Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

P E A R L O F W I S D O M

Take a look at the Layers panel, and you’ll see that Illustrator has

named the combined Cape and Grill items <Group>. Illustrator

requires a group to contain a clipping mask, even going so far as

prohibiting you from ungrouping them. (Go to the Object menu,

and you’ll see that Ungroup is dimmed.) Experienced users should

note that Illustrator CS5 has made it more diffi cult to access the

contents of a clipped group. Clicking a clipped path in a selected

group yields no result. Instead, you have to target (meatball) the

contents in the Layers panel, or deselect the group and then use

the white arrow to select the contents in the document window.

15.

Rename the new clipping mask. The group needs a more

descriptive name. In the Layers panel, double-click the

new <Group> item, name it “Reveal” (the idea being that

the cape reveals the grill), and click OK.

Now to mask the new Reveal object inside the larger

Smock. But before we start blindly masking, let’s see what

we’re working with. In the Layers panel, meatball Smock.

Note that it’s a compound path, with a heart clipped out

of the larger shape. No concerns there. Here’s the issue:

Press the G key to select the gradient tool. The gradient

annotator shows a two-color linear gradient, with specifi c

origin and terminus points that defi ne an angle. If you

were to choose Make Clipping Mask, you’d lose t ...