Accelerate your design by learning about the drawing modes

Speed up your designs using two drawing modes — Draw Inside and Draw Behind. See how to build your artwork smartly!

Published December 10, 2025

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00:01

Introduction

Let's explore a few Illustrator, - what are called Drawing modes that are going to help you - create and edit faster.

In the Toolbar over here, you're going to see - there are three drawing modes.

I'll press on this button here, Draw Normal, Draw Behind and Draw Inside.

When creating content in Illustrator, - Draw Normal mode is default,

00:14

Understanding illustrator drawing modes

it means all new content is placed - on top of the previous in the stacking order.

Draw Behind mode means all new content is placed - behind the previous in the stacking order.

And Drawing Inside mode means - all new content goes within a shape like this hot air balloon.

Let's start by adding - a gradient filled rectangle to this design so it's behind everything else, - like you see in the final over here.

They could draw the rectangle - and arrange it to go behind everything else, but it'd be easier just to draw it - behind everything to start with.

Press and hold on the Drawing mode button

00:49

Drawing content behind existing artwork

at the bottom of the Tools panel and choose Draw Behind.

Now let's draw a rectangle.

So select the Rectangle Tool and starting up here go ahead - and create a rectangle that covers the entire artboard.

The rectangle shouldn't be - behind everything else.

Let's change the fill color.

Click the Fill color - in the Properties panel and select this gradient.

Now to change the direction - in the gradient, click the gradient Options button - down here, and you can open the Gradient panel.

In that panel, - change the Angle to 90 degrees.

That looks a little better.

Next, you're going to take this cloud and paste it - behind some of these balloons, but in front - of the other background shapes.

With the Selection Tool, - click to select this cloud.

Go ahead and cut it by choosing Edit, Cut.

Now you've already got - the Draw Behind mode still active.

So select the yellow balloon shape here and let's paste it - by choosing Edit, Paste.

Notice that it's right behind the balloon, but it's still in front - of everything else.

Any content you add by drawing, - pasting or placing with artwork selected will be put - just underneath the selected artwork.

Let's try doing the same - to the other balloon.

Go and select the balloon and then paste and you can reposition.

Select Draw Normal mode - down here in the Toolbar.

And we're going to take this pattern - you see in the final design to the right,

02:09

Using paste in front for precise stacking

and we're going to add it - to our working design.

We'll use a menu command - that is similar to the drawing modes.

So select this pattern and copy it.

Now to paste it on top - of the background rectangle you made, Select the rectangle, and choose View, Fit Artboard in Window.

Then choose Edit, Paste in Front.

Notice that it went right - in front of the rectangle, but behind everything else.

With artwork selected, the Paste in Front command pasted it - in front of what was selected.

Next, you're going to add some artwork - inside of these balloons to decorate them.

So select this smaller balloon.

02:51

Drawing and placing artwork inside shapes

Press and hold on the Drawing mode button and this time choose Draw Inside.

Notice that there's some dashed lines - around the balloon.

That means that any content you create, - paste or place will be put inside of the balloon shape.

Now you're going - to try drawing some circles and put them in the balloon.

So press and hold on the Rectangle Tool and select the Ellipse Tool.

Before you draw let's set a color.

So click the Fill color over here - in the Properties panel and I'll choose this light green color.

You can then press Escape - to hide the colors.

Now come out here - and just draw a few circles inside of the balloon shape and make sure a few extend - beyond the edge of the balloon.

You can see any artwork - outside the balloon shape is masked or hidden.

This actually creates - what's called a clipping mask for us.

Now to stop drawing inside this shape, you want to choose Draw Normal - from down here from the Drawing modes and the lines will disappear.

Otherwise, everything you create - will be inside that balloon.

Now if you want to edit the content - you edit those circles,

03:53

Editing content inside clipping masks

select the Selection Tool, first click in a blank area - to deselect anything.

Then come to the balloon - and double click on it.

You actually enter Isolation mode.

You can add more artwork right now, you can move the circles, edit them, - do whatever you want to do.

When you're finished, - you can press the Escape key.

As a last bit here, you're going to paste this group of shapes - you see off the side of the artboard into this yellow balloon - using that same Draw Inside mode.

So select this group of shapes and cut it by choosing Edit, Cut.

Click this balloon and choose Draw Inside - from the drawing modes menu then go ahead and paste the content.

Notice how I kind of paste it - in the center of the balloon.

You can drag it where you want, reshape it, recolor it, - do what you need to do.

Once again, when you're finished, you can choose Draw Normal, and you'll notice - the dashed lines disappear.

Drawing content behind - or inside of other content can really speed up your workflow and make it easy to be creative - with your artwork.

To get some practice, try drawing some shapes - inside of this smaller balloon.

Then maybe remove them and paste these green balloon shapes - inside instead. -

What you learned

What are drawing modes?

In contrast with the default Draw Normal drawing mode, which stacks shapes on top of each other as you create them, the other drawing modes let you draw inside objects or consistently stack art behind shapes.

Draw Behind mode

Once activated, the Draw Behind mode lets you draw behind all other content, or you can select an object and keep drawing, pasting, or placing artwork stacked behind it.

Draw Inside mode

When you select a shape and choose the Draw Inside mode, all art you create or add will appear inside the shape. The outer shape acts as a clipping mask and hide all art beyond its boundaries.

You can edit the contents of the shape that clips the art by entering Isolation mode.

Instructor: Brian Wood

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