A "Pen" ny For My Thoughts

So I have been working in Adobe Illustrator as I mentioned in another blog post. The tools are similar but different than the tools in Adobe Photoshop. One tool I am particularly fond of is the Pen Tool. The Pen Tool allows you to create custom shapes in Adobe Illustrator. If I wanted to make a person I could use lots of little shapes to create a person and then use the Shape Builder Tool to make all the shapes into one shape. This is time-consuming however and can be done a lot quicker with the Pen Tool. So when using the Pen Tool, the default setting is straight lines. What I mean by this is then when you click to separate points on your image, the pen tool will draw a straight line between the two points. Now in some cases, you might be able to get away with making images out of straight lines, but in most cases, you need to have curved lines. This is where the pen tool gets harder to use and I must say that I am not a master at using the pen tool when it comes to making curved lines. So to make curved lines with the Pen Tool you must click and hold the spot where you want your line to end. One you click and hold, a curved line will appear and you must drag your cursor (while you are still holding the click) until you reach the desired curve. It is a little hard to explain the Pen Tool with just words however, if you practice using the Pen Tool yourself you can easily become good at it. The thing I like about the Pen Tool is that it allows me to create weird bizarre shapes without ever having to use more the one tool. The only thing I dislike about the Pen Tool is that you must hold "alt" to change the direction of your next line. This can be annoying when you have the perfect curve, but then you realize that you must undo that curve to properly re-position your next curve.

-What Is the Pen Tool

-How To Use The Pen Tool