Explore Painterly brushes

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Corel DESIGNER offers a wide selection of preset Painterly brushes, which cater to diverse artistic preferences and techniques. Spanning from the luxurious textures of oils and the versatility of acrylics to the graceful flow of watercolors and the intricate detailing of airbrushing, this collection includes not only traditional dry mediums like pencils, pastels, chalks, and markers but also features digital effects and physics-inspired particle brushes generating captivating lines and patterns that evolve as they traverse the canvas.

Brushes are organized into categories based on common characteristics and attributes. For example, Pencils include brushes that simulate pencil strokes, Charcoal comprises brushes replicating charcoal drawing techniques. Categories in Corel DESIGNER include:

 

Category	Description	Example
Favorites	The Favorites category, located at the top of the brush list, displays your favorite brushes. By default, it includes suggested brushes from various categories if you haven't selected any favorites.
Acrylics	Emulate the thick and vibrant textures of acrylic painting
Airbrushes	Apply fine sprays of color, which mirror the feel of a real airbrush in action
Charcoal	Recreate the textured look and depth of charcoal
Digital Effects	Offer a range of digital effects, such as glow and dust, adding versatility to your creative projects
Fluid	Produce smooth brush marks with a bolder and more revealing paper grain that’s visible across the entire brushstroke. Some styles are perfect for revealing shape and structure, with enhanced grain rendering and a wet, oily feel, while others produce tighter, polished airbrush marks.
Glazing	Apply transparent glazes and layered effects
Gouache	Mimic the unique properties of gouache, allowing for opaque and matte painting
Inks	Brushes for precise and expressive ink work, similar to traditional pen and ink techniques
Markers	Replicate the bold strokes of physical markers, offering the ability to create dynamic and varied linework
Oils	Capture the rich qualities of oil painting. Some brush styles are semitransparent and can be used to produce a glazed effect. Other brush styles are opaque and cover underlying brushstrokes.
Particles	Physics-inspired brushes that emit particles from a central point, and in turn the particles draw a pattern of lines (paths) along a brushstroke as they move across the canvas.
Pastels & Chalks	Pastels emulate the soft and textured appearance of pastel drawings, ranging from hard pastel styles that reveal the paper grain to extra soft pastels that glide on to completely cover existing strokes. Chalks replicate the textured effects of chalk.
Pencils	Include various pencil styles, from sketching to detailed shading
Sponges	Apply sponge dabs as you drag across the canvas, creating a variety of textures
Watercolor	Produce natural-looking watercolor effects

You can explore and select brushes by using the Brush picker located on the Painterly Brush tool property bar. The image below shows the main components of the Brush picker.

Circled numbers correspond to the numbers in the following table, which describes the main components of the Brush picker.

 

	Part	Description
1	My media count	Displays the total number of available brushes. When searching for brushes, the count displays the number of brushes the match the search criteria.
2	Brush category	A brush category comprises brushes grouped together based on shared characteristics and attributes.
3	Brush style	Each brush style within a category embodies a particular artistic effect or technique. For example, a brush style might emulate watercolor painting, pencil sketching, airbrushing, or oil painting.
4	Stroke preview	Lets you preview the appearance of the brush marks
5	Get More button	Lets you access the Get More dialog box that allows you to download brush packs

Brush categories are initially expanded, showing all brushes within a category at once. However, you can collapse categories you don't need to minimize scrolling and easily locate specific styles. To preview a stroke, hover over a brush style in the Brush picker, and a preview of the brush mark appears at the bottom of the Brush picker.

You can search for brush styles or brush categories from within the Brush picker. When you start typing a brush name, a list of brushes that match the search term is displayed. This list is automatically updated as you type.

When you find a brush that you like, you can mark it as favorite. Marking the brushes as favorites helps you easily find them as they are added to the Favorites category which appears at the top of the brush list. You can also remove a brush from the list of favorites.

The selected brush (1) is marked as a favorite (2) and added to the Favorites category (3).

To browse brushes

To collapse brushes in a category, click the button beside the category name. Clicking the button expands the brushes in the category.

To search for brushes

If no brushes are found, you can clear the search term by clicking the Clear filters button or pressing Esc.

You can also search for brush styles without opening the Brush picker by typing the name of the brush style in the Brush picker box on the property bar. You cannot search for brush categories using this method. You can clear the search term by pressing Esc.

To mark a brush as a favorite

When you reset the workspace, the customized list of favorite brushes will be replaced with the default set.

To remove a brush from the list of favorites, click the Painterly Brush tool in the toolbox. Open the Brush picker on the property bar. Hover over a brush style, and click the Remove from Favorites button , located to the right of the brush name. If you remove all brushes from your favorites, the Favorites category will not appear in the Brush picker.

To resize the Brush picker