We've learned quite a bit about creating simple objects and paths. In this lesson we will learn to create more complex objects by combining objects and paths using various methods. As you create more complex illustrations, you will want to use layers to simplify the process. Let's begin with an overview of layers and how they work in Expression.

Layers

By default, the Mini Layer List appears on the right side of the view area when you launch Expression. In the Mini Layer List you can create new layers, delete layers, name layers and a few other things. This list is great if the image you're working on isn't too complex. For more complex images, you'll want to use the Object List which contains all of the features of the Mini Layer List, and more. The Object List is shown on the left. As we progress through this lesson, we'll work with the Object List so you can get a better idea of how it works. Let's hide the Mini Layer List by choosing View > Show > Mini Layer List from the menu bar. (Repeat this process when you want the Mini Layer List visible again.) Now let's open the Object List by choosing Window > Object List or by pressing the F6 shortcut key on your keyboard. Move the Object List all the way to the right side of the view area so it isn't in your way. (The Object List won't dock with the palettes on the left). You can make the Object List narrower by dragging the edge of the Object List, but you can't enlarge it horizontally. To lengthen the Object List, drag on the bottom of the list when your cursor turns to a double pointing cursor. Alternatively, you can drag in both directions using the slanted button in the lower right corner of the Object List.

The screen shot of the Object List above shows what the Object List looks like before an object is drawn in the view area. The view area is automatically a layer and this layer is represented as the first entry in the Object List. Draw a rectangle in the view area and give it a stroke and a fill so we have something to work with in the Object List.

Compare the Object List shown on the left with the one shown above. The arrow, which was hollow when no objects were present in the view area, is now solid indicating the presence of an object on this layer. Other items which also appeared hollow, or inactive, are now active as well. Click on the arrow to expand the list and you'll see an entry which represents the object on the default layer. I will refer to items under the layer as the object list and the layer itself will be referred to as the layer list. When I refer to the Object List (using capitol letters) I'm referring to the Object List palette, not the list of objects under the layer.

The red square next to this first item in the object list means that this item is currently selected in the view area. Draw a second object in the view area and give it a different stroke and fill color. Notice that this new object is now listed in the object list and the tiny red square is now next to this object, indicating that this object is now the currently selected object. Click on your first object in the view area and notice the tiny red square moves back to the top object in the list. Create one more rectangle shape and give it a stroke but no fill and let's look at the icons to the left of the tiny red square.

Your Object List should now look like the one shown on the left. Notice the icon next to the tiny red square. These icons represent an object by type. The icon at the top represents a path object with a stroke and no fill. The icons below it represent objects with strokes and fills. If a bitmap object appeared on this layer, it would be represented by a bitmap icon. A full list of icons and the types of objects they represent can be found on page 111 of your user manual. You will also become familiar with many of these icons as we create more complex objects in this lesson

One purpose of the Object List is to give you an alternative method of selecting objects. Click on the second item in the object list and notice that the second object you created in the view area becomes selected. You can click on either the icon or the text description to the right of the icon to select the object. Now hold down the Shift key and click on the other two items to select all of the objects in the view area. Notice that a tiny red square appears next to each of the items indicating that all of the items are now selected. Click on the view area to deselect all objects. Then hold down the Shift key and drag up or down on the list of objects anywhere except between the icon and the text description, which is referred to as the dragging method of selecting objects.

The space between the icon and the text description is reserved for the 'lock' icon and dragging there will lock the object instead of selecting it. As you move your cursor to this empty space your cursor will change from the selection cursor to a pointing hand. Click at this point to lock an object and a lock icon will appear in this space to remind you that the item is locked. (Why an unlock icon doesn't fill this space when an item is unlocked is a mystery to me). You will remember from a previous lesson that you can right click on an object in the view area and choose 'Lock Object' from the context menu. Locking an object this way will also cause the lock icon to appear next to that item in the Object List. You can switch back and forth between locking and unlocking objects from both places.

As you might imagine, if you created a lot of objects on one layer, the list of objects would grow rather large. If those objects were of the same type, an object might be hard to find. One method of finding an object is to right click on the object to bring up a thumbnail of the object, as shown on the left. (Right clicking on a layer will give you a thumbnail of all items in that layer.) Be aware that right-clicking will also select that object. If you know that you will be creating many objects on one layer, you can add a note to objects you want to find easily. To do this, double click on an item in the object list to launch the 'Path Properties' dialog box, enter a description and click the OK button. Notice that the description you entered appears next to the text description. You can type a lengthy description, but only as much of the description as will fit in the description area will appear. Double click on the item again to edit the description in the Path Operations dialog box. When an item you double click on to get the description dialog box is something other than a path, the dialog box will display the name of the type of item, such as 'Image Properties' for bitmap objects.

In previous lessons we talked about object stacking order. The first object you create in the view area is always on the bottom of all objects you create after that and the last object you create will always be on top. You've probably noticed that this stacking order is listed in reverse in the objects list. The first item you created in the view area is the last item in the list and the last item you created in the view area is at the top of the list. You can change the stacking order of objects in the view area by dragging the items up or down in the object list. Let's do it. Click on the last item in the object list, by clicking either the icon or the text description, and drag it up to the top of the list and release the mouse. A blue colored line will follow your cursor as you drag to show you where the object will land when you release the mouse.

In lesson 5 you learned how to drag a copy of an object by holding down the Alt key while dragging the object. This technique also works in the object list. Try it. Hold down the Alt key (Option key for the Mac), click on an object, drag to where you want the duplicate to be in the list and release the mouse. It will appear that nothing happened in the view area. This is because the copy, or duplicate if you prefer, is on top of, or below the object you copied in the view area so it isn't readily apparent. Click on the object you made a copy of in the view area and click an arrow key on your keyboard to move it so you can see the copy above or below the original object.

Let's look at the buttons at the bottom of the Object List, starting with the last button. As you mouse over the buttons, tool tips appear. Click on the last button labeled 'Collapse All' on the tool tip and notice that the objects listed in the current layer collapse. This is handy if you have a lot of layers containing many items and several layers are expanded. It might be easier, at times, to just close everything and start fresh. When a layer is expanded to reveal the object within the layer, and more objects are listed as will fit within the Object List palette, a scroll bar will appear on the right so you can scroll through the list.

Click on the first button at the bottom of the Object List to create a new layer and notice that the new layer appears on top of the default layer. The gray colored highlight on this layer means that this layer is active and anything you create in the view area will be created on this new layer. When you create a new layer, the layer will appear above the active layer, but you can change this behavior in Preferences so that a new layer always appears at the top of the layer list. To do this, choose File > Preferences and, in the General section, remove the check mark in the box labeled "Create new layer above current layer."

With the Ellipse tool, drag out a circle, holding down the Shift key if you want a perfectly round circle. Give the circle a white stroke color and no fill. Expand this layer by clicking on the arrow to the left of the new layer item to view the object in this layer. Notice that the icon is an ellipse shape and the text description indicates the "With Chord" as the active arc mode for this ellipse object. Change the arc mode on the ToolBox to Pie Mode and draw another circle. The item in the list for this object should reflect the new arc mode. If you remember our discussion on creating circle shapes in an earlier lesson, I mentioned that once you set an Arc mode and draw a circle or oval, you can't change the Arc mode. Well you can change it in the object list. Double click on the new Pie Mode circle and notice that the resulting dialog box gives you the option to change the Arc Mode for an existing object. Very cool; a context sensitive object list!

Let's get rid of the second circle shape. Click on the top item in the Object List (which is the last circle you made) and hit the delete key to delete the object. This doesn't automatically select another object on the layer so click on the only remaining object in the list. A circle with a white stroke and no fill would be very hard to find in the view area so the Object List comes in handy for this. Notice that the path on this circle is green instead of the red color we are used to. Click on the Collapse All button so only the layers are visible in the Object List and notice the different colored squares to the right of the expansion arrows. These colored squares represent the layer colors and the paths on each layer will be the color assigned to the layer.

Click on one of the first objects you created on the first layer (the red layer) and notice that the red layer becomes active in the Object List and that the path color on this object in the view area is red. You aren't stuck with red if you want another color. Double click on the red layer in the Object List (labeled "Layer One" to bring up the Layers Properties box. In the Layer Color section, move the RGB sliders until you find a color you like. As long as we're here, let's give our layer a more descriptive name by typing "Rectangles" in the Name box. Click the OK button to dismiss the Layers Properties box and notice that the new name appears in the layer list and the colors on the paths in the view area are now the new layer color. You can also launch the Layer Properties box using the 5th button from the left at the bottom of the Object List. When using the button, the Layer Properties box that displays will be for the layer that is active when you click the button. Click on Layer 2, click on the Properties button and give this layer the name "Circles" and close the properties box.

Notice that an icon appears in the red box on the 'Rectangles' layer, as shown on the left. This indicates that an item within the layer is selected. If you select the circle on the Circles layer, the icon will appear in the green square on that layer. The only way to see which item within the layer is selected is to expand the layer and look for the tiny square next to the selected item (note that the tiny square is also the color assigned to the layer). Another way to find items is to click the Locate Object button, the third button from the left at the bottom of the Object List. This will cause the layer to expand and the selected object to appear in the center of the screen. Don't be alarmed that the view area turns gray. Clicking on the object, or an item in the Object List will cause the screen to turn white again. I suppose this is just Expression's way of highlighting the object so you won't miss it.

When an object is selected in the view area, clicking on the Zoom button (the third button from the left at the bottom of the Object List) will also cause the selected object to appear in the center of the view area but at a much larger size. To return to normal view, use any method you prefer, such as clicking the Home key on your keyboard (or Shift-Home for center view), using the Zoom tool while holding down the Alt key as you click on the view area, or by using the Zoom button in the lower left corner of the view area.

The second button at the bottom of the Object List is the Delete Layer button. When clicking this button, you will be greeted with a confirmation box. If you click OK, you can get the layer back by choosing Edit > Undo Remove Layer from the menu bar.

Let's look at the remaining layer icons in the Object List. Next to the colored square, indicating the layer color, is the lock icon which allows you to lock the entire layer. Clicking on the button repeatedly toggles between locking and unlocking the layer. The eye icon toggles between making the objects on the layer visible or invisible. The pencil icon tells you that the layer is active and the text next to the pencil icon is, of course, the name of the layer.

Finally, double click on a layer to bring up the Layer Settings dialog box and notice the check box labeled "Frozen" at the bottom of the dialog box. There may be times when you create so many objects that Expression's redraw rate will slow down. The "Frozen" feature lets you temporarily rasterize the objects on a layer to speed things up again. You'll notice that items on a frozen layer won't look as sharp as before, but this is only temporary. Uncheck the box when you want to return the objects to their original state.

We are finally ready to move on and create complex objects. Leave the Object List visible so we can continue to work with it. Ready?

Compound Objects

A compound path is a path made up of two or more sub-paths, each with its own starting and ending nodes. Click on the circle in the Circles layer, using the object list if you can't find the object in the view area. Give the circle a fill. With the Ellipse tool, create a new circle on top of the first circle. Hold down the Shift key and click on the first circle in the object list to select both circles. Now choose Arrange > Align > V. Centers and then Arrange > Align > H. Centers from the menu bar to align the circles vertically and horizontally. Choose Objects > Compound Object > Make from the menu bar. Now look at the object list and notice that you only have one object where you previous had two. The item for this object says "Two sub-paths" indicating that your object is a compound object. What we've done here is to create one object by cutting the smaller shape from the larger one to create a donut shape with a transparent center. Choose Objects > Compound Object > Release to separate the objects back to their original form and your object list once again lists the two objects separately.

Experiment with compound objects. If you give your objects different strokes and fills, the final compound path will inherit the stroke and fill colors of the bottom most object. You'll notice in the donut shape that the stroke and fill from the center object was discarded.

Path Operations

Path operations are to Expression what Pathfinder is to Illustrator. Path operations allow you to form paths by adding to, subtracting from, or dividing by other paths. Let's start by creating a banner. In the Objects List, create a new layer and name it "Banner." Hide the other layers by clicking the Eye icon in each layer. Make sure the Banner layer is active by clicking on it.

We need a little control here so let's display the grid (Shift-G or View > Show > Grid) and turn on Snap to Grid (View > Snap > to Grid). Set your rulers to points. Decide on a color for your banner and select it in the Paint Style palette with the Fill button active; I'm using a brown color. Let's create a stroke first. With the rectangle tool, draw a rectangle about 3 grid spaces long and 1 grid space deep, and give the rectangle a fill and no stroke, like this:

With Snap to Grid enabled, you only need to get close to a grid intersection to have the shape snap to a grid line or a grid intersection. Click on the brown rectangle with the Color Dropper tool to place the color in the Dropper Content box so we can get this color back when we need it again. Click away from the rectangle and choose a white color (or a complimentary color if you're using something other than my colors). Draw a thin rectangle in the center of the first one, by starting the drag close to the grid line where the first rectangle starts and ending close to the grid line where the first rectangle ends. If the white rectangle isn't centered, use the arrow keys on your keyboard to space the rectangle evenly between the top and bottom of the first rectangle. You can also use the alignment feature like we used earlier if you'd like. This is what you should end up with:

Now define these rectangles as a stroke. The Stroke Definition tool responds to the Snap to Grid feature so you only need to get close to the grid intersections for this tool to snap to the edges of the rectangle. Name your stroke and save it in the folder of your choice. Delete the rectangles if you want as we don't need them now.

Now click on the Dropper Content box to place the color back in the fill properties and drag a large rectangle shape. Mine is about 450 points long and 150 points high. (Remember that if the Object List gets in the way, press the F6 key to toggle between showing and hiding the list). Then choose the Ellipse tool and, staying close to the grid lines, drag an oval shape taller than the rectangle but shorter in length, like this:

Using Snap to Grid saved us the trouble of aligning these object with the alignment menu options. Next, select both objects by either dragging around them with the Object Select tool or by using the Object List. With both objects selected, choose Objects > Path Operations > Unite from the menu bar to join the two shapes. Click on the Skeletal Stroke button on the Paint Style palette and choose the stroke you made earlier. Adjust the stroke width so you have something like this:

Choose the Text tool and type something on your banner. (Notice that the icon in the Object List for this object is a letter T to represent a text object). Select the text with the Object Select tool and change the color to white. Let's warp the text to fit our banner. With the text selected, choose Arrange > Make Warp Group from the menu bar to place a grid over the text. You'll notice that the grid is the same as the layer color. The points on each intersection of this grid are nodes that you can edit with the Node tool. Select the Node tool, click on the node just above the center of your text and drag upwards to almost the top of the banner, like this:

Then release the mouse and notice how the text is warped:

Now grab the node just below the text, again in the center, and drag down to almost the bottom of your banner and release the mouse. Drag any other nodes until your text is warped to your satisfaction. Here's mine:

Ok, well maybe this isn't the greatest piece of artwork you've ever seen, but at least you know how to warp objects. If you are unhappy with the warp, you can reset the warp grid by choosing Objects > Warp Mesh > Reset Grid and start over. To get more grid lines on your warp grid for more localized warping, choose Objects > Warp Mesh > Inc Resolution as many times as necessary. To decrease the number of grid lines, choose Objects > Warp Mesh > Dec Resolution.

Once you are happy with the results of your warp choose Arrange > Ungroup and your text will become individual paths, but the paths are still grouped together. Display the Object List (F6), if it's hidden, and open the Banner layer to see the objects listed under that layer. The icon for the first item (top most object in this layer) is the warp group icon but no text description follows. To remember what this is, double click on this item and type "Warped banner text" in the 'Group Properties' box and click the OK button to dismiss the box and display your note. Click on the second item under the Banner layer to see that there is only one object made from the two objects we united to create the banner shape. (Don't be concerned that you see only one layer displayed in the screen shot on the left. I deleted the other two layers.)

Back minus Front: One or more paths can be used to cut parts away from a bottom most path. Let's test the Back minus Front path operation and make a gear shape. Either work in the same layer or create a new layer. Create a circle shape with a light gray color and no stroke. Notice that with the Snap to Grid turned on, it's easy to create circle shapes without holding down the Shift key. When you drag, just make sure you drag down as many grid sections and you drag to the right or left. My circle, for example, is 5 grid spaces both vertically and horizontally:

Duplicate the circle and reduce the size of the duplicate to less than half the size of the original. Place the duplicate on top of the original circle. Notice that it isn't very easy to drag the duplicate in place because it wants to snap to a grid. There's two things you can do. Either move the duplicate with the arrow keys on the keyboard, because they don't respond to the Snap to Grid, or choose Arrange > Align > V. Centers and then Arrange > Align > H. Centers from the menu bar as we did before. Once you deselect this center circle shape it will be hard to find since it is the same color as the object below it. You can either double click the item in the Objects List and give it a name, or change the color so you can see it. Color doesn't matter in this case because this object will be used to cut a section from the bottom object.

Next, with the Ellipse tool, create an oval shape at the top of the circle, like this:

Choose the Rotation tool and click in the center of the larger circle (which now has a smaller circle on top of it) to place the center of rotation point. Open the Transformation palette (F9) and enter a value of 40 degrees in the Rotation Angle meter. Click the Apply to Duplicate button 8 times so you have this:

Select all of the objects and choose Objects > Path Operations > Back minus Front and this is what you get:

Lets give our gear a bit of a 3d look. Hold down the Alt key and drag a duplicate of the gear shape just slightly in one direction (not totally away from the original). Change the fill color of the duplicate to a darker gray. Look in the Object List for the object (remember that it will have the tiny square next to it) and place it below the original gear (the lighter one) by dragging it above the original, as demonstrated in the screen shot on the left. Hold down the Shift key and select the lighter gear object in the Object list so that both gear objects are selected. Then choose Arrange > Align > V. Centers and then Arrange > Align > H. Centers to align the objects. Now click on the darker gear in the Object List (which is now the second item from the bottom) and click the right arrow on your keyboard once and the down arrow on your keyboard once. Deselect the objects and this is what you should have:

From all of this you can see that more than one path can be used to cut away parts of the bottom most object.

Front minus Back:

As you might have guessed, Front minus Back works just the opposite of Back minus Front (sort of). Let's test this by making another banner. Open a new layer and name it Banner 2. Display the grid and turn on Snap to grid, if you haven't already. With the Ellipse tool, draw a circle that fills 4 grid spaces. Make 3 copies and space them apart so you have this:

Now create a rectangle on top of the circles, like this:

Select all objects and choose Objects > Path Operations > Front minus Back to cut the circles from the top rectangle shape. You should now have this:

Looks good so far. Now let's apply our stroke to it, the striped stroke we made earlier. This is where you're going to notice some serious problems:

For a reason unknown to me, when using the Back minus Front path operation the corners are sharp, but when using the Front minus Back operation, some of the corners are rounded. This is problem number one. The other problem is that the stroke doesn't meet in the upper left corner. We have a few options available to fix this. We could undo the path operation, move the rectangle to the back and apply the Back minus Front operation, but this would fix only one of our problems. Or, we could convert the curved nodes to corner nodes. Let's do the second option. But instead of choosing the Convert Node tool, choose the Node tool and hold down the Alt key as you click on the curves, or rounded corners, to convert them to square corners. (Holding down Alt key temporarily turns the Node tool into the Node Convert tool.)

Lucky for us this method fixed both problems. Our corners are square and the stroke wraps seamlessly around the object. Because you will occasionally run into the problem of having a stroke break at a corner, you'll need to know how to fix it. Here's another banner using the Back to Front path operation. Notice that once again the stroke doesn't meet, but this time it appears in the bottom, left hand corner.

This problem surfaces once in awhile with a path operation so we might just as well learn how to fix it. To do this, we're going to set a new starting point since it is where the starting and ending point meet that is causing our problem. Remember that on a closed path, the beginning and ending points on a path are in the same place. In this case, the beginning and ending points are in the bottom, left corner where the stroke doesn't meet.

With the Add Node tool, I'll place a node at the top of the path, like this:

This is where I want my new beginning point, so I'll choose the Start Point tool which lives under the Cut Path tool (5th tool in the second row of the ToolBox). With the Start Point tool, I'll click on the new node I placed at the top of the path. When you choose the Start Point tool, the cursor is a slanted flag and as you move the cursor towards a node, the slanted flag cursor will turn to an upright flag cursor to let you know that you can click to set a new starting point, like this:

Once I click on this node with the Start Point tool, my node changed to the new starting point and since my path is a closed path, the starting point is also the ending point:

In the image above you can see the stroke width handle now at the top of the path instead of the lower left corner. Notice also that the stroke now runs the full length of the path, unbroken. It would be nice if we didn't have problems, but at least we know that we can fix problems when they arise.

Unite: The Unite operation takes two or more paths and joins them together to form one path, eliminating the parts of the paths that overlap. In the event that the paths have more than one stroke and/or fill, the resulting path will inherit the stroke and fill attributes of the bottom most path. Let's create a heart shape and test the Unite operation. Choose the Rectangle tool and set the fill color to red and select the No Stroke button. Click on a grid intersection and drag a square shape 3 intersections wide and 3 intersections long, but don't release the mouse just yet. Hold down the Ctrl key and continue to drag downward to create a diamond shape, like this:

Click away from the diamond shape to deselect it and choose a different fill color. Then choose the Ellipse tool and drag out a circle 3 intersections wide and 3 intersections long, above and to the left of the diamond shape, like this:

Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, nudge the circle shape toward the diamond shape so you see no sharp edges on the top, left side of the diamond shape, like this:

Choose the Object Select tool and hold down the Alt key as you drag a copy of the circle shape to the other side of the diamond shape and once again use the arrow keys to nudge the duplicate circle into place, like this:

Now select all of the objects and choose Objects > Path Operations > Unite to join all the shapes into one shape and you'll get this:

Because the fill color on our bottom most object was red, the final heart shape inherited this color and discarded the others. Just for fun, let's break this heart. Disable the Snap to Grid so we can place our path nodes where we want them without interference from Snap to Grid. Choose the Polyline tool (click the lowercase w key twice) and choose the No Fill button. All we want is the path with no attributes. Now click out a random zig zag path that runs through the center of the heart, like this:

Select both the heart shape and the path and choose Objects > Path Operations > Divide to separate the heart using the zig zag path as the dividing line. Click away from the objects, then click on the right side of the heart and click two or three times on the right arrow key on your keyboard. This is what you should have:

Intersection: The Intersection operation works just the opposite of the Unite operation, in that it eliminates everything except the parts of the paths that overlap. With the Ellipse tool, draw two circles, the first one red and the second one blue, and move them together so that they overlap. With both objects selected, choose Objects > Path Operations > Intersection and notice that once again the attributes of the bottom path were applied to the resulting path, and that the resulting path is the shape of the two paths where they overlapped:

Divide: We saw the divide operation when we broke our own heart (giggle). Let's get a little more practice and make a web button. Turn Snap to Grid on again and draw a square shape with the Rectangle tool. Fill it with any color; I'm using aqua. I'll make mine large because I can reduce it in size later. My square is 3 grid spaces wide and 3 grid spaces long. Make a copy of the square and scoot it off to the side for now. Next, draw two diagonal lines with the Line tool through the first square shape and then select all three paths, like this:

Choose Objects > Path Operations > Divide to divide the square into 4 triangles. Click away from the objects and then click on the left most triangle and give it a slightly darker color. To do this, reduce the value in the HSL Lightness meter on the Paint Style palette. Do the same with the bottom triangle and the triangle on the right so you have something like this:

Select the other square shape that you moved off to the side and increase the Lightness value by about 10 percent. Reduce the size of the square and place it on top of the four colored triangles. Well wait just a minute here! When we created the first square, and made a copy of it, the copy should be on top. But now it's on the bottom. What happens when you create a path using a path operation is that the resulting path or paths are new paths so they move up in the stacking order. Fine. With the duplicate square selected, choose Arrange > To Front on the menu bar to bring the square back to the top and you now have a finished web page button:

You can create objects with even more depth by placing squares together before dividing them. Can you guess how the following button was created?

Ok I'll give you a hint. I placed two squares together and divided them with diagonal lines as we did with the web page button. This gave me 8 triangles. I darkened the bottom most triangles in a counter clockwise direction and darkened the inner triangles in a clockwise direction. Then I created a third square in a lighter color and placed it on top. It looks like a picture frame. Instead of a colored square in the center, how about placing a bitmap image there?

With all of our path operations, the excess parts of the paths were eliminated. You have the option to keep these excess parts if you want to by changing a setting in preferences. To do this, choose File > Preferences and choose the General section. Place a check mark in the box labeled "Path Operations: Keep Originals" in the Objects section and click the OK button to close the preferences box. Now, when you apply a path operation, your original paths will remain.

Clipper Paths

A clipper can be thought of as a mask. Instead of cutting away unwanted parts of an object, a clipper simply hides unwanted parts. Let's create a new layer and name it Clipper. Hide all other layers. Then dig through your favorite photos and find a bitmap image to use for this exercise. If you don't have digital images, either copy the following image, or find one at the 315 dpi web site, which is where I got the following image.

Bitmap images can be combined in the same layer with path objects. Insert the bitmap you want to use for the exercise by choosing File > Insert Bitmap from the menu bar, navigate to your image, and choose Open from the Insert Bitmap dialog box. First, notice that the image is below a grid much like the warp grid we used earlier. This grid is indeed a warp grid which can be edited using the Node tool like we did earlier. The only difference is that you didn't have to do anything special to get this grid; it just appears when you open a bitmap image.

Expand the Clipper layer in the Object List to see how a bitmap is represented. Notice that the icon is a bitmap icon followed by the size of the image as a text description. If your image isn't quite the size you want, click on the image with the Object Select tool and drag the resize handles to enlarge the image or shrink it. The original dimensions of the image will not change in the bitmap item in the Object List, however.

Now choose the Rectangle tool and drag a rectangle or square, with a white fill and no stroke, on top of the image a little smaller than the size you want the finished image to be. I'm going to draw my rectangle a little smaller than the flower, like this:

In the Soft Edge Width meter (below the row of fill buttons on the Paint Style palette) enter a value of about 30 (your objects might require a different value). Then click the Choose Fringe Texture button (to the left of the Soft Edge meter) and choose a fringe; I'm using the ripples01.bmp file. Set the option in the Fringe Fill dialog box to repeating so the fringe runs all the way around the rectangle. The reason I made my rectangle a little smaller than I wanted was because the soft edge and fringe fill would add a little bulk to the rectangle. You should have something like this:

With the Object Select tool, hold the Shift key and click on the bitmap image so that both the rectangle and the image are selected. Notice that two objects are listed in the Object List and that they are both selected. From the menu bar, choose Objects > Clipper > Make with Top Path. Oh cool! Deselect both objects by clicking away from them and notice that your image now has a ragged edge, like this:

Click on the image again and notice that both objects are still there and that nothing was removed. Only part of the bitmap image was hidden. This is what the Clipper does. Look in the Object List and notice that there is only one item there and the icon type is a clipper icon. Double click on this item and give it a description if you'd like as no text description was added automatically.

By now you should know whether layers will help you create your artwork. But whether or not you'll want to use the Object List, as opposed to the Mini Layer List, might still be unclear. Let's look at what the Mini Layer List has to offer.

Mini Layer List

Press the F6 shortcut key to hide the Object List and choose View > Show > Mini Layer List from the menu bar. As you can see by the image on the left, the Mini Layer List offers very little compared to the Object List. Notice the lack of an expansion arrow. You can't view the objects on the layers. You can hide and lock layers and a small icon lets you see which layer is active. You can drag layers up and own in the list by dragging the colored square on the right end of each layer. The three buttons at the top of the Mini Layer List let you create a new layer, delete a layer and open the properties box. You can also double click on a layer to give the layer a name but you can't see the layer name unless you mouse over the layer to display a tool tip. Which palette you use to work with layers will probably depend on the image you're working on.

For more practice with layers, see Tutorial 2, Effective Use of Layers, beginning on page 167 of you user manual.

Wrapping it up

This concludes lesson 6, the last lesson in this course. You now know enough about Expression to create great artwork. There is much more to learn about Expression but cramming all that Expression has to offer in one six week course is simply impossible. Therefore, I have given you the most important features that you need to work effectively. I sincerely hope you will explore on your own to learn about the other great features Expression has to offer.