Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

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BRUSHES AND SYMBOLS

CLIP-ART ASIDE, there is a real value to prefab repeat-

able art. Consider for a moment the modern miracle of digital type

as made available to and exploited by a run-of-the-mill computer

application. When you select a font—True Type, OpenType, the

standard doesn’t matter—you’re actually selecting a library of hun-

dreds or thousands of character definitions, every one of which is

a compound path drawn using a program like Illustrator. By way

of an example, Figure 9-1 shows three of the more exotic char-

acters included with Adobe Caslon Pro. Figure 9-2 shows these

same characters detailed as compound path outlines, with hole-

cutting subpaths in blue crosshatch and

tiny square anchor points throughout.

Amazingly, all you have to do to call up

these simple graphics is bang away at

your keyboard. If you later change the

font, your application swaps out all the

original graphics for new ones. In a very

real sense, your operating system draws

your words, sentences, and punctuation

marks from pieces of prefab art.

Illustrator doesn’t yet permit you to

draw and export your own fonts. (I

wish it did.) But it does let you create,

replicate, and update pieces of artwork

using a couple of panels and a handful of

tools. And instead of entering characters

from a keyboard, you paint with them.

This lesson demonstrates two variet-

ies of such repeatable, updatable art:

brushes and symbols. Illustrator’s

Brushes panel lets you save one or more

Figure 9-1.

Figure 9-2.

ABOUT THIS LESSON

you’ve downloaded the lesson fi les from

www.oreilly.com/go/Deke-IllustratorCS5,

as directed in Step 2 on page xiv of the

Preface. This should result in a folder called

Lesson Files-AIcs5 1on1 on your desktop.

We’ll be working with the fi les inside the

Lesson 09 subfolder.

Brushes and symbols are bound by their reliance on a piece of base

artwork. Meaning that after you draw something, you can convert

it into a brush or a symbol and manipulate it six ways to Sunday.

This lesson is all about Monday through Saturday, in which you’ll

learn how to:

• Enhance a simple piece of line art

using some predefi ned art brushes . . . . . . . . . . page 275

• Express type as an art brush and wrap it around

path outlines while keeping the spacing intact. . . . page 291

• Create an illustration using a few predefi ned

symbols that ship with Illustrator . . . . . . . . . . page 306

• Use the symbol sprayer and other symbolism

tools to paint with symbol instances . . . . . . . . . page 317

Video Lesson 9: Freehand Painting

Painting inside Illustrator is a diversion from the highly

controlled creation of paths. In this video, I’ll demonstrate

Illustrator’s arsenal of freehand painting tools. Of partic-

ular interest and usefulness are the paintbrush and the

blob brush tools.

To learn how to paint outside the outlines, visit www.

oreilly.com/go/deke-IllustratorCS5. Click the Watch but-

ton to view the lesson online or click the Download but-

ton to save it to your computer. During the video, you’ll

learn these shortcuts:

Operation Windows shortcut Macintosh shortcut

Select the pencil tool Press the N key Press the N key

Display the Brushes panel Press the F5 key Press the F5 key

Create a new brush Click

in the Brushes panel Click in the Brushes panel

Create a new layer Ctrl+Alt+L -Option-L

Select the paintbrush tool Press the B key Press the B key

Temporarily access the arrow tool Press the Ctrl key Press the  key

Deselect your artwork Ctrl+Shift+A -Shift-A

Select the blob brush tool Shift+B Shift-B

Select the eraser brush tool Shift+E Shift-E

Display the Blob Brush dialog box Double-click the blob brush tool Double-click the blob brush tool

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Lesson 9: Brushes and Symbols