Examples of Artwork and Designs I've Created Using My Own Custom Brushes
I used several art brushes in this repeat pattern, including the two leaf brushes shown. The flowers are also brushes.
The great thing about an art brush is that you can bend and manipulate the stroke. So these are not merely “stamps” of the brushes, but rather strokes where I could manipulate how the curve of the stroke affected the look of the brush. Some of the three-group leaves are larger or smaller. Some of the strokes curve such that the shape of the leaves changes slightly.
I never had to draw any of the leaves individually – other than in creating the initial brush.
These leaf brushes were all used in this simple illustration.
In this pattern I began by illustrating a paintbrush.
I then turned the illustration into a custom art brush in Adobe Illustrator. From there I used the brush tool to “paint” a pattern of paintbrushes. I did the same thing using an illustration of a pencil as a custom brush.
This tea towel uses a custom pattern brush for the intricate Celtic border. It would have taken me hours (possibly days) to draw the border as shown – and any change to the size or shape would have resulted in distortions or starting all over.
Instead, I created a pattern brush using a small portion of the design. While this did take me a couple of house to achieve (getting all those over and under crossings just right!), I saved many more hours by now having a pattern brush that I could use over and over. Plus any change to the size and shape of the “frame” was handled by Adobe Illustrator, which recalculated the number of repeats and made beautifully proportioned and seamless curved corners.
By the way – the parsley leaves are also brushes, and made “drawing” parsley so much easier!
You can learn to create your own brushes in Adobe Illustrator with my class on Skillshare: Creating Leaf Brushes in Adobe Illustrator.
