Artworks by a layman with Excel and Illustrator

I've made some artworks with for websites Microsoft Office, on an office laptop with limited graphic tools. Its auto-shape functions are unexpectedly useful and with a well-thought combination, we can obtain unexpectedly rich expression. I prefer Excel because it can place auto-shapes the most freely. I learned the ABC of drawing Bezier curves through Excel.

To meet various needs of artworks, I've found out that it's important to be familiar with well-known graphic tools such as Adobe Illustrator. I bought this last fall. It cost as much as my new PC, but when I buy it I was looking forward to the new possibility to enrich my computer skills.

Since I bought Illustrator, I continued to use Excel to create some artworks. Illustrator had a lot of functions to modify your artwork, but without knowledge, I couldn't even draw a simple shape. In fact the first month after I bought it, I only used the function to automatically trace a photo.

Considering my investment on this soft, I decided that I need to take some lessons.
There are several free tutorial sites on the web. Now I often visit one of the tutorial sites http://www.illareya.net/ (written in Japanese).

With this site, I learned basic skills to create simple shapes efficiently and precisely.

I had done with beginners' lessons, and when I visited a section of an intermediate lesson, I encountered a problem.

It gave a lesson through a movie, but provided with in an embedded swf file, I couldn't choose the time to play, to see what I don't understand over and over again.

To solve this problem, I needed to obtain a standalone swf player and the swf file on my PC.

  • Obtain the swf file on the page with the "View page info" function of the context (right-click) menu, select the media tab, select the swf file, and then click "Save As" button at the bottom-right of the dialog.
  • Obtain a media player which can play a swf file. (I chose the GOM Player)
I also bought a reference book for Illustrator, which gives me a rough image of what Illustrator can do, especially what it can do excellently.

Mastering intermediate skills, I hope to create artworks to meet various needs from various clients.

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