Adobe Illustrator is the industry-standard drawing and illustration software. As inspiration, students are shown examples of what Illustrator can do. Adobe Illustrator is a Vector drawing tool. This means the drawings produced with Illustrator can be scaled up without the "pixelation" that happens when small bitmap (or raster) images are enlarged.
Vector illustration is vital for smoothly rendered lines used by plasma cutters like our Plasmacam, as well as stencil cut t-shirt designs and other printed materials. Logo Design is almost exclusively done in Illustrator.
The teacher demonstrates some of Illustrator's tools in class. Students follow along on their computers, duplicating what the teacher does on his. (See videos below.)
The first assignment is a simple illustration (see below). Students are given an image that uses Text, Gradients, Blends and the Pen tool. They are to duplicate the illustration as accurately as possible using Adobe Illustrator.
Evaluation:
2 points -- Accurate colors
4 points -- Accurate placement of shapes and objects
4 points -- Accurate proportions
10 Points Total
Video tutorials are provided below:
Drawing Basic Shapes
Select and Modifying Shapes (Defective sound, and video cuts out.)
Fill and Stroke
Gradients (Defective sound.)
Blending Shapes (Defective sound.)
Pen Tool
Swoosh Hint
Type Tool
Type on a Path (Defective sound.)
Star and Arrangement