Adobe Illustrator CC Classroom in a Book (2019 Release), First Edition

2. With the Direct Selection tool ( ) selected, click the swan path to select it.

To start, you’ll delete a few points in the tail to simplify the path.

3. Select the Pen tool ( ) in the Tools panel, and move the pointer over the anchor point you see

in the first part of the following figure. When a minus sign (–) appears to the right of the Pen

tool pointer ( ), click to remove the anchor point. You may need to zoom in.

Tip

With an anchor point selected, you can also click Remove Selected Anchor Points ( )

in the Properties panel to delete the anchor point.

4. Move the pointer over the anchor point in the second part of the following figure. When a
   minus sign (–) appears to the right of the Pen tool pointer ( ), click to remove the anchor
   point.

Next, you’ll reshape the remaining path to make it look better.

5. 
   

   Press Command (macOS) or Ctrl (Windows) to temporarily select the Direct Selection tool.
   Now you can move anchor points and edit the direction handles for those selected anchors.

   
   


6. 
   

   With the key held down, move the pointer over the anchor point shown in the following figure.
   When the pointer shows a box next to it ( ), drag the new anchor point away from the center
   of the swan.

   
   


7. 
   

   With the Command (macOS) or Ctrl (Windows) key still held down, drag one of the direction
   handles for the selected anchor to reshape the path.