How to draw with Illustrator

Vector drawing and illustrations have always been elements that have been part of the design we know today. Tools such as Adobe found the need to design and create specific programs for its complete development and thus facilitate the laborious work of digitizing some of the illustrations.

In this post, we come to talk to you about Illustrator, Surely you have already heard about this important program for many designers from all over the world. But you won't know what it is capable of, and especially how to draw with this wide-ranging tool.

We want you to become an artist. Therefore, we hope that you will learn much more about this very artistic software.

Illustrator: what is it

Adobe Illustrator It is defined as one of the best programs currently for drawing in the graphic design sector. It is also considered as one of the best tools for vector design. To date, this program designed by Adobe Systems has become the most used tool by many designers and illustrators. And it is not surprising, since it has a series of features that have made it the best program.

It is a dedicated program also to be used in printing, some videos, social networks, portfolios etc. It has a wide variety of options and is to date the perfect program to become a true vector drawing artist.

Illustrator's history

This program has many beginnings, among them, its history dates back to 1986 after the great success of the Adobe PostScript printer system in 1982. But it wasn't until years later, when Adobe named it Illustrator.

It is one of the programs that, over time, has been improving after its updates, starting from Adobe Illustrator CS3 to CC.

General characteristics

• What most characterizes this program is that it is designed for vectorial design. It has a wide variety of elements andAmong them brushes, vector icons, chromatic inks etc.
• It also has a wide variety of fonts, among all of them we find different fonts divided into different categories and families. Without a doubt, it is one of the tools that offers the most options to its designers and users. 
• Another aspect to take into account is that perspective can also be worked on in vectorial drawing. Which allows you to create drawings and much more realistic drawings playing with depth and design. It is without a doubt the perfect option to enter the vector world.
• Among the brush options that we have mentioned previously, the possibility of being able to play with the strokes of the different brushes also stands out. In this way your illustrations can be to your liking since it allows a great variety of strokes in its wide packages. In addition, you can also change the color of the strokes and play with the position of other geometric elements.

How to draw with Illustrator

The first thing we must do before starting to draw is to know some of its tools. To do this, we advise you to take a broad look at its interface and randomly try all its tools, in this way you will discover what each of them is for and what functions they have.

Once we have already studied each of its tools, we proceed to start with the drawing. To do this, you need to keep in mind that you always start with a simple sketch, a sketch that introduces you to this program for the first time and that allows you to continue learning and improving.

Place or open the sketch in Illustrator

1. The first thing we are going to do, as we have already mentioned before, is to place the drawing or sketch in the program. To do this, the first thing we have to do is open a new document, in this case we will work with some measures that correspond to an A4 or A3. 
2. Then we will press some keys on our keyboard such as shift + ctrl + P and then the folder will open where we can search and open our sketch. It's a quick and easy way to directly open whatever you're looking for.
3. Once we have the sketch selected, we will give the option shift where we can rotate or manipulate the artboard where our sketch is located.
4. Once we have the sketch, we just have to save the file. To do this we will go to the File option and choose the option to save as. It is important that you save it with a proper illustrator extension (Ai). Once we give it to export, We will adjust the opacity of our sketch, it is recommended to adjust it to a percentage of 80% or 70%. 

If you draw with a pen

In the event that you are going to draw with the pen tool, it is important that you take these characteristics into account:

1. You should work on the layer you created earlier and that you will find the stroke terminology.
2. Once you have the layer selected, you just have to go to the opacity panel and select the multiply option. The important thing when you already have the process created, is that you fix a single point with the pen and that the stroke is straight, since straight strokes contain less difficulty than curved strokes. When you already have the fixed point, you just have to create a diagonal line so that the handles can open and in this way the curve is formed at our whim.
3. In the event that you are a beginner and you are still not sure how to make a curve-shaped stroke and the curve has not been completely perfect, you can always help yourself with an anchor point, in this way your strokes will be more perfect and not crooked or deformed.
4. In addition, you can also help yourself by pressing the alt key, In this way you will achieve better handling of the stroke and a much more optimal result.

If you draw with brushes

1. In the event that you draw with brushes, it is interesting that you know that you can modify both the shape of the stroke and its width. In this way we can choose to edit and manipulate the brush in the way we want. This detail is very important since it depends on the graphic line with which you draw., you can opt for one brush design or another. In short, the width of the brush will always be determined by points, also written in the form of pt. The greater the number of points, the greater the width of the brush.
2. If you are a fan of drawing with illustrator brushes, let us recommend that you use a graphic tablet with which you will improve the way you draw. Also, if you are just starting to draw with this program, it is very useful since it is the fastest way to be able to draw. Normally, when we move away from physical drawing, as we have done so far, we tend to draw in such a way that we always have something in our hands and that we can take. Therefore, when we go to graphic drawing, those possibilities are canceled. And that is why it is important that you have a graphic tablet at hand.
3. We've also mentioned that each of the brushes, being vector-based, are fully editable. In this way we can make each of the strokes we make with the brush, We can manipulate it as we please. We can also add text on top of each stroke. In the same way that we can also apply the color that we like the most to the stroke. The colors are divided into two main groups: RGB and CMYK, in this way they are also divided into different subgroups or folders that you can see when you use the program. You have Pantone inks available that will help you discover new inks.
4. Last but not least, we can also download more brushes from the internet. There are thousands of online pages that allow you to download brushes of all kinds. In this way Illustrator is able to, once we have installed them on our device, they are applied directly and uploaded directly to Illustrator so you can start enjoying and using them. In case some of the brushes that come by default in the program still haven't convinced you, it's also possible to add as many as you want and even divide them into folders and name them in the most creative and personal way.

Conclusion

Every day more users are betting on Illustrator as the main software for their drawings. Do not stay without trying it and above all, without investigating and inquiring more about this tool that Adobe designed with the purpose of creating great graphic artists. In addition, we also suggest that you investigate other brush designs that will surely be interesting for your projects. We hope you have learned more about this program that has become so important in recent years.