The Xara Trompe L'Oeil Room Page 4
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We need to create a V-shape with a spread of 30 degrees. Drawing straight lines in Xara is not quite as easy as some other applications, but here is the easiest way to do it.

1. Using the Pen Tool, click the first anchor point above the circle on the vertical center guideline.

2. Click in the center of the two guide lines to finish the first line segment.

3. Click off to the right a bit.

4. Select the last anchor point with the Pen Tool cursor, hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys, and drag. The extended line segment will snap to the preset angle of 30 degrees. You can use this technique to draw perfect horizontal or vertical lines as well.

Select the V-shape and the circle and press Ctrl 4 (the keyboard shortcut for Arrange > Combine Shapes > Slice Shapes).

I've colored the sliced wedge dark green. Select the wedge shape and while holding down the Ctrl key, drag the right middle control handle to the left, past the left edge of the wedge and before releasing the left mouse button, click the right mouse button to drop a mirror duplicate.

Or duplicate the wedge shape (Ctrl K ) then press the Flip Horizontally button on the Infobar. (The icon with the two mirrored vertical triangles).

Select the left wedge shape and the circle and press Ctrl 2 to subtract the wedge shape from the circle.

If there are any portions of the circle remaining where the wedge shape was, select Break Shapes from the Arrange menu, and delete the darned things.

Select the wedge shape, then the Fill Tool . Select Linear from the drop down list of Fill Types on the Infobar at the top left of the screen.

Drag the fill path arrow as shown so that the fill is parallel to the right side of the wedge. Click on the tiny square on the left of the fill path arrow, then open the Color Editor (press the small color wheel icon to the left of the screen palette) and change the color to RGB 255, 102, 0. Do the same to the right square on the fill path arrow and change the color as shown on the left.

Xara X can apply a multicolor Linear fill as you can see above. To add colors to the fill path, simply find a color on the screen palette that is close to the ones shown above, then drag that color from the screen palette and drop it onto the fill path arrow. Once you have your colors dropped onto the fill path arrow, click on each color's square and edit the colors in the Color Editor as described above. Slide the squares to reposition the colors.

Select the larger circular shape and apply the RGB fill shown on the left.

Group (Ctrl G) both shapes.

Save your file and take a short eye break while I go out for my afternoon walk followed by my afternoon nap, followed by my afternoon nip.