Brushes, About brushes – Adobe Illustrator CS4 User Manual
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USING ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CS4
Painting
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If gap detection is mixed for the selection, gaps are closed and the gap settings of the bottommost Live Paint group
are preserved (if gap detection is on for that group). If the bottommost group has gap detection turned off, gap
detection is turned on and Paint Stops At is set to Small Gaps.
Brushes
About brushes
Brushes let you stylize the appearance of paths. You can apply brush strokes to existing paths, or you can use the
Paintbrush tool to draw a path and apply a brush stroke simultaneously.
There are four types of brushes in Illustrator—calligraphic, scatter, art, and pattern. You can achieve the following
effects using these brushes:
Calligraphic brushes
Create strokes that resemble those drawn with the angled point of a calligraphic pen and are
drawn along the center of the path. When you use the Blob Brush tool, you can paint with a calligraphic brush and
automatically expand the brush stroke into a fill shape that merges with other filled objects of the same color that
intersect or are adjacent in stacking order.
Scatter brushes
Disperse copies of an object (such as a ladybug or a leaf) along the path.
Art brushes
Stretch a brush shape (such as Rough Charcoal) or object shape evenly along the length of the path.
Pattern brushes
Paint a pattern—made of individual tiles—that repeats along the path. Pattern brushes can include
up to five tiles, for the sides, inner corner, outer corner, beginning, and end of the pattern.
Sample brushes
A. Calligraphic brush B. Scatter brush C. Art brush D. Pattern brush
Scatter brushes and Pattern brushes can often 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), but arrows remain straight in a Scatter brush (right).
A
B
C
D