Eli Journals - Expand your drawing capabilities with the Polar Grid tool

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May 2007

Expand your drawing capabilities with the Polar Grid tool

by Michelle Dick

Application(s): Adobe Illustrator CS/CS2

Operating System(s): Macintosh, Microsoft Windows

Download: * Subscribers Only *

At A Glance:
The Polar Grid tool is a very under-utilized Illustrator tool. Many aren’t aware of its existence, let alone how to use it. We’ll help you understand how polar grids work, so you can create interesting rotational patterns and graphics hassle-free.

To help you use the Polar Grid tool in your drawing repertoire, we’ll:

• Review the Polar Grid dialog box and show you how to set up a polar grid to create a design.
• Create a pattern with the polar grid using the Rotate tool to help you generate a design easily.
• Turn the polar grid into a stylized graphic for a unique look.

Polar grids are helpful for planning and executing rotational designs. You can easily customize a grid for any rotational design that you have in mind, especially if you use Illustrator to create your design. You can build up amazing complexity, as shown on our cover. Many types of flowers, pinwheels, Gothic tracery, Celtic knotwork, and even car hubcaps exhibit rotational symmetry. We’ll show you two drawing techniques for using the Polar Grid tool. The first is as a rotational tool and second is for generating graphics from the grid itself.

Set up a polar grid

Polar grids consist of concentric circles and dividers that you can adjust to suit many design needs.

To set up a polar grid:

Create a new Illustrator document.

Select the Polar Grid tool , which is located in the Toolbox on the Line Segment tool’s pop-up menu.

Click on your document to open the Polar Grid Tool Options dialog box shown in Figure A.

Figure A: �

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Understand the settings

In the Default Size section, you can specify the Width and Height of the resulting grid. The sizes don’t have to be identical, which allows you to make ovals as well as circles. Also in this section is the Origin Point icon . Click on one of its four corners to determine where your grid is drawn from. Most of the time, you can just leave this setting alone.

Concentric Dividers section

You can specify how many rings you want your grid to have in the Number text box. Changing the value in the Skew text box causes the dividers to be drawn closer to either the center or the outer portion of the grid.

Radial Dividers section

You can specify the number of radii that you want. (If you don’t remember back to your geometry classes, the radius is the distance from the center to any point on a circle.) Under the Number text box, you’ll see another Skew slider that allows you to push the radii toward the top or the bottom of the grid.

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Check box options

At the bottom of the dialog box are two check boxes. If you select the Create Compound Path From Ellipses check box, then the circles are converted to compound paths and every other one will be filled. The Fill Grid check box fills the grid with the current color, which you might want to do if you intend to use the grid as a graphic element rather than a guide. Normally, the grid has no fill. It generally consists of only stroked paths.

Prepare the grid

Now, let’s adjust these settings so we can make a rotational design.

To set up the grid:

Set both the Width and Height text boxes to 3 inches.

Specify 3 concentric dividers and 6 radial dividers.

Leave all the other settings at their defaults and click OK to apply.

A polar grid appears on your document. When you’re setting up to create a design, you typically specify the number of radial dividers based on how many objects you want in your design.

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Enable Smart Guides to position your objects

If you don’t have Smart Guides enabled, turn them on. Smart Guides are useful for getting your objects to line up with the polar grid. It’s also helpful to enable Snap To Grid for easy positioning.

To convert your polar grid to Smart Guides and create an object to adhere to the guides:

Choose View > Smart Guides ([command]U on the Mac; [Ctrl]U in Windows). These guides display and will help you align and snap to various points in your artwork.

Select the polar grid, and then choose View > Guides > Make Guides to convert the polar grid into guides.

Choose View > Snap To Grid so your image will snap into position on the grid.

Draw a closed path to serve as the basis of your design. You can see ours in Figure B. We just made a simple doodle with the Pencil tool .

Deselect the path, and then position the Selection tool over its lower anchor point.

Click and drag the object onto the grid. You want to position your anchor point directly onto the grid’s center point and release the mouse when it snaps to into place, as shown in Figure C.

Figure B: �

Figure C: �

Use the Rotate tool

Now, we’ll start building our pattern. The main tool you’ll use when building rotational patterns with the polar grid is the Rotate tool.

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To rotate the object on the grid and create copies:

Choose the Rotate tool while your object is selected. Small crosshairs appears next to your object, showing you where the origin of rotation is located.

[option]-click ([Alt]-click in Windows) and drag the crosshairs to move the origin to the grid’s center.

Release the mouse, and the Rotate dialog box opens automatically.

Enter 60 in the Angle text box.

Click the Copy button. Your result will look like ours in Figure D.

To proceed with the rest of the grid, you don’t need to use the Rotate tool again. Instead, you can use the Transform Again command by choosing Object > Transform > Transform Again. This command repeats your last operation—in this case, duplicating and rotating an object 60 degrees. Or, you can use the command keys for this operation. Press [command]D ([Ctrl]D in Windows) three more times to populate the grid. You’ll get results similar to ours shown in Figure E.

Figure D: �

Figure E: �

Create flowers using a polar grid

Besides using the Polar Grid tool for creating symmetrical rotational designs, you can use it to create one of a kind graphics. Now that you know how to create a basic polar grid rotational design, we’ll go one step further to draw a stylized flower with uneven edges. We’ll also explore other tools that will benefit you in the flower creation process. We’ll start by drawing the grid.

To set up the Polar Grid:

Set the Fill to 30% Magenta (M:30) and the Stroke to 90% Magenta (M:90).

Select the Polar Grid tool, and then click on your artboard to display the Polar Grid Options dialog box.

Set the Polar Grid Tool Options dialog box as shown in Figure F. Be sure to select the Fill Grid option.

Click OK to create a polar grid, as shown in Figure G.

Figure F: �

Figure G: �

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To wrinkle the flower pedals:

Double-click the Wrinkle tool located on the Warp tool’s pop-up menu to display the Wrinkle Tool Options dialog box.

Enter 3.25 in in both the Width and Height text boxes in the Global Brush Dimensions area.

Leave the rest of the Wrinkle tool options set to their defaults and click OK.

Center the Wrinkle tool’s circle around the polar grid’s circle and quickly click twice in the middle of the polar grid’s circle.

To apply an artistic watercolor effect:

Choose Window > Brush Libraries > Artistic Watercolor.

Select Watercolor Stroke 5 from the Artistic_Watercolor palette, as shown in Figure H.

Set the Stroke Weight pop-up menu on the tool options bar to 2 pt.

Deselect the flower and your flower should look like Figure I.

Figure H: �

Figure I: �

To create the leaves:

Set the Color Fill to None and the Stroke to C:100, M:0, Y:100, and K:20.

Select the Pen tool from the Tool box and draw leaf shapes similar to those shown in Figure J.

Click the Selection tool, and [shift]-click on the leaf shapes to select all of them.

Choose Object > Arrange > Send To Back.

Figure J:

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To stylize the leaves:

Highlight the Fill on the Appearance palette (Appearance > Window).

Choose Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow to display the Inner Glow dialog box, as shown in Figure K.

Select Normal from the Mode pop-up menu and set the Color Picker to C:50, M:0, Y:50, and K:0.

Set the Opacity to 100% and the Blur to .25 inches, select Center, and Click OK.

Select Watercolor – Blend from the Artistic Watercolor palette.

Set the Stroke Weight to 1 pt.

The result of our unique flower is shown in Figure L.

Figure K:

Figure L:

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