Drawing 1: Tools and Techniques in Corel Draw Introduction: what this assignment is about Drawing is an essential skill for Earth Science graduates, who typically produce maps, cross-sections and other diagrams for Theses and other Reports. It is possible to survive with pen and paper, but the use of a Computer Assisted Design (CAD) package can be beneficial in flexibility and speed for those with appropriate experience. Unfortunately, it takes time to develop the necessary skills! This assignment is an opportunity to initiate skill development with a small project that involves some of the basic tools and techniques common to many vector-drawing packages (raster painting packages require other skills). A vector drawing contains one or more objects, each of which has a list of properties appropriate for that object. For example, a rectangle has horizontal and vertical position and size, outline line width and colour, and fill style. You can change an object's attributes using various types of dialog box, and its size by selecting and dragging. You can create an object that has no outline and no fill - so it is invisible! Object attributes are usually independent of size, allowing scaling to high or low magnifications without loss of resolution, and they may be positioned on a page to within one micron. An object may have invisible properties such as material specification and cost. Objects also have relationships to each other. Overlapping objects have a sort order so that one is the rearmost and another is the foremost (the front object is drawn on top of the back object). The sort order can be changed for optimum effect. For example, if you want some text in a coloured rectangle the text must be in front of the rectangle. Objects may be grouped into composite objects or combined into a pseudo single object. Finally, objects may be placed on separate layers (like layers of acetate) that can be selectively made visible or invisible on screen and on the printout. The use of layers is highly recommended for complex drawings. What you are asked to produce In this assignment you are asked to produce a Postcard using Corel Draw, one of the leading Computer Aided Design packages. You may use any version but if you have Version 10 or higher you should save in Version 8 format for Department compatibility. The front of the card should be based on a scene from an actual postcard or a photograph. The reverse of the card will be used to illustrate the use of paragraph text, as opposed to artistic text, and object alignment. The card will be folded from A4 paper and needs to be set out as in the adjacent illustration. Page 1 will have features such as a skyline, clouds, rock formation boundaries, a lake or track, perhaps some buildings, trees and a place-name. Page 2 will contain message and address areas, and a copyright notice. The first part of the assignment involves drawing practice - creating and changing objects that you will then delete. The second part is the real work - creating a card, which should be printed and handed in unfolded for assessment.
Outline Instructions Stage 1: Familiarisation with the Corel Draw screen The illustration above shows the Corel Draw 9 screen. Version 8 is very similar. You need to become familiar with the various parts. To the left is a Tool Box with an array of vertical Tools shown with the Pick Tool selected (button depressed). This is used for selecting objects for moving, resizing, deleting, copying or attribute changing. At the top are a Standard Tool bar and a Tool Property bar. The latter changes to accommodate the needs of the selected Tool. To the right are various types of Docker that can be minimised or closed to maximise the amount of screen available for drawing. The paper is outlined and has a drop shadow. Stage 2: Practise drawing and manipulating some simple objects Rectangles, Ellipses, Text and Curves: Methods for drawing simple shapes are covered in the How To information. Rectangles and ellipses should be obvious. Hold down the Ctrl key whilst dragging to produce Squares and Circles. For Artistic Text click to define the starting point for the text. For Paragraph Text click and drag to define an initial box for the text. Drawing curves requires practice! Use the How To information and see if you can draw a simple cartoon such as a cat, a heart or a banana. Find out how to use the Shape Tool to close a curve so that it can be filled with colour or a pattern. Selecting and filling: Use the Pick Tool to select a closed object (rectangle or ellipse) and then click on a colour from the colour palette. Click the right mouse button on a colour from the colour palette to change the outline colour. Postcard, Page 2
Moving and resizing: Select the Pick Tool and then try selecting and moving or resizing some of the objects you have drawn. To select one of a number of overlapping unfilled objects click exactly on the object's outline. Click an object twice to set rotate mode. Change sort order: Make some of the filled objects overlap and try changing the sort order with the To Back or To Front buttons or menu items (look under Arrange). Selecting multiple objects: To select a number of objects either click and drag to outline all of the objects you wish to select or click on one object to select it and then hold the Shift key down and click on additional objects to add them to the selection. Pop-up menus: Find out what a click of the right mouse button does with an object selected and with nothing selected. To select nothing, click on the desktop or a blank area of the paper with the Pick Tool. Zoom: Find out how to use the Zoom Tool. You can click and drag to zoom to an area that you define or you can use the buttons on the Tool Property bar to zoom to various predefined magnifications. Get used to zooming in and out whilst drawing or editing. View: Find out what happens when you select View Wireframe. Use Normal view for most work and Wireframe view when you want maximum drawing speed. Object Manager: Open the Object Manager (the View menu in Corel Draw 8 and the Tools Menu in Corel Draw 9). Notice the items that are inactive (grey) and active (normal). You can't draw on the Grid or Guides layer but you can on the Desktop layer, which you can't print. Try adding a new layer and giving it a name such as Tracing. Stage 3: Page Setup for Tent Card Get rid of all of the objects drawn for practice purposes - Edit, Select All Objects and Cut. Use the Layout, Page Setup menu and select Tent Card from the Page, Layout Options dialog. OK. Find out how to insert and delete pages - the Postcard needs two pages. Stage 4: Use guidelines to create 1cm margins for rectangle See the How To: Set Guidelines information to help set up 1cm margins and then draw a rectangle snapped to the guidelines. All drawing should be inside the rectangle. The rectangle could be filled with light blue for the sky and put behind other objects, Stage 5: Draw the scene Select the Freehand Tool and draw the main outlines in the scene. It does not have to be particularly elaborate. The illustration to the right has yet to have some details added. Add any appropriate text labels. Try switching between Normal and Wireframe views as required. Hallival, Rum Torridonian Sandstone Layered series If you want to fill any areas you need to make enclosed objects - look up the How To: Combine Objects information. Lots of students have problems at this stage - come to Room 307 for a demo if you get stuck. Postcard, Page 3
Stage 6: The Postcard Address side The reverse side of a postcard is pretty standard. You are expected to draw a vertical line and align it to the middle of the page, some horizontal lines equally spaced for the address, a box with the word Stamp in the exact middle of the box, paragraph text containing a message, and a copyright notice - your name for credit purposes. See the How To: Align objects and the How to Duplicate Objects information. Dear Mum, Having a great time! The weather is windy but dry. There are no shops here - so can you send me a food parcel p.d.q. It snowed last night and I wore that balaclava you knitted for me in bed. Roy slipped on the ice and broke his camera. See you soon. Cliff Copyright C.E.Ford 2000 Stamp Stage 7: Save the Drawing, Self-Assess and Upload Save the drawing, as in any Windows application. Assess yourself against the Marking Guide below and then upload your drawing file using the Web form. Summary of things you should be able to do 1. Page set up for Tent Fold Card. 2. Page Insert (and Delete). 3. Draw simple shapes, resize and reorder. 4. Draw and edit Bezier curves. 5. Close and fill objects with colour. Marking Criteria 6. Use Artistic Text and Paragraph Text. 7. Align objects with respect to the page. 8. Align objects with respect to each other. 9. Delete unwanted objects. 10. Save and Print. The following scheme outlines how marks are allocated, excluding late penalties: 1. The drawing has a few scribbles but none of the Postcard elements 2. The drawing is set up for an A4 tent card but has not progressed much beyond that stage. 3. As for 2 with something on each side of the tent card. 4. There are lines, text and elementary filled objects such as rectangles. 5. The card looks OK, but dock one mark for each of the following common faults: The paper has not been set up as a tent-fold card. The picture side does not have a 1cm margin with the picture enclosed in a bounding rectangle. The card does not contain closed and filled Bezier curves for items such as clouds or hills or rock formations. The card does not contain a place-name in Artistic text on the picture side. The card does not contain a message in Paragraph text on the address side. Note that you really must understand the difference between Artistic and Paragraph text, where each should be used and how each is produced. Please use Arial for all text on the address side or you may be (wrongly) penalised for incorrect text alignment. Postcard, Page 4
The dividing line between the message and address is not centred in the page. Your copyright notice is not centred at the foot of the address side. The stamp box and the word Stamp are not centre aligned with each other. The address lines are not equal distances apart and aligned at both ends. 7. All of the drawing elements are present but the drawing is elementary with few enclosed objects and unrealistic curves. 8. The postcard picture is reasonably good with filled elements such as hills in the background, a lake or rock formations in the foreground, and perhaps some clouds set in coloured sky. 9. The postcard is very good - thoughtful in Earth Science or scenic content and with clear artistic merit. 10. The postcard is in some way exceptional and the work qualifies for the Early Bird bonus (i.e. submitted one Calendar week ahead of the deadline). Postcard, Page 5