111. Draw from Scratch  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 106 Set Draw Options 107 Create a New Drawing
 SEE ALSO 112 Place Shapes on the Drawing Area
Freehand drawing is perhaps the first thing most people want to try when they learn a new drawing program. Draw enables you to freeform draw, but on your freeform drawing you can also place all kinds of shapes and graphic images; you can mix it all up on a Draw drawing. If you're new to Draw, the drawing tools may seem a little awkward at first. When you select a tool and draw with it, as soon as you finish the line or shape, the mouse cursor changes back to its regular pointing cursor, and to use the tool once again, you must reselect the tool. Therefore, if you need to draw several freeform objects, such as birds flying, it might seem as though you must keep selecting the freeform drawing tool each time you add to your drawing. Fortunately, although it may not be fully intuitive, there is a way to keep tools selected that you want to use multiple times, and you learn how to do that here. | 1. | Select Freeform Line Tool Start Draw and go to work! It doesn't matter at this point what you draw if you're new to Draw; you need to get a feel of the basic steps necessary for drawing and placing objects on the drawing area. To start a new drawing, choose File, New, Drawing from the menu or click the New button.  111. Draw from Scratch  The drawing area is enclosed by an outline the size you've set in the Format, Page dialog box (typically, this is set to 8.5 " x 11 " ). You do not have to place objects directly on the drawing area. You can move graphics out of the way by dragging them off the drawing area temporarily until you're ready to use them. When you're ready to draw a freeform line or shape, just long-click the Drawing toolbar's Curve tool to display the Curve toolbar. Click the Freeform Curve tool. Your mouse cursor changes from the pointer to a crosshair shape with the Freeform Curve icon showing next to it.  NOTES Objects you drag off the drawing area are not printed. The Curve button changed to the Freeform Curve button's icon on your Drawing toolbar. You can click this button to reuse the Freeform Curve tool without having to long-click the Curve button first. You only have to long-click the Curve button again if you want to select a tool other than the Freeform tool on the Curve toolbar. | | 2. | Drag the Mouse to Draw Click the starting point of the line you're about to draw and hold down the mouse button as you draw a line. The line is freeform because you're using the Freeform Curve tool, so you can draw any line, curve, or shape you wish. When you finish, release your mouse button. TIP If you want to draw a closed shape, such as the outline of a face, release your mouse button near the point at which you began drawing, and Draw will close the shape. | | 3. | Edit Shape or Line After you release the mouse button to indicate that you are finished drawing an open or closed shape, small handles appear around the new object. You can resize an object by dragging one of these handles inward or outward. See 117 About Manipulating Objects . KEY TERMS Handles Green boxes that surround an object when that object is selected. Resize an object by dragging one of these handles. Edit points Also called data points . Small blue squares that surround an object when it's being edited; drag an edit point inward or outward to modify a shape or freeform line's contour. If you want to change the outline of the object, you must display its edit points . Click the object to select it, and then click the Points button on the Drawing toolbar. Edit points surround the object so that you can manipulate its contour. Drag an edit point in or out to reshape the contour of the line or shape at that location. See 117 About Manipulating Objects . NOTE To delete an object, click it and press the Delete key. Choose Edit, Undo (or press Ctrl + Z ) to replace what you deleted if you delete the wrong piece of the drawing. | | 4. | Draw Again
To draw another freeform shape or line, you must click the Freeform button once again to use it again. In other words, each tool that you select by clicking the Drawing toolbar stays active only for one use of that tool. If you're doing a lot of drawing with one of the tools, such as the Freeform tool, you won't want to keep selecting the tool after each line you draw. Therefore, Draw lets you double-click any tool to keep that tool active (until you select another).
| | 5. | Thicken Contours
You can add thickness to the contour of an object or line using the options on the Line and Filling toolbar. To select every shape and line in your drawing, press Ctrl+A . This Select All command selects everything in the drawing and displays handles around the area.
With all objects selected, you can easily change the thickness of the lines used. The Line and Filling toolbar includes several tools you can use to modify lines and the contours of shapes, including a line type and thickness tool. With the object(s) you want to change selected, click the up arrow on the Line and Filling toolbar's Line Width control. As you click, your drawing's selected lines will thicken. You can change the line color for selected objects and lines by choosing a color from the Line and Filling toolbar's Line Color control, and you can change the line itself (from solid to dashed, for example) by selecting from the Line Style list box. To remove the line from around a shape, set the Line Style to Invisible (you might do this after you fill the shape with color, for example).
| | 6. | Add Shadow
The remaining Line and Filling toolbar's tools include a Line button that displays a dialog box so that you can make precise selections to a line's style and color (see 113 Draw Lines ), fill buttons you can use to fill the center of enclosed drawing areas with patterns and colors, and a Shadow button that adds a shadow effect to your object. Click the Shadow button now to add a shadow to your line so that you can see the effect. See 116 Fill an Object for more help with shadows.
| | 7. | Fill the Shape
If you've drawn an enclosed shape, click the shape to select it. Select the type of fill pattern you want to add from the Area Style/Filling list box, such as a solid Color , a Gradient, a cross pattern of lines known as Hatching, or a Bitmap image. Then select a matching style (such as a particular color) from the second list box. 116 Fill an Object describes more about filling objects on your drawing area.
| TIP You can import graphic images from files onto your drawing area, as you might do for a corporate logo that you want to label a drawing with. Remember that if you've elected to display image placeholders instead of the images themselves , an image anchor will appear as a placeholder for the image. You'll need to select the appropriate View option from the Tools, Options dialog box to see the graphic image as it will finally look in your drawing.
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