How to draw on black background as well as set up the black background in Adobe Illustrator?

I'm new to Illustrator so there are some things I'm not sure on. I'm trying to design a black t-shirt on Illustrator, so i need a black background and a way to draw on top of that.How to draw on black background as well as set up the black background in Adobe Illustrator?
Just make a black square the size of the art board (you can lock it in the layers pallete if you want) and go from there. you can move the layers from the back to front by dragging them in the layers palette or going to Object%26gt;arrange