Brushes panel overview – Adobe Illustrator CS3 User Manual

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ILLUSTRATOR CS3

User Guide

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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.

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).

For a video on using brushes, see

www.adobe.com/go/vid0044

Brushes panel overview

The Brushes panel (Window

> Brushes) displays brushes for the current file. Whenever you select a brush in a brush

library, it is automatically added to the Brushes panel. Brushes that you create and store in the Brushes panel are
associated only with the current file, which means that each Illustrator file can have a different set of brushes in its
Brushes panel.