That’s right, Part 2 of my cradle-to-grave video treatise on Adobe Illustrator CS6 is out on lynda.com. I would have mentioned it 2 weeks ago, on November 21, when the course went live. But I was on vacation in Ireland. In the northern city of Derry, to be exact. And while Colleen was blogging every day, and I was making her graphics, it seemed somehow antithetical to the whole vacationing thing for me to mention my for-profit course. You know what I mean?

But I’m home now. And I’ve even sneaked in a couple of days of legitimate work. So what the hell, time to blog the course. That image below, that’s a Venn diagram bear. He’s not a dog, he’s a bear. Perhaps a bit over-eager. But still, he’s a bear.

Here’s the skinny: Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Intermediate is 11 hours and 8 minutes long. Which makes it exactly as long as my previously most recent video course, Photoshop CS6 One-on-One: Advanced. Which is purely incidental, but so weird, don’t you think? Meanwhile, Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Intermediate comprises 11 chapters, all of which convey essential information about the world’s most powerful vector-based drawing application. Topics of this course include layers, swatches, strokes, gradients, and repeating tile patterns, the last of which have received loads of attention in Illustrator CS6. (Do you find tiresome long lists like this useful?) Not to mention the alignment options, Pathfinder operations, and Live Paint. (No? Well, that’s why I made that most recent list shorter.) Plus I’ll show you how to work with placed images, print your stuff, and output your junk to the Web.

Say, gang, it’s real swell.

By way of proof, I offer you my three favorite sample files from the course. There’s the bear, above, from Chapter 18, “Live Paint and Interlocking Paths.” (Um, that would make him a fourth file, so forget I mentioned it.) And then there’s this Golden Ticket from Chapter 13, “Strokes, Dashes, and Arrows,” which features strokes on top of strokes embedded inside other strokes. Seriously, it’s a trip.

And then there’s this one from Chapter 15, “Seamlessly Repeating Patterns.” In Illustrator CS6 it’s difficult to create a pattern that doesn’t look great. This one is a hex pattern, and I like how the various incarnations align (and drift out of sync) with each other.

And finally there’s this one from Chapter 17, “Pathfinder Operations.” It’s not a pretty file. But it demonstrates every one of Illustrator’s Pathfinder operations, which let you combine paths in all sorts of incredibly wonderful ways. In other words, what the graphic lacks in beauty, it more than makes up for in educational value.

Seriously, you gotta check it out. And let me know what you think.