For the 2D Drawing Assignment I decided on recreating Movement 32, which features two spinning wheels in contact with one another. I chose to represent this mechanical movement because it was relatively simple and would also allow me to make use of Adobe Illustrator’s useful Transform Again command.

Each of the wheels is primarily made up of a series of concentric circles. I made these circles by holding shift with the Ellipse tool, which is in the Rectangle tool pull-down tab. With Smart Guides on, this process can be repeated three more times, with the new shapes being snapped on to the center of the initial circle.

Next up is making the lines on the wheel, which I do with the Line Segment tool. Smart Guides allows me to easily place a vertical line aligned with the center of the wheel.

Rather than approximate the other 4 lines on the first wheel, I use the Rotate tool to make a copy of the one line which is rotated with respect to the center of the wheel. This is done by selecting the line, clicking the Rotate tool, then Alt-clicking the center of the wheel to pop open the Rotate Dialog Box. Type in 360/5 degrees.

Using Transform Again means I can effortlessly repeat this transformation until all five lines are created.

After the first wheel was completed, I grouped all of its objects together and then created a New Layer to put the objects for the second wheel. At this point the only difference between them is that the two outer circles for the second wheel must be larger.

The larger wheel must have eight lines radiating around the center, so the same process used to create the lines for the first wheel is applied again, with the degree set to 360/8. I grouped all the objects in the second wheel together after I was done with Transform Again.

After the two wheels were completed, I dragged down a guide so that I could align the centers of the wheels, though Smart Guides snapping would have been sufficient. The grouped wheels are each treated as individual objects rather than a collection of smaller object, which makes them easy to move. The drawing is complete once the two wheels are placed so that they are just touching.