In this Illustrator® tutorial, we will make a Xmas ornament for your holiday projects. This is a great project for beginners to Illustrator and for learning how to use the Shape Builder tool in Illustrator.

Our first step is to draw a circle at the size you wish the ornament to be. Then we will add a shadow for dimension. We will duplicate the shape and use the Shape Builder tool to cut away the part of the circle that isn't the shadow. Finally, we will create an ornament cap and handle at the top of the ornament.

1. Open Adobe Illustrator and set the document to 2000 x 2000 pixels (see screenshot).


2. With the Ellipse tool, draw a circle on the Canvas. Hold down the Shift key to draw a circle.


3. With the circle selected, use the Fill and Stroke tools to set the color for your ornament. Set the Fill color to red or the color of your choice and set the Stroke to null. The color used in the example is DD1212 (see screenshot).

Now we will add a shadow to the ornament, to give it dimension.


4. In the Layers panel, open the pop-up menu and choose Duplicate Ellipse (see screenshot).

You will have a duplicate circle over the top of the first circle.


5. Go back to the Fill tool and make this circle slightly darker in color, for the shadow color. The color used in the example is B71313.

Now we will use the Shape Builder tool to cut away the part of the circle that is not the shadow. But first we need to draw a third circle. The Shape Builder tool will use this circle as a guide for how much to cut away.


6. Set the Fill color for this third circle to a different color from the colors you are using for your ornament.


7. With the Ellipse tool, draw a third circle over the top of the other two circles but cover only the part of the circle that you want to cut out from the shadow section of the circle (see screenshot).


8. Select both the dark circle and the third circle. With those selected, select the Shape Builder tool.


9. Move your cursor over the two shapes and click on the area that you wish to cut away (see screenshot).


10. In the Layers panel, delete the two layers containing the two parts of the third circle that you wish to cut away. This will give you the ornament circle and the cut out shadow shape layers (see screenshot).

You should now have a moon shape on top of the ornament circle (see screenshot).

Now we will make the top of the ornament.


11. Switch to the Rectangle tool. Set the Fill to a golden color (F7CF0B) and the Stroke to null.


12. Draw a small rectangle shape at the top of the ornament (see screenshot).


13. Switch to the Ellipse tool and set the Stroke to a slightly darker golden color (8E750D) and the Fill to null.


14. Draw a small circle above the golden rectangle, which will be the handle for the ornament (see screenshot).


15. In the Properties panel, set the Stroke width to 5 pt (see screenshot).


16. Finally, use the Ellipse tool again to draw a couple of small white circles. These will be the highlights (see screenshot).

Once you have your ornament, you can add it too your holiday graphic elements collection (see screenshot). You can make several ornaments. Duplicate the ornament layers in the Layers panel. Change the colors of the ornament and the ornament's shadow.

Index - How to Draw a Holiday Theme Collection of Elements

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