Today, lynda.com released Deke’s new course—Introducing Illustrator—expressly designed for those of you who want to learn Adobe Illustrator from an experienced instructor who starts at square one, getting to know the powerhouse vector-drawing application, and create well-crafted illustrations with no previous experience required.

This course may prove particularly interesting for those of you who know Photoshop fairly well and now have access to Illustrator via CC, as well. I don’t know about you, but I often feel like training either starts in medias res or is so slow and plodding that I can barely keep my eyezzzzz…

Anyway, this isn’t that. If you need proof, there are some unlocked movies you can check out at lynda.com without a membership. (They always unlock a percentage of movies for anyone to access; just look for blue links on the table of contents page for any course.) Here’s what’s on offer (for free) in Introducing Illustrator:

Getting around your illustration will give the most uninitiated novice a look at the navigation tools available in Illustrator. Having a few orientation skills will allow you to concentrate on your creative efforts instead of wrestling with document navigation.

Using the Paintbrush tool will give you a glimpse into how you can create expressive strokes in Illustrator—either with a pressure sensitive tablet or by assigning one of Illustrator’s artistic brushstrokes—both of which go into making this guy.

Combining and splitting paths will show you how to draw complex shapes by combining simpler ones, then deleting and combining as appropriate with the Shape Builder tool. Just look how a rectangle, and oval, and a circle combine (in a manner) to create half of an interstate sign.

Of course, if these tidbits pique your interest, you can get a free week’s sample membership at lynda.com to check out the rest of the course by going to lynda.com/deke.

Illustrator, meet the dekeNation.