The Adobe Illustrator WOW! Book for CS6 and CC, 2nd Edition

4Expressive Strokes

Illustrator gives you an abundance of ways to create Strokes with organic, hand-drawn lines, painterly effects, shading, and much more. You can manually adjust the contours of a path with the Width tool to emulate calligraphy and save its form (profile) in the Stroke panel to apply to another path. You can specify precisely where the middle section of an art brush will stretch along a path and where the ends (such as arrowheads) will be protected from distortion. You have control over how pattern brushes and dashed lines fit around corners. You can use “natural media” bristle brushes to make complex and painterly marks, emulating airbrush, pastel, and wet paint, and using traditional brush shapes like flat or fan. And symbols ...