Working with Brushes - Part 2

Working with Brushes - Part 2

Here we will take a closer look at the Bristle Brush and the Pattern Brush in Adobe Illustrator.

When to use

Bristle Brushes can be used to create a realistic brush stroke, whereas the Pattern Brush can be used to create simple, geometric, or decorative borders.

Instructions

Using The Bristle Brush

• Open your Brushes Panel and click on the hamburger menu in the upper right before choosing Other Brush Library > Bristle Brush > Bristle Brush Library.
• After opening the Bristle Brush Library, choose one of the brushes and begin painting.
• Zoom in on the brush and you'll see that these brushes are comprised of several overlapping strokes at different opacities to emulate a natural looking brush stroke.
• Double-click on the brush in the Brushes Panel to open the Bristle Brush Options.
• Here you can modify various brush settings such as the bristle length, density, thickness, stiffness, and opacity.
• All of these settings will allow you to customize the look of your bristle brush, so experiment with these sliders to fine tune your brush and get the look you want.

Using The Pattern Brush

• Open your Brushes Panel and click on the hamburger menu in the upper right before choosing Other Brush Library > Borders.
• Here you will see some of the preset Pattern Brushes in Illustrator that can be used to create different types of borders.
• Use your Rectangle Tool (M) or the Ellipse Tool (L) to drag out a square and a circle on the artboard.
• Click on one of the Pattern Brush presets to see it applied as a stroke or an outline.
• You can create fewer or more segments depending on the weight of your outline. 
• Try changing the weight of one of the Pattern Brushes to .25pt and then try a larger number like 4pt to see the difference it makes with the Pattern Brush. 

Hints & tips

• Bristle Brushes can be useful when you want to gradually build up values in an illustration or painting, especially when used with lower opacity settings.
• You can find presets for all of the brushes by clicking on the hamburger menu in the upper right corner of the Brushes Panel and then scrolling down to 'Open Brush Library' and choosing from several built in presets. 
• Pattern Brushes can be constructed from 1 - 5 different looking graphics for each section. This includes the straight pieces of the pattern, the start and end pieces, as well as two corner pieces. 
• Double clicking on any of the Pattern Brushes will allow you to see the individual pieces that make up the brush. 
• Make sure that if you are creating your own Pattern Brush that you are placing the segment inside of a square with no fill and no stroke color before clicking on the '+' in the Brushes Panel and making a Pattern Brush.