07 Brushes

Difficulty Level: Beginners
Illustrator Version: 10
Assumed Knowledge: Limited

You Will Learn: How to use the Brushes Pallet

Creating brushes

You can create each of the four types of brushes in the Brushes palette. All brushes must be made up of simple open and closed path vectors. Brushes cannot have gradients, blends, other brush strokes, mesh objects, bitmap images, graphs, placed files, or masks.

Art brushes and pattern brushes cannot include type. However, to achieve a brush stroke effect with type, create an outline of the type and then create a brush with the outline.

Creating a scatter brush

You use artwork from an illustration to define the scatter brush.You can change the size, spacing, scatter pattern, and rotation of objects painted on a path with scatter brushes.

To create a scatter brush:

Select the artwork to be used as a scatter brush.
Click the New Brush button in the Brushes palette, or choose New Brush from the palette menu. Select New Scatter Brush and click OK.
In the Name text box, enter a name for the brush (up to 30 characters).
Drag each Minimum slider or enter a value in each leftmost text box for the brush's size, spacing, scattering, and angle of rotation:
• Size controls the size of the objects.
• Spacing controls the amount of space between objects.
• Scatter controls how closely objects follow the path independently on each side of the path. The higher the value, the farther the objects are from the path.
• Rotation controls the angle of rotation of the objects.
From each pop-up menu, choose the way in which you want to control variations in the size, spacing, scattering, and rotation:
• Choose Fixed to use the value in the associated text box. For example, when the Scatter value is 50%, Fixed always uses 50% to scatter objects along the path.
• Choose Random to use a random value. When you choose Random, you also need to enter a value in the rightmost text box, or use the Maximum slider, to specify the range by which the brush characteristic can vary. For each stroke, Random uses any value between the Minimum and the Maximum value. For example, when the Minimum value is 50% and the Maximum value is 100% for Size, the objects' sizes can be 50%, or 100%, or any size in between.
• Choose Pressure (if you will use the brush with a graphics tablet) to use a value determined by the pressure of your stylus. When you choose Pressure, you also need to enter a value in the rightmost text box, or use the Maximum slider. Pressure uses the Minimum value for the lightest tablet pressure and the Maximum value for the heaviest pressure. The heavier the stroke, the larger the objects.

Note: To keep the same range of values between the two sliders, Shift-drag the sliders. To move the sliders an equal value apart or together, Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac OS) them.
Choose a relative orientation from the Rotation Relative To pop-up menu:
• For Page, the angle of rotation of scattered objects is relative to the page (0 degrees points to the top).
• For Path, the angle of rotation of scattered objects is relative to the path (0 degrees is tangent to the path).
Choose a method of colorization from the Method pop-up menu.
Click OK.

Creating an art brush

You use artwork from an illustration to define the art brush.You can change the direction and size of objects painted along a path with art brushes and also flip the objects along the path or across the path.

To create an art brush:

Select the artwork to be used as an art brush.
Click the New Brush button in the Brushes palette, or choose New Brush from the palette menu. Select New Art Brush and click OK.
In the Name text box, enter a name for the brush (up to 30 characters).
For Direction, click a button for the direction in which you want the art to be drawn as you drag the paintbrush. In each button, the arrowhead represents the end of the brush stroke.

When you drag the paintbrush in the artwork window, the art is drawn as follows:

• For , the left side of the art is the end of the stroke.
• For , the right side of the art is the end of the stroke.
• For , the top of the art is the end of the stroke.
• For , the bottom of the art is the end of the stroke.
For Size, enter a percentage by which to scale the art in the Width text box. To preserve the proportion, select Proportional.
To change the orientation of the art on the path, choose Flip Along or Flip Across.
Choose a method of colorization from the Method pop-up menu.
Click OK.

Tips for using brushes

When you work with brushes, keep the following points in mind:

You can often use Scatter brushes and Pattern brushes to achieve the same effect. However, one way in which they differ is that Pattern brushes follow the path exactly, while Scatter brushes do not.

Arrows in a Pattern brush bend to follow the path (left); arrows remain straight in a Scatter brush (right).
If you apply a brush to a closed path and want to control the placement of the end of the path, select the scissors tool and split the path. To change again, select the endpoints, choose Object >Path > Join, and use the scissors again.
To select all brush stroke paths in the current artwork, choose Select > Object > Brush Strokes.
For better performance when creating a brush from art that contains multiple overlapping paths filled with the same color and with no stroke, use the Add filter in the Pathfinder palette before you create the brush.

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