Brush Types

Brushes are an easy and quick way to edit a path.

This means you do not need to draw with the Paintbrush tool, to add a brush shape to a path.

The “brush” tool, however, has some additional options, in some cases.
To be able to use these you must have a pressure sensitive graphics tablet and the associated pen.

I have no tablet, so I can give you these examples, but can not show these. But this will not deter me from the necessary explanations when this option is available for some brushes.

Illustrator has four types of brushes:

1. Calligraphic brushes: We use to draw lines with the angular point of a calligraphic pen.
2. Scatter brushes: we use when we want to propagate several copies of an object along a path
3. Art brushes: we use when we want to stretch the shape of an object uniformly along the length of the path.
4. Pattern brushes: we use when we want to paint a repeated pattern along a path.

This may all look a little complicated when I explain it, but it’s actually quite simple.
Draw your path, no matter with which tool, open “Brushes” panel and select the brush that you want to provide on the path.

 

Drawing with the brush

To draw a line or rather a path with the “brush” tool, obviously, first we select this tool in the tool bar.
Then draw a path in the document.
The standard selected path is the calligraphic “2pt oval” path.
And this is also the brush with which you draw (A).
If you want to change this, open the “Brushes” panel and choose a brush that you want to provide on the path.
At the top of the panel, we find the Calligraphic brushes (1), including art brushes (2) and finally the pattern brushes (3).

If you wish to change the brush, select another brush from the panel. For example, the brush “5pt flat”.
As you will notice the newly drawn path is now quite different (B).
You can use the brush to change the path as many times as you want. The only thing to watch when you need to change the shape of the path with the brush, is that the path is selected.

As you can see, the “Brushes” panel also features a library (C), which is divided into different categories. I’ve never counted but I think there must be hundreds of different brushes that come standard with Illustrator.
If you do not find it to your liking, you can create one yourself or download from the Internet.
For the later you just search on Google, we will discuss the standard ones in the later part of this lesson.

 

Apply Brush Shape to a drawn object

This is very simple, so I immediately start with an example.

I have a rectangle drawn with the “Rectangle” tool (1).

With this still selected, I open the “Brushes” pane and select one from the panel (2) or click the “Brush Libraries Menu” and find one or another from a category.
The brush shape is adapted immediately in our document.

 

New brush shape

To create a new brush shape, click the “New Brush” button at the bottom of the “Brushes” pane (1).
This opens the “New Brush” dialog (2) where you give your brush a name and choose the brush type.
The brush type “New Scatter Brush” and “New Pattern Brush” are only available when there is an object in the document that you want to create a brush from and it is also selected.
Actually, it is quite logical, it’s not hard at all to make something.
As an example I choose the “calligraphic brush” and click the OK button.
This opens the “Calligraphic Brush Options” dialog.

In the dialog you specify the “Angle”, the “Roundness” and “Diameter” that you want to set for the brush.
You can do this by the typing the values in different boxes (B) or by clicking and dragging the shafts and balls in the preview window (A).

Under the “fixed” section (C), those of us who work with a pressure sensitive pen, can choose from various options, including the pen pressure and direction. Those who are not so rich and only have the mouse to work with, have only the choice between “Fixed” and “Random”.

Under the “Variation” section (D), you give the different variations. This applies only if you selected “Random” in the previous section.
Click the OK button when you’re done.

Each type of brush has its own dialog box with several options. It is impossible to discuss all these. You should try it.

 

Change Brush Shape

To modify an existing brush shape, double click this in the panel.
This re-opens a dialog where you can change the preset options.

Tip.

Give the brush shape a new name, so that you will still retain the old one and the new one will be available if you need it again.

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