ILLUSTRATION • FREE RESOURCES

Free epic brushes: Set 1.

Bring texture to your artwork with brushes from Alejandro Chavetta.

If you’d like to experiment with the brushes Alejandro provided, add the library to your work. This series focuses on his Epic brushes, which will be available from the Libraries panel (Window > Libraries) in Adobe Photoshop and in the Libraries section of the Pixel brushes in Adobe Fresco.

To practice with his textured collage, copy the art to the Your Work section of Photoshop or Fresco.

Create brushes from textures.

I have created collages for the past 25 years on almost a daily basis. Over the years, my artistic practice has evolved, but it has always had a digital component to it since I started using Adobe Photoshop in the 1990s. When Adobe Fresco came out, I was a bit apprehensive since I had gotten used to my Adobe Sketch + Photoshop flow. It took only a couple of weeks of use for me to fully embrace it as my “art machine.” Fresco brought together the best parts of my favorite flows and tools in one very cohesive way. I was now able to add a much more fluid layer of artistic expression to my collages, drawings, and scratchings.

The more gestural and illustrative my work became, I realized I was gravitating towards the same distressed brush styles to work on a new look or series of work. Then it dawned on me that I needed to start making my own brushes to really call this work my own. Making art is incredibly rewarding, but making your own tools to make art adds a bit more fun to the process. All of the work to create my brushes was done in Photoshop. I spent a great deal of time using my phone camera to collect textures and ink stains on my walks around the city or in my studio. As I embarked on this process, I was super inspired by Kyle Webster’s work on the Keith Haring brush kit as well as his Fresco brushes.

Experiment with brush styles in your work.

The goal for my brushes was always to reflect not only my stylistic preferences but my own way of working. Some of these brushes move slowly, some are choppy, some have a completely different use when maxed out in size or used as a liner, some are made from the pitted surface of crosswalk paint, and some are textured from a 30-year-old brayer. Perhaps what I want you to take away from this is that experimentation is key to making the most of your creative endeavors, and making your own tools can be part of that process.

So, take these brushes for a spin and show us what you make. Then be sure to see what you can do with my second set of Epic brushes.