you want to get rid of this new bunch later, simply pick Reset Shapes from the menu shown below.
I’ll show you the final group of exercises, next.
Continue on page four
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Copyright © 2004 by Jay Arraich.
All rights reserved.
All photographs copyright ©2004 by Jay Arraich
jay@arraich.com
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