Hi, this is Anne with Graphic Design How To, and today I'm going to tell you about how
masks work in Illustrator CC 2019.
We're going to go over how to actually use clipping masks, and then we're going to do
a few examples of how you can use a clipping mask with text or shapes.
So let's get started.
These are the two graphics we're going to be making in this tutorial today, but first
I want to show you how to use a clipping mask.
Let's say we have some shapes...I'm just going to use my M Tool (the Rectangle Tool) to draw
a few shapes and we'll make them red.
And then I'm going to SHIFT OPT drag them to make a copy.
And then I'll hit CMD D a few times and that will duplicate what I just did.
And then I'll make a background and just hit M again and draw a rectangle behind it.
I'm going to hit SHIFT CMD [ or SHIFT CTRL [ on a PC, and we'll make it blue.
Oh, that's just terribly ugly.
So I'm going to change that to maybe this orange.
OK, and now this is going to be what we see behind here like this picture.
I'm going to hit my V Tool and select those things and then just group them with CMD G,
or CTRL G on a PC.
So now I'm going to use my N Tool, which is the Pencil Tool to just draw a flowy shape
over here.
All right.
And all I want to see of this image is the flowy shape, so I'm going to hit D on my keyboard
so I can just see this better.
Selecting something and then hitting D will give you a white fill and a black stroke.
So now I'll hit V and move this on top of the shapes I just made.
Now when you make a clipping mask, the part you're going to see needs to be on top.
So the shape right now is the part that we're going to see.
Let me just kind of center that using my arrow keys, and now we'll select all of it.
And then we can hit CMD 7, or CTRL 7 on a PC.
And now we have our mask.
So whatever shape is on top will mask the other things, if that makes sense.
I know it's kind of a little hard to wrap your head around at first.
Now we can still manipulate these items within here.
So if we hit A, we can select the red and let's say we'll just move it over.
But if it's out here, you won't be able to do it.
It won't let you select it unless you're on top of that shape.
So if you want to move around the pieces, you have to be somewhere where they're showing.
Now if you want to move the outside shape, you can also do that.
Let's get our Group Selection Tool.
That's right here underneath the Direct Selection Tool.
And I have it set to G, but that is a custom keyboard shortcut.
You won't be able to use that unless you've set it up.
So I've got the outside selected with my G Tool, and now I'll hit N. And if we start
out here and end up going the same way, we can redraw that path.
So start going one direction, starting on the path, and then continue and you'll have
to end up on the path going the same direction.
And that way you can redraw the shape.
If you want to get really crazy with changing the shape, I would just recommend unmasking
it.
It's OPT CMD 7, and then changing your shape and then remasking with CMD 7.
So that's how masking works in Illustrator.
Now let's try a little more complicated design.
I'm going to delete this.
I'll hit my T Tool, click once and type out 'stars'.
And the font I'm using is Montserrat.
But, of course, you can use any font you want.
And we'll make it a little bit bigger by holding SHIFT OPT and dragging on a handle.
OK, and now we want to make this pattern in here.
To do that, we can get on our Star Tool, which is underneath the Rectangle Tool.
And I'll get over here.
I'll start drawing and keep dragging.
Hold OPT to get that kind of star.
You can see it change.
Holding OPT will do that, and then click on your tilde (~) and drag.
The tilde (~) key is above the Tab key on a Mac keyboard.
I'm not sure exactly where it is on a PC, but it's probably somewhere around there.
And watch what happens.
Whoa!
Now each one of these is a shape so it's a ton of shapes.
I'm going to hit V and select everything and then hit D. That'll give us the white fill
and black stroke.
And now I don't want a white fill at all, and it's in front right now, so I'm going
to hit question mark to get rid of it.
I'm going to reduce the stroke to .5, and let's go to our Swatches and open the Gradients
library.
We'll use the Color Harmonies.
And now I'm going to click this blue and green one.
Let's go ahead and group it, CMD G.
So now our star has a gradient stroke on it.
It looks pretty crazy, but that's okay.
I'm going to click once and then resize from the handle holding SHIFT and OPT.
Let's make it a little bit smaller, get rid of my Color Harmonies.
And then I'll put it over this stars shape.
I also want a background.
So I'm going to draw a box right around this with my M Tool.
Then I'll choose....up in my color palette, I'll get this bluish color and maybe make
it a little bit lighter.
Now everything's underneath there.
Oh, I didn't even tell you about that.
I actually hid the star, that's CMD 3.
So I hid that, and then I'm going to hide this too...CMD 3.
And now I'll OPT CMD 3 to unhide, and that will select everything that's been hidden.
Now we can send it back...
SHIFT OPT [ . So now our word is in front.
And that's what we want to see just like this.
Just remember what you want to end up seeing needs to be the very top thing.
I'm going to hit SHIFT O and extend my artboard so we aren't overlapping all this stuff.
And I'll hit V, select these things and just move them down.
All right, so we've got everything we need.
We've got our text on top, which is going to be our mask, and then the star shape, which
is now a group so we can select it all at once, and the background.
Now the background, I want to send it back...
SHIFT CMD [ . Now we'll select all of this with the V Tool.
Just draw a box around it, and hit CMD 7.
All right, so this is pretty similar to what we have up here at the top.
It's going to be different every single time because that trick I showed you with the tilde
(~) key...it's mostly good for just making backgrounds and stuff like this.
Now, if you've put this in type, it's still a live type path, so we can change the type
if we want to, or change the font.
If you're on an older version of Illustrator, you might have to outline your type for it
to work correctly.
And that is SHIFT CMD O on a Mac, SHIFT CTRL O on a PC.
Now I'm going to delete this one, so I have some room to make this mask with shapes.
So first we're going to make the rectangles.
I'm just going to hit D to get my white fill and black stroke, and just draw a thin little
rectangle.
And then I'll click SHIFT and OPT to drag a copy, and we'll make this one a little wider.
Now I'm going to CMD C, CMD F to paste in front, and then CMD D. And that makes another
copy in front of the one I just made, and I'm going to do that a few times.
CMD C for copy, CMD F for paste in front, and CMD D.
OK, there we go.
So we have a few different copies.
I want to pull them over now holding SHIFT with my V Tool.
OK.
Now I'm going to put them a little closer, maybe make this one not as big.
We'll just do that.
So what I'm making right now are these white shapes.
And, I'm going to go ahead and pull my image in.
I downloaded this from pexels.com, and it is in the description if you want to use the
same image.
I'm going to click and just drag it right into my document.
Now this is a really big picture.
You wouldn't necessarily want to do this in Illustrator because having images like this
in your Illustrator document will cause the size to get really big, really fast,
but this is just an example.
OK, so he's about the same size as the first one.
With my M Tool, I'm going to draw a box around where I want the crop to be...about right
there.
I'm going to click on the picture and hide (CMD 3).
And now I'll click everything together.
And I'm going to make this green and send it to the back (SHIFT CMD [ ). I want these
parts to be cut out of the green, but first, I'm going to skew them.
So I'm going to hit V, and select just these white ones at the top, hit E for the Free
Transform Tool, and then click and hold SHIFT and just drag these over.
And that's good.
Now there are a few ways to subtract these out, but the way I like to do it is with the
Minus Front over here on Shape Modes.
We'll group them first (CMD G), and then I'll select both these and the green background
by holding SHIFT and then Minus Front.
So now if we CMD Y...well that star is there...but you can see we only have these green parts.
The white areas are actually gone now.
We've cut them out.
So each section is its own piece.
Now we want Illustrator to recognize these as all one object.
And to do that, we have to make a compound path.
So just select the group and hit CMD 8, and you won't notice any change.
But now Illustrator sees this as one object.
And now we can go on and create the clipping mask.
So let's unhide and bring the picture back (OPT CMD 3), and we'll send this to the back
(SHIFT CMD [ ) . So now we have our one object in front and the background image.
We can hold SHIFT to select both of those and then hit CMD 7, and we have our mask.
And if you use your A tool, you can click that photo and move him around inside there.
And that's pretty much it.
That is how to use a clipping mask.
All right, I hope you liked this video.
If you want to see full length classes, I do have a couple classes on Skillshare right
now, so I'm going to drop the link in the description and you can check those out if
you want to.
And I'll see you next Thursday for another graphic design tutorial.
Thank you!!!