Daisy Creation

This is merely a simple tutorial exercise.
You will begin by setting up guides, then draw a simple shape, and finally you will decorate the center of that shape with the Pencil tool plus some duplicating transformations.

Step #1

Choose File>> New, CMYK, 5"x5" page size

Before we can start we have to develop a center point on the page. You may want to add this feature to your Illustrator Startup page. You begin lines in the upper left corner of your document window where the rulers meet. This will reset the rulers so they line up with the sides of the page with the Zero Point of the side ruler at the bottom corner of the left side, and the Zero Point of the top ruler at the left corner of the top.
After the double-click, you then click on that same box and drag out the Zero Points. You will see a crossed, dotted guide that moves with the cursor. Watch the little dotted lines as they move along the ruler until they line up with the 2.5 inch mark, horizontally and vertically. When they are perfectly lined up the mark on the ruler will disappear (replaced by the moving dotted lines). Carefully release the mouse. If you have done this right, the zero points of your rulers will now be exactly centered on the page. I know this seems very elementary for many of you. However, this is the number one problem of my students with most of my skill exams. In order, to do many things, you will want the zero points and the center of your illustration to be 0,0.

Step #2

Draw two circles, from the center out, beginning exactly at the 0,0 point, and turn them into guides. Use the grid, choose the ellipse tool, click on the 0,0 point while holding down the Option/Alt Shift keys and drag a 1.5" diameter and a 4" diameter circle out.

Select the circles, give them a stroke of light blue half point wide and a fill of None, lock the layer. Make a new layer to work in. Double-click on the locked layer and rename it Guides and set it to not print and Preview.

FOR ANAL TYPES who want the circles perfectly centered:

Choose the Ellipse tool, turn on View>> Snap to Grid, Option/Alt click on the 0,0 point. Type 1.5 x 1.5 in the dialog box that opens. Do it again and type 4 x 4. Select both circles, use a fill of None and a stroke of half point Light Blue. Double-click the layer name; rename the layer Guides; turn on Show, Preview, and Lock; turn off Print

Make sure you turn off the Snap to Grid option or the rest of the skill will not work right.

Step #3

Now you need to select the Pen tool. Then click on the inner circle guide as shown. Next click on the outer circle guide and drag out the handle horizontally to the right. This will be made much easier if you hold down the Shift key as you drag (which will constrain the handle to a perfect horizontal). When you release the mouse button the result should something like it looks above.

Step #4 Then click symmetrically back down on the inner circle guide. The result should look like you see above. Now you continue by click-dragging again (without the shift key this time) on the outer circle. Then back on the inner circle, continuing around the circles until you can close the path. Do not worry about making every petal perfectly symmetrical. The final closed path should look like the outline of a simple daisy shape. At this point, I would use a fill of None. Any fill will simply get in the way as we draw the center of the flower. Here's the path to the right.