Adobe Illustrator – Applying or Drawing with Brushes
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.
Brushes Don’t Work with Letter Type or the Symbol Sprayer Tool
You can’t apply a brush pattern to letter type. If you want to apply brushes to letters, one option is to convert the type to outlines (see #68, “Outlining Type.”).
You also can’t apply brush strokes to objects generated by the Symbol Sprayer tool. You control those objects using symbols (see #94, “Using Symbols and Actions”).
Brush Libraries
Illustrator ships with libraries of brushes. To access them, choose Window > Brush Libraries, and select one of dozens of libraries of brush strokes. You apply brushes from Brush libraries the same way you apply them from the Brushes palette. To remove a brush stroke from a selected path, click the Remove Brush Stroke icon at the bottom of the Brushes palette menu.
The Four Types of Brushes
Calligraphic brushes apply strokes that look like ink flow from calligraphy pens.
Art brushes stretch a single image along the entire length of a path.
Scatter brushes “scatter” pattern objects along a path.
Pattern brushes include up to five tiles that interactively associate with sides, corners, and endpoints of a stroke.
You can filter the Brushes palette to display selected types of brushes by selecting (or deselecting) a brush type from the Brushes palette menu.
The Options of Selected Object button opens a different set of options for each type of brush. The New Brush icon allows you to define a custom brush. Both options will be explored in the remaining techniques in this chapter, which discuss the four types of brushes. The Delete Brush icon is not used to remove a brush from a stroke; it deletes the brush from the palette.