Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator CS2 supports several additional drawing pen options for the Wacom Intuos3 tablet. With the Intuous3 tablet connected, you can define not only pressure, but also settings that respond to Stylus Wheel, Tilt, Bearing, and Rotation—features available with the Intuous3 pen. Your available options will depend on the driver set you install, but the full set of available options is:

• X-axis controls left and right
• Y-axis controls up and down
• Pressure defines how the pen responds to force with which the pen is pressed on the tablet
• Tilt responds to the angle at which the pen is tilted
• Bearing responds to the direction the pen is tilted (up, down, right, left, etc.)
• Barrel Rotation responds to the orientation of the pen itself around its long axis.

Illustrator CS2 also supports Wacom tablets’ tip and eraser features.

You’ll find a special palette of brushes that match the Wacom Intuos3 tablet on the second disk of the Illustrator CS2 install set of disks. To open that palette, choose Window > Brush Libraries > Other Library, and navigate to the second Illustrator CS2 CD (or the folder on your local computer or network to which those files were copied). On the CS2 second CD, navigate to the Goodies folder, and then open the folder Wacom 6D Brushes. Choose the File 6D Art Pen Brushes.

If you are drawing with a tablet, such as a Wacom tablet, you can select drawing tools like the Pencil, Pen, brushes, or shapes tools, and draw freehand using your tablet. By tweaking Pencil tool smoothness settings, you’ll probably find the Pencil tool and a tablet the closet thing in Illustrator to simply sketching on a drawing pad.

Pattern brushes are the most complicated to modify or create because they involve as many as five different object panels. You can use separate symbols for the start, finish, side (center), inside corner, and outside corner panels.

While you can use up to five different objects in a single pattern brush, you can also create an interesting pattern brush with three or even two elements.

Once you define the pattern brush, you can apply it to existing paths or draw interactively with the Paintbrush tool. Pattern brushes can be used to draw mazelike paths; to generate arrows with a start, beginning, and end object; or to create borders for illustrations.

To create a pattern brush, start by defining up to five patterns that will be used as different elements of a path. You can, for example, create a brush by preparing a beginning pattern, a line segment pattern, and a line end pattern. That pattern brush can function as an arrow.

Once you have created your pattern brush elements, drag each object, one at a time, onto the Swatches palette and name them by double-clicking on the new swatch.

Scatter brushes are intuitively named. They scatter a pattern along a path. Thinking of a leaf-blower being pushed across a lawn gives you a sense of the chaos you can generate by using a scatter brush stroke to create a path of objects.

Art brushes stretch to the length of any path to which they are applied. Normally you create your own art brush, and then bend it, stretch it, or squeeze it onto any path. The same art brush can be applied to a long or short stroke.

Calligraphy is the art of drawing stylized type that looks like it was scribed with an ink pen or paintbrush. Calligraphic brush strokes can vary in size, angle, shape, and randomness (variety) in the brush stroke width.

Stroke shape can range from almost round to very flat, or anything in between. They are not completely round because a completely round calligraphic brush would simply apply a wider band around a stroke; the “ovalness” of the brush is what gives it a calligraphic quality.

There are several preset calligraphic brushes in the Brushes palette, but you can easily define your own customized brush by following these steps:

1. Choose New Brush from the Brushes palette menu. The New Brush dialog opens. In the New Brush dialog, select the New Calligraphic Brush button and click OK. Note: If you are using a stylus or graphics tablet, Pressure options settings define how sensitive the brush will be to pressure on your drawing tool.
2. In the Calligraphic Brush Options dialog, enter an easy-to-remember name in the Name box.
3. Type a value in the Angle box to define the angle of the brush. You might start with a 45-degree angle, and experiment from there. Note: Unless you are working with a drawing tablet, leave the setting in the Variation column pop-up set to Fixed.
4. Enter a value of less than 100% in the Roundness box. Lower values produce flatter brushes. Choose Random from the Roundness list. Enter a value, in percent, in the Roundness Variation box. Higher values (up to 100%) produce more variation in roundness as you apply or draw the brush effect.
5. Enter a value (usually in points) in the Diameter box to set the diameter of the brush. Higher values create thicker strokes.
6. Click OK to save the new calligraphic brush pattern.

You can use the Pen or Pencil tools (or draw with shape tools) to create paths with a selected calligraphic brush effect. To do this, simply click on a calligraphic brush stroke in the Brushes palette, and draw with the selected tool.

As noted in the introduction to this chapter, there are two ways to use the Paintbrush tool. You can draw with the brushes, or you can apply them to existing strokes.

Drawing with the Paintbrush tool is similar to drawing with the Pencil tool. The main difference is that drawing with the Paintbrush tool applies the selected brush stroke to a path as you draw.

To draw a brush stroke in one step, select the Paintbrush tool. In the Brushes palette, choose a brush stroke. Then draw as you would with the Pencil tool.

You can apply a brush pattern to a stroke by selecting the stroke and clicking on a brush in the Brushes palette. This works for strokes that already have a brush applied; selecting a brush in the Brushes palette changes the applied stroke.

The heart of Illustrator is the ability to define vector paths, usually using the Pen or Pencil tool. The paths can have an infinite variety of fills, stroke properties, and other effects. Among these effects is an amazing variety of brushlike stroke attributes. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to draw with brushes; create calligraphic, art, and scatter brushes, and more.

The title of this chapter, “Drawing with Brushes” is shorthand for applying brush strokes to paths. You’ll have more fun, be more productive, and be less frustrated if you take a moment to appreciate the difference.

Envision a graphic artist a hundred years ago choosing from a set of feather pens. Or, for a more modern example, imagine a painter with an array of paintbrushes. Now forget that image and read on. For all practical purposes, drawing a path and applying a brush stroke are generally two distinct processes in digital design, particularly in Illustrator.

Remember that the heart of Illustrator is the ability to define vector paths, usually using the Pen or Pencil tool. The paths can have an almost infinite variety of fills, stroke properties, and other effects. Among these effects is an amazing variety of brushlike stroke attributes.

You can select a brush from Illustrator’s Brushes palette and “paint” with it, using a mouse or drawing tablet. The advantage is that you can draw a path and apply stroke attributes all at once. The disadvantage is that you have to manage both drawing and strokes simultaneously. You’ll learn how later in this chapter.

However, for most of the techniques in this chapter the assumption is that you have drawn your path, and are now ready to apply brush stroke attributes to that path.

To fill text with a photo and keep the text editable, place an image into Illustrator (File>Place), then create some text with the Type tool (T) and position it on top of the photo. With the Selection tool, select both the photo and the type, and from the Object menu, select Clipping Mask>Make, or press Command-7 (PC: Control-7). Use the Type tool to edit the text or the Direct Selection tool (A) to move the photo. To cancel the effect completely, select the photo and text, then go back to the Object menu and choose Clipping Mask>Release. Let’s review the most important aspect of this technique: The masking object (in this case, the text) needs to be on top.

Start with a Font

Stuck for a design idea, or searching for some clip art? Why not check out your built-in symbol fonts such as Webdings, Dingbats, etc.? Get the Type tool (T) and click-and-drag out a text box. Choose a font type and pick a large size. Open the Glyphs palette (Window>Type>Glyphs) and use this palette to pick the shape (letter) you want to use. Once you’ve found a design you like, double-click on it to add it to the text box. Then, select the symbol in the text box with the Selection tool and from the Type menu, choose Create Outlines (or press Command-Shift-O [PC: Control-Shift-O]). Use the Direct Selection tool (A) to edit and work with the object(s).

You can use Illustrator’s Eyedropper tool to load the attributes of existing objects quickly. This can be useful in two ways. First, if you already have an object selected when you click another object with the Eyedropper tool, your selected object changes to match the object you clicked. Second, you can click once with the Eyedropper to sample the attributes of an object, and you can then Option-click (Alt-click) to apply those attributes to other objects in your file without actually having to select them.

You can configure the Eyedropper tool to sample just the basic appearance of an object (the topmost fill and stroke) or complete complex appearances. To control what the Eye-dropper tool can sample, double-click the tool in the Toolbox. Double-click the Eyedropper tool in the Toolbox to control what specific attributes the tool uses for sampling.

Shift-click with the Eyedropper tool to sample colors from the pixels of raster images. In this way, the Eyedropper tool works much like the one found in Photoshop.