# Drawing with the turtle

[Programming guides](README.md)

The turtle starts at the scene center, facing upward, with its pen down.

- `forward(distance)` moves by a signed distance and draws when the pen is down.
- `right(degrees)` turns clockwise for a positive amount.
- `left(degrees)` turns counter-clockwise for a positive amount.
- `penUp()` prevents movement from drawing.
- `penDown()` enables movement drawing.
- `clear()` removes turtle paths without moving the turtle.
- `home()` moves to the center, restores the upward heading, and draws that move
  when the pen is down.

```pliro
# language: en
clear()
home()

for point in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]:
    forward 120
    right 144

penUp()
forward 145
penDown()
say "The turtle drew a five-pointed star."
```

Turtle state and drawing can persist across explicit [IDE](../concepts/ide.md) runs until `clear()`
or Reset Scene is used. Reset Scene also restores the initial turtle position,
heading, and pen state.

Portable compositing between turtle paths and the immediate scene functions is
not specified yet; native hosts may switch rendering modes and clear state.
Keep turtle-only and scene-only drawing flows separate when the same program
must behave identically across hosts.

## Related entries

[Syntax and values](../syntax/README.md) · [Built-ins](../builtins/README.md) · [Programming guides](README.md)