Create a Christmas Candy Cane with Illustrator CS2

(beginner )

Step 1: Drag out a Guide

Start by displaying rulers View > Show Rulers or Ctrl + R ( Win) or Cmd + R (mac). The place the Selection tool within the top ruler and click and drag out a guide line. This will help us create a candy cane with an even curve at the top.

Step 2: Set the stroke and fill colours

In the tool box set your stroke to red and your fill to none

Step 3: Create the shape using the Pen tool

With the Pen tool click on the horizontal guide and drag up to start the first part of the curve.

Then click a short distance away and drag down to form the other part of the curve.

Click on the anchor point you just created to convert the point into a combination corner point. This will allow us to connect the curve to a straight line.

Then hold down the shift key and click where you wish the tail of your candy cane to end. Holding down the Shift - key constrains the line to be perfectly vertical.

Now we have the shape we want - we need to make the stroke bigger. Select the path and set the stroke to 30 pt.

We also need to make the end of the cane round or it won't truly look like a candy cane. On the strokes palette choose the round cap option.

Step 4: Outlining the Stroke

Next we need to change this stroke to a shape. Choose Object > Path > Outline Stroke. This will change our existing stroked path to an actual shape

Step 5: Adding Stripes

Set your stroke to white and the stroke width to 1 or 2.

Use the pen or pencil tools to create a series of curved paths that overlap the candy cane. Don't worry about the overlaps we will deal with them later.

Once you have all the paths you need select the candy cane and all the stripe paths by using your selection tool to drag a marquee over the candy cane.

Step 5: Using Live Paint

Select the Live Paint tool and click on your previously selected candy cane and stripe paths.

Then with your fill set to white click and fill every other section with white.

Now we need to remove the excess white lines - choose the Live Paint Selection tool and individually select and delete the path sections that extend beyond the candy cane. Then use the live paint selection tool to select the edges of the candy cane and set those edges to black. Tip: Shift click to select multiple edges at a time.

Bonus Tip: If you have a page that you wished to add many candy canes to you can do that easily by making the candy cane a symbol. Select the candy cane and drag into your symbols palette. Then use your symbol sprayer to add candy canes to your page and then use the various symbol manipulation tools to change the size, rotation and opacity of some of the symbols to add variety.