About this lesson
A basic demonstration of how to use the default / preset brushes in Illustrator.
Exercise files
Download this lesson’s related exercise files.
Preset Brushes - Instructions.docx59 KB Preset Brushes - Exercise.ai
1.1 MB Preset Brushes - Exercise Solution.ai
2 MB
Quick reference
Preset Brushes
A basic demonstration of how to use the default / preset brushes in Illustrator.
When to use
The Preset Brushes and the Brush Tool in Illustrator can be a great way to add some texture or personality to an otherwise boring looking stroke or outline.
Instructions
- Begin by opening the 'Preset Brushes - Exercise.ai' file.
- You will notice in the file that there are several plain black lines that have already been created.
- Open up the Brushes Panel from the right side of the Illustrator interface.
- Once the Brushes Panel is open, click on the hamburger menu in the top right corner of the panel.
- Choose 'Open Brush Library' from the dropdown menu that appears.
- Open some of the Decorative Brushes, Artistic Brushes, etc. to see some of the presets that are available.
- Select one of the strokes that have already been made, and then click on one of the preset brushes to view the changes.
- Try a few of them out to get a better sense of what is possible using some of these presets.
Hints & tips
- You can easily save and load preset brushes that you have created or downloaded into Adobe Illustrator.
- You have the ability to change the color of many of the preset brushes found in the preset library.
- After applying a preset brush you can still modify the shape or direction by tweaking the path with the Direct Selection Tool.
- 00:04 Now the pen tool is really the first tool out of these art tools here that we have
- 00:08 taken a look at.
- 00:10 And the next one that I’d like to show you guys is actually the paintbrush tool.
- 00:14 So if I select that over here on my tool bar or I could press B on the keyboard.
- 00:18 You can see that I can actually just start to,
- 00:20 kind of draw free hand to create some shapes.
- 00:24 So the brush tool is great, especially if you're using a stylus,
- 00:27 because you can really get in there and just draw.
- 00:30 And you can actually tell that it kind of fixes itself once I've created a path.
- 00:34 It kind of smooths out the curves.
- 00:36 But within Illustrator, if you come over here to your panels and expand the brush
- 00:41 panel, you'll see that you've got a few brushes here to begin with but
- 00:46 if I actually go ahead and just create a regular path, just a curve line like this,
- 00:52 I can select it and then just apply one of these brushes to it.
- 00:55 So these are some of the preset brushes in Illustrator and
- 01:00 if I come to this menu on the top right that looked like three or
- 01:03 four stacked lines, I can come down here to where it says open brush library.
- 01:08 And I can choose from any of these preset brushes.
- 01:13 Now, vector packs, image brush, decorative brushes, bristle brushes,
- 01:17 borders, artistic, and arrows.
- 01:19 So let's go ahead and go into the artistic brushes and choose one of these,
- 01:23 maybe the chalk charcoal pencil brushes.
- 01:26 And now you'll see that I have all these custom brushes that I can use
- 01:30 to plot out my stroke as well.
- 01:33 So some really cool ones in here, some are kind of add a little bit of roughness, and
- 01:37 a little bit of texture to a path.
- 01:39 So that's a really cool way to use some of these preset brushes to create even
- 01:44 more interesting looking lines.
- 01:47 So let’s say for example if I created just a box, then I go ahead and
- 01:51 apply a custom brush to it.
- 01:54 You can also create some grungy looking borders and
- 01:56 frames in addition to being just able to apply it to a path.
- 02:03 Okay and if I use a black fill, and then use one of these rough brushes for
- 02:08 the outline,
- 02:08 you'll see it actually creates another type of border that we can use.
- 02:14 So it's a great way to add some personality and
- 02:17 give a little more style to any of your shapes.
- 02:20 And there is a whole bunch in here that you can choose from.
- 02:23 But you can also load up external brushes if you have some brushes that you download
- 02:28 or you've created presets you could do something where you save your brushes and
- 02:34 then you can load them up in Illustrator later.
- 02:37 But these are just some of the brushes that come with the program.
- 02:40 And in the next part, I'm gonna show you guys how you can actually create
- 02:43 some custom brushes of your own.
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