Color and Painting - Adobe Illustrator CC - page 261

Applying existing patterns
A pattern is artwork saved in the Swatches panel that can be applied to the stroke or fill of
an object. You can customize existing patterns and design patterns from scratch with any of
the Illustrator tools. All patterns start with a single tile that is tiled (repeated) within a shape,
starting at the ruler origin and continuing to the right. Next, you will apply an existing pattern
to a shape.
1. Choose 1 from the Artboard Navigation menu in the lower-left corner of the Document
window.
2. With the Selection tool ( ) selected, click to select the large light brown shape in the
sign and choose Object > Hide > Selection to temporarily hide it.
3. Click the Swatches panel icon ( ), if necessary. In the Swatches panel, click the
Swatch Libraries Menu button ( ) at the bottom of the panel and choose Patterns >
Basic Graphics > Basic Graphics_Textures to open the pattern library.
Note
Setting the Fill box is important. When you apply a pattern swatch, it applies
to the stroke or the fill that is selected.
4. Using the Selection tool, click to select the large white rectangle off the left edge of the
artboard. Make sure that the Fill box toward the bottom of the Tools panel is selected.
Tip
Because some supplied patterns have a clear background, you can create a
second fill for the object, using the Appearance panel. For more information,
see Lesson 13 , “ Applying Appearance Attributes and Graphic Styles . ”
5. Select the Sticks pattern swatch in the Basic Graphics_Textures panel to fill the path
with the pattern.
6. Close the Basic Graphics_Textures panel, and notice that the pattern swatch fills the
shape and is added to the list in the Swatches panel. Click the Swatches panel icon to
collapse the panel.
7. Choose Select > Deselect, and then choose File > Save.