Illustrator CS3 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Chapter 15. Pen

Mastering the Pen tool—Illustrator’s most difficult tool—takes patience and practice. Once you become comfortable using it, refer to Chapter 11 to learn how to reshape the resulting paths. If you find the Pen tool to be too difficult to use, remember that you can create shapes using other methods. For example, you can draw simple geometric shapes (Chapter 6) and then combine them (Chapter 25), or if you prefer to draw in a freehand style, use the Pencil along with the Live Paint Bucket tool (Chapter 13).

Drawing with the Pen tool

The Pen tool creates precise curved and straight segments connected by anchor points. If you click with the Pen tool, you’ll create corner points and straight segments without direction handles . If you ...