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About this lesson

A basic demonstration of how to use the default / preset brushes in Illustrator.

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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