Happy New Year 2021!

 (Drawing and painting in Pages)

My annual New Year's card with a study after Modigliani, a Snowman and a little Robin. To add the past year's flavour I drew a few covid masks, a subject of so much debate and angst.

Everything here is drawn using Pages tools.

The mask itself is a modified Polygon from the Shapes menu with a Border and an Advanced colour fill. The straps are curved lines with endpoints.

The figures 2021 are drawn with the Pen Tool. When you click on Shapes in the Tool Bar you can see it in the top right corner.

'Modigliani's' model is a combination of edited shapes with colour fills.

Happy New Year!

New Year Greetings, a card.

Happy New Year to all I Work in Pages readers!

It took me less than an hour to draw this card almost entirely with Pages Draw Pen (you can see it in the top right corner of the Shapes menu in the current Pages version (7.3). The Robin on Snowman's hand is from my previous design. The handle of the bucket is a line with end-points.

Enjoy graphic design in Pages!

This image shows all the separate elements highlighted:

And here you can see the Snowman's body with the dots I used when drawing him:

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all readers of I Work in Pages!

See previous years' Snowmen and Robins at this link. Includes tutorials, tips and videos. Some menus and tools may be different in the current Pages version (6.3.1) but the basic principles remain the same and still work.  

The Snowman (2015)

My traditional drawing of the New Year's Snowman. 

All details, including letters, made with Apple's Pages tools.

Happy New Year.

How to Draw a Snowman.

This is a short video on how to draw a snowman in iWork/Pages. I made the slides from screenshots in Pages, then assembled them in Keynote and made into a video via iPhoto and uploaded to my channel on YouTube.

This version doesn't have additional explanatory notes and is intended for those who are already comfortable with iWork's basic tools.

Enjoy!

Drawing a Snowman.

This is a video tutorial on how to draw a Snowman in Apple's iWork Pages. Watch it here or on my YouTube channel.

Use the Draw tool to create basic shapes. Activate it from the Shapes menu or by going via Insert > Shape > Draw a Shape. 

It works like 'connect the dots' exercises in children's drawing books. And it is as simple. Each click by the draw tool creates a dot. Each new dot is connected to the previous by a default line. To finish the shape, click on the first dot again, or double click on the last dot you've made.

To make the lines curve, drag the mouse around slightly after clicking. The dot will show a 'propeller' with two blades. 

Click on the tip of the propeller and drag. This changes the curve. Pull out to make a more rounded shape, push in to 'slim down' the shape.

Eyes, nose, the bellybutton and the bucket are default shapes from the Shapes menu edited to fit the design. 

Eyes are Ovals.

The nose is a triangle. Under Format menu, choose Shape > Make editable. The triangle will show red dots - editing points. Click on the red dot and drag it to change the shape of the triangle. Double click to make the shape curving and drag the propeller tips to shape the triangle into the Snowman's nose. 

The bucket is a rectangle from the Shapes menu. Make it editable and shape into a trapezoid (top side shorter than the bottom side.)

Use the Graphic Inspector to change colours,  thickness of the shape's contours and add shadows.

The whole project takes 30 minutes to one hour to complete.

I've used the tools and options available in both iWork'08 and '09. If you only have the older '08 version you will be able to make this Snowman too. iWork'09 has some additional features including Advanced Gradient Fill with which you can add a 3D effect to the drawing.  

This video does not contain explanatory notes and is meant for those who are already comfortable with iWork basics. If you have any questions or comments, please send them in.

Read the ten-step tutorial on how to create a Christmas card in Pages. 

Happy New Year 2012! Snowman and Tree.

Happy New Year to the readers of I Work in Pages!

I've just quickly drawn a tree with a star on top. It may need more tweaking, but I am putting it here anyway. See if you can improve on this desi

The picture on the right shows the click-points I made with the Draw tool while designing the tree. After the basic shape is drawn make the shape editable: Format>Shape>Make editable. Next, to make curves, add Format>Shape>Smooth Path. Drag and rotate editing handles that look like propellers sticking out of each editing point (little red dot) when it is selected.

Outline of the shape is 2 points, colour is Cayenne. The tree has gradient colour fill – Fern and Moss.

The star is from the Shapes menu with an advanced gradient fill flowing from Maraschino in the centre to Salmon at the edges. The outline is 2 points thick, colour is Cayenne.

The little robin sitting on snowman's hand is also designed in iWork. See details in 'Designing Robin: Smaller Graphic Elements'.

I've made several versions of the snowman. Read details in this article: 'Snowman: Drawing and Editing Images in iWork'.

©A.Anichkin

Happy New Year 2011: Drawing a Snowman and a Robin

Happy New Year!

This is a simple picture of the Snowman I made entirely in Pages using available shapes and drawing some with the Drawing Tool. I then edited shapes, added different outlines (picture frames), colour fill and gradient fill and coloured shadows. The year number is drawn with the free draw tool. I added a picture frame to 0 to make it look like a snowball.

This year I've added a robin to the picture. The whole project took less than two hours to finish. Try it while the festive season lasts – you may want to send a thank you card or reply to someone who you forgot to put on your Christmas card list.

Here is the image of the robin, which I designed separately:

Once again, only tools available in Pages have been used here. When I put robin on snowman's hand I flipped the image in Metrics inspector and shortened robin's tail to make it look as though part of it is invisible behind the hand. The image is a screenshot (Command+Shift+4) of the artwork in another Pages document, with the white background removed by Instant Alpha tool.

See previous Snowmans:

Snowman 2010 with explanations - let me know if I missed anything.

Snowman 2009 with links to related posts.

And read a 10-step tutorial to designing cards in Pages.

Christmas Projects in Pages

As the festive season approaches I would like to post a few links to previous articles here on how to make clipart, cards and bring Christmas theme in other projects.

Read the complete tutorial to desinging your own original Christmas card in Pages: Card Design in iWork/Pages: A Complete 10-Step Tutorial (jump links to all 10 blog posts, includes tips on how to put a Santa cap on your photo and how to make clipart with your own photos).

Draw an original Snowman in a few easy strokes with Pages tools: The Snowman: drawing and editing images in Pages

Update for 2012/13 season: see the 2012/13 snowman and a video tutorial showing the drawing process step-by-step in this post.

And in the article Сhristmas graphics and clipart: a few easy tricks see how to use Christmas theme in your print or web project, where to find holiday clipart that is already on your Mac and how to use elements of Pages templates, for example, a champagne glass from the Catalogue template.  

The Snowman: drawing and editing images in Pages

For the New Year's 2010 greetings card I made a  Snowman who is only slightly different from last year's.

Here is what's new and a few tips:

- I added a belly-button - because he is the 'son' of last year's Snowman, slightly edited. So, as he is not an original creation, he should have a belly-button, I thought. The button is a duplicated eye. To duplicate a graphic object press Command and type D. 

- the Snowman 2010 raised his right hand saluting you. Make the shape editable and change the contours of the shape by moving, one by one, white square 'handles', red dots of the editable shape and white propellers  until the hand is up.

- And, finally, today I've added a handle to the bucket on his head. The bucket itself is a rectangle, edited (Format>Shape>Make Editable) to give it a trapezium contour. The handle is a line with rounded endpoints (Select endpoits in Graphic Inspector). Draw a straight line, then make it editable and select Smooth Path (Format>Shape>Smooth Path). The red dots of the editable line will have 'propellers'. Curve the line as you like by rotating and extending the 'propellers'.

And if you can't be bothered with drawing your own snowman, there is a similar looking one in 
Character Palette>Symbols>Miscellaneous Symbols. Drag him into your document and change the way he looks in the same way as you change letters.

Happy New Year!

For other tips on designing your own images and clipart see this earlier post.

Happy New Year 2010! (Draw the Snowman)

A very happy New Year 2010!

Thank you for supporting this blog. 

I have designed this snowman and 'drew' the greeting with the tools available in Pages. The snowman is made of edited shapes (Format>Shape>Make editable) and the letters are drawn with the free draw tool (last option in Shapes menu or Insert>Draw a shape).

See 'older posts' for a ten step guide to creating an original season greetings card in Pages.


And for a more detailed description of technique used here please read these previous posts:
Christmas graphics: a few easy tricks
Curving lines and shapes: make them in Pages

Happy New Year 2009! Drawing letters and images in Pages

A very Happy New Year 2009 and best wishes to you!

Thank you for reading and supporting this blog.

I have designed this snowman and 'drew' the greeting with the tools available in Pages. The snowman is made of edited shapes (Format>Shape>Make editable) and the letters are drawn with the free draw tool (last option in Shapes menu or Insert>Draw a shape).

For a more detailed description please read these previous posts:
Christmas graphics: a few easy tricks
Curving lines and shapes: make them in Pages