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- In this movie I'll introduce you to what

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has to be my favorite shape tool,

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which is the Ellipse tool, and I love

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this tool for a couple of reasons.

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First of all, it allows you to draw round,

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organic shapes, and secondly,
even though at first

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it seems to be a very basic tool,

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it offers a handful of amenities which,

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once you become familiar with them,

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make a whole lot of sense.

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So what I'd like you to do is drop down

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to tools below the type
tool to whatever tool

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is occupying the Shape
tool slot there and click

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and hold on that tool to
bring up a flyout menu

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of six tools as we're seeing here.

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If you want these tools
to remain persistent,

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then go ahead and release
on this vertical bar

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on the right side of the
flyout menu and you'll

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end up with this handy floating toolbar.

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Then select the third tool in,

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which is the Ellipse tool.

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Now, like most tools inside Illustrator,

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you use this tool by
clicking and dragging,

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in which case you'll
create a regular oval,

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which is known in geometry as an ellipse,

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and this is the shape that a symmetrical,

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both horizontally and vertically.

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So for our purposes, you can think of it

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as behaving like a stretched circle.

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Speaking of which, how do you draw

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a perfect circle with this tool.

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Well, I'll go ahead and
press the Backspace key

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or the Delete key on the
Mac to get rid of that shape

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and then I'll drag, so
you just start dragging

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and then press and hold the Shift key.

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So I really want to stress
this, with many tools inside

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of Illustrator where
these sort of functions

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are concerned, you press
the Shift key after you

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begin dragging and then you
keep that Shift key down

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until you've finished dragging,
because if at any point

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you release the Shift key,
then you're going to return

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to an ellipse which is
either going to be wider

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than it is tall, or
taller than it is wide.

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So again, if you want a perfect circle,

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then go ahead and press
and hold the Shift key

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and keep it down until after you release

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the mouse button.

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Now let's say you want
to draw a shape from

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the center outwards, so for example,

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let's say you want to create an ellipse,

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that is exactly centered on the artboard.

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Then go ahead and position your cursor

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at the intersection of
those two center guides

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and then begin dragging as normal,

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and then, while you
drag, you want to press

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and hold the Alt key here
on the PC or the Option

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key on the Mac, and
again, you have to keep

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that key down.

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If you release it, you're going to return

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to the standard corner to
corner drawing behavior,

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and I'll explain more about
what that means in a moment,

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but for now just go ahead and
press and hold the Alt key

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or the option key on the
Mac, and then if you want

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to draw a circle from the center outward,

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you go ahead and add the Shift key.

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So I now have the Shift and Alt keys down,

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those would be the Shift and Option keys

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on the Mac, and if you
keep those keys down

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until after you release the mouse button,

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then you'll end up with a
perfectly centered circle

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as you see here.

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All right, now just to give
myself a little bit of room,

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I'm going to move this floating toolbar

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over to the right-hand side of the screen.

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You can even move it over your panels

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if you like, even though it's pretty easy

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to lose the toolbar in that
case, but I'm going to leave

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it there because I want
to demonstrate something

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else that's going on.

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As I was saying, the standard behavior is

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to create the shape from corner to corner.

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Well, obviously an ellipse doesn't have

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any corners, so what you're really doing

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is defining the bounding
box inside of which,

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the ellipse fits, which
means that it's often tough

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to draw an ellipse exactly
right the first time.

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So for example, let's say I want to more

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or less trace around my
existing shape right here,

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maybe I want the shape to be
a little larger, let's say.

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Well, the Smart Guides allow
me to cheat a little bit,

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I can see that, I can see
where my cursor should be

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if I want to exactly trace
the shape and then I could

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just move my cursor a little bit up and

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to the left and start dragging from there.

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The Smart Guides aren't
always going to help you

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when you're trying to position an ellipse,

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and so to demonstrate what
I mean, I'm going to go up

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to the View menu and choose Smart Guides

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to turn them off, and
I encourage you to do

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so as well, so that you can try your hand

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at tracing things properly.

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So again, I'm going to
try to create an ellipse

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that's bigger than the other
one, and I totally goofed up,

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I started dragging at the wrong location,

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and so what do I do?

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Well, I have a couple of
different options available

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to me, both of which you should remember.

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The first is that you can
press and hold the Spacebar

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in order to move the shape
on the fly and that way

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you can get the shape
where you need it to be

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and then release the Spacebar
and continue dragging

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in order to finish off the shape, like so.

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So just remember that
you've got that Spacebar

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that's available to you,
and you actually have

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that Spacebar available to you when using

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the Line tools, as well.

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And so let me show you what I mean here.

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If I were to switch, for example,

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to the Spiral tool, it doesn't matter

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which of these tools I select,

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any tool will do, it's just
that spirals are pretty

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much impossible to get
right the first time.

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Then I'll just go ahead and
drag with the Spiral tool,

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you can see I'm already
off the screen here,

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but that's not a problem because now I

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can press and hold the Spacebar,

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I can get this path outline
more or less where I need it

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to be and then I can release the Spacebar

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and continue drawing.

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So Spacebar is a huge technique,

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very, very useful.

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I'm going to press the Backspace key

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to get rid of that
spiral, and I'm also going

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to go ahead and switch
to the black arrow tool

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which I can get, of course,
by pressing the V key.

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I'll go ahead and bar key
these two paths right there

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in order to select both of them,

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and then I'll change
their fills by clicking

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on this first swatch right there,

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up here on the Control
Panel to None so that

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we can see through the big shape

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to the one inside of it.

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All right, here's another way to work.

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Let's say I want to trace
one ellipse over another

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again and this kind of
tracing is pretty routine,

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by the way, when you're
tracing scan sketches.

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So if you sketch something
on a piece of paper,

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bring it into Illustrator and
then you want to trace it,

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this is the way things work.

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Anyway, I'll go ahead and switch

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back to the Ellipse tool.

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Let's say that you want to make sure

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that you keep your
cursor along the ellipse,

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so in other words,
normally when I'm drawing

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an ellipse here, my cursor's
nowhere near the shape.

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If you would rather keep
the shape on your cursor,

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then what you do is
you start along the arc

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of this ellipse that you want to trace

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and then, as you're tracing,
press and hold the Control

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key, or the Command key
on the Mac, and now notice

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as long as the Control
or Command key is down,

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that my cursor resides
along the path outline,

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which in many cases gives
me a lot more control.

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So I'm not sure if that technique
is every bit as valuable

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as the Spacebar technique, but
you can use them in tandem.

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So for example, I'll just go
ahead and undo that shape.

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Let's say I want to
create yet another shape

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that traces the other two,
then I'll start dragging

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right about here, let's
say, and as I drag,

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I'll press and hold the Control key,

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or the Command key on the Mac,

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and if I'm off, which I am, then I'll

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just go ahead and press the Spacebar,

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I still have the Control
key down here on the PC,

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that would be the Command key on the Mac,

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and then once I feel like the Spacebar

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has served its function
here, I'll go ahead

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and release the Spacebar to
continue drawing the shape

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like so, and then I may take
it down just a little bit

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here and a little bit
to the left, as well.

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Again with the Spacebar,
and then I'll go ahead

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and drag to this position.

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I still have the control
key, or the command key down

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because if I didn't,
if I release that key,

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you can see that we have
quite the kerfuffle.

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This is not what I want so I'll go ahead

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and press and hold the Control key,

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or the Command key on the Mac,

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and release in order to create that third,

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more or less concentric ellipse.

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And those are the many ways to use

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what seems like a very basic tool,

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the Ellipse tool, here inside Illustrator.