by Chad Neuman

Using custom brushes can be useful for adding unique backgrounds or strokes to a design. But one uncommon way to use them is to make their stroke very large, causing some interesting effects for use as backgrounds or other abstract designs.

Step 1
As an example, let’s click-and-hold onto the Rectangle tool, which will bring out a side menu which includes the Ellipse tool. Select it and draw out a circle. Hold Shift to make a perfect circle.

Step 2
On the Control Palette, change the stroke to a different brush.

Step 3
Choosing this example brush will change the stroke to something like this.

Step 4
Next, change the size of the brush to a higher number.

Step 5
The circle doesn’t look like a circle anymore. This causes this interesting look, but let’s make something a little bit better.

Step 6
Select the Star tool from the same toolbar area.

Step 7
Change the Stroke of the brush to 100 pt and to this brush shown here.

Step 8
The effect causes it to not look like a star anymore, but this abstract background.

Step 9
Ctrl-click (PC: Alt-click) and drag the object to a duplicate, and do this twice to make two. Change the color of the Stroke of the designs, and adjust the Opacity in the Transparency palette.

Step 10
Finally, place a raster image (File>Place) and apply a Live Trace (for this one, I used the Type preset).

Step 11
Click Expand, and use the Direct Selection tool to select some parts of it and delete them. Now we have a unique, abstract design which can be used as a background or even a logo. 

The Transform Each command, when repeated with the Transform Again command, can create some unique designs and patterns, and even custom brushes, as we’ll see here.

Step 1
Open a new document in Adobe Illustrator. I set the art board size to Letter but yours can vary. Click-and-hold on the Rectangle tool to bring out the other options, including the Star tool. Click the Star tool.

Step 2
Holding down Shift to keep a correct proportion, click-and-drag to create a star.

Step 3
With the star still selected after drawing it, go to Object>Transform>Transform Each.

Step 4
The Scale options allow you to resize the object to a certain percentage of the original and the Move options allow you to change the position of the object on the Artboard. Rotate allows you to rotate the object to a specified angle. Keep the numbers in the Scale option the same if you want the scale to be the same. Try following these setting for this tutorial. IMPORTANT: Next, click Copy. This creates a duplicate object so the original is not deleted.

Step 5
Once you have two stars on the Artboard, press Cmd-D (PC: Ctrl-D) to repeat the same effect to the new object, therefore creating a third object off to the side, rotated a bit more and a little smaller. Press Cmd-D (PC: Ctrl-D) a few times to create a line of stars.

Step 6
Next, we’ll use this design to create a custom brush. Open the Brushes palette (Windows>Brushes). With a Selection tool, click-and-drag a selection around all of the stars. Click-and-drag the selection into the Brushes palette.

Step 7
Select New Art Brush and click OK.

Step 8
Change the Method to Hue Shift and check Proportional to keep the stars from being stretched.

Step 9
You can now apply this new art brush to any Stroke, whether it’s the Pen tool, Pencil tool, or the stroke of an object such as a rectangle or circle. Try drawing a curve with the Pen tool as seen here. Make sure you make the Fill set to None and the Stroke set to the new brush by selecting it in the Brushes palette.

Step 10
The Transform Each command, combined with the Transform Again command, can create designs for many custom brushes and add aesthetic appeal to your designs.

© ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/GUSTAVO MARTINO