Drawing a Pencil in Illustrator 9 and 10

Home

Vector vs Raster?

Tips and Tutorials

Resources

Northlite Designs

Photos

Cards & Prints

Gallery

Expression

About Me

Contact Me

Step 1. Click on the rectangle tool in the toolbar to activate it and click once on the art board to open the rectangle options.

Enter 514 pixels for the width and 42 pixels for the height.

Click OK, and the rectangle appears on the artboard.

Step 2. Leave the pencil's rectangle selected and change the fill to a gradient, and the stroke to black.

Set the stroke width to 0.5 in the stroke palette.

Open the Gradient palette and set the type to linear, and the angle to -90°.

Set the left gradient stop to Red 237-Green 135-Blue 0.

Set the right gradient stop to Red 255-Green 204-Blue 51

ILLUSTRATOR 9 Step 3. Click on the pen tool. Click once on one end of the pencil and then hold the shift key. Click once at the other end of the pencil. Set the stroke weight to 0.50 in the stroke palette and duplicate the line.

ILLUSTRATOR 10 Step 3. Click on the Line tool in the toolbar and then click once on the artboard to open the line options. Enter 514 pixels for the length and 0° for the angle. Click OK. Copy and paste it so you have two lines. Note: If you don't see the line tool in Illustrator 10, it may be behind another tool! Look for the arc or polar grid...if you haven't customized the toolbar it should be directly under the pen tool.

Step 4. Move the lines over the pencil and space them so one is about a third from the top of the pencil and one is about a third from the bottom.

Select the pencil and both lines, and in the Align palette align them horizontally.

Then Object > Group to keep them together.

Step 5. Select the Rounded Rectangle tool in the toolbar. Click once on the artboard to open the options and set the width to 60, the height to 42, and the corner radius to 12. Click OK, and the rectangle appears on the artboard.

Step 6. The fill is the last used fill, the pencil gradient. The stroke should still be 0.50. It doesn't look much like an eraser yet. We need to make another gradient. Open the gradient palette. Set the Type to Linear and the angle to -90°. Set three gradient stops in these colors:

• Left: Red 255, Green 102, Blue 102, at Location 0%
• Center: Red 255, Green 224, Blue 222, at Location about 53%
• Right: Red 255, Green 102, Blue 102, at Location 100%

To add the extra gradient stop, just click once on the area below the color ramp about midway between the two original stops.

Step 7. Position the eraser at the right end of the pencil, and keeping it selected, go to Object > Arrange > Send to Back so it pops behind the pencil.

Select the eraser and the pencil-lines group and go to Object > Group in the menu.

Step 8. Once again activate the rounded rectangle and click once on the artboard to open the options. Set the options as follows:

• Width 5 pixels
• Height 44 pixels
• Corner Radius 12

Click OK and the rectangle appears on the artboard. It's the last used fill so it will be the eraser gradient. We need to change that.

Keep the metal band selected.

Step 9. Open the gradient palette set three stops:

• At 0% AND 100% set Red 153, Green 153, Blue 153
• At about 40% set Red 255, Green 255, Blue 255 (white)

Set Type to Linear and Angle to 0°

Now we have a gray metal band.

Step 10. Select the band with the select tool (black arrow) and start to drag it to the right, hold down the ALT and SHIFT keys as you drag to make a copy and keep it moving at a 90° angle, and don't let go till you have the copy to the right and butting up against the original.

Step 11. Type Control +D two times to duplicate the transformation twice and make 4 bands.

Step 12. Drag a marquee around all four bands to select them and then group them.

Step 13. Drag the group of bands to the pencil and position them on top of the pencil and eraser as shown. Select all pieces of the band, pencil and eraser.

Step 14. In the Align palette, choose the vertical align center button to align the pieces horizontally.

Group all the pieces.

Step 15. Activate the Polygon tool in the toolbar. (In Illustrator 9 it's on the ellipse tool flyout, and in Illustrator 10, you'll find it in the rectangle tool flyout.) Click once on the artboard to open the polygon options and set the Radius to 42 pixels and the Sides to 3.

Click OK. You'll get this:

Step 16. First we'll fix the size. Keep it selected and open the transform palette, and set the width to 42 pixels and the height to 84 pixels. Hit the enter key to set the transformation and your pencil point changes shape to this:

Step 17. Keeping the point selected, go to Object > Transform > Rotate and then type 90 in the dialog box. Click OK. Leave it selected.

Step 18. Set up a new gradient in the gradient palette with these colors and positions:

• Red 255-Green 204-Blue 153 at location 0°
• Red 255-Green 247-Blue 230 at location 50%
• Red 209-Green 166-Blue 130 at location 100%
• Type: Linear
• Angle 90°

Press Enter to set the fill change.

Step 19. The lead is a tiny triangle. Use the polygon tool to lay down a triangle as before and in the transform palette, change the size to Width: 10 pixels, Height 20 pixels.

Rotate it 90° as before.

Step 20. Use the gradient palette to fill it with a white at 0% to black at 100% gradient, linear type at location 90°.

Step 21. Position it over the pencil's wood point at the end and align it vertically. Then group these two pieces.

Step 22. Drag this group to the pencil and butt it against the left end. Select all pieces of the pencil and the point and align them vertically as before. Group all the pieces.

Step 23. We made this a bit large so you could see it easily while working on it, particularly the small pieces like the metal bands and the lead. Since Illustrator is a vector program, resizing is as simple as selecting it and grabbing one of the corner handles on the bounding box.

Hold down the shift key to constrain the proportions and drag inward to the size you wish.

Download this tutorial as a PDF file

(requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view)

Adobe Acrobat Reader is available as a free download from http://www.adobe.com

Disclaimer: Site Design and all graphics on this site are the property of and copyrighted to Sara Froehlich and Northlite Designs.