Paint illustrations with graphic styles

In the previous tutorial, you learned how to create the outlines, or paths, of an illustration. Now you’ll use graphic styles to paint your illustration with colors and effects. Adobe Illustrator comes with hundreds of professionally designed graphic styles that let you change the appearance of artwork with a single click. And graphic styles are fully reversible, so you can always go back to your original illustration if you don’t like the results.

Target the cloud in the Layers palette.

In the Layers palette, click the circle (called the target icon) at the right edge of the cloud’s listing. When the target icon displays a double ring, the item is targeted.

Targeting may seem simple, but it’s a commonly forgotten step when applying graphic styles and effects. Targeting is especially important when you want to apply a style or effect to everything in a layer. (See About targeting.)

Apply a graphic style to the cloud.

If the Graphic Styles palette isn’t showing, choose Window > Graphic Styles. The Graphic Styles palette displays a variety of default graphic styles; however, many additional graphic styles are available to you through graphic style libraries. To open a graphic style library, click the triangle icon at the top right corner of the Graphic Styles palette, and choose an option from the Open Graphic Style Library submenu.

Once you locate the graphic style you want to use, click it. We used the Raised Edges graphic style from the Image Effects library.

View appearance attributes of the graphic style.
Choose Select > Deselect to deselect the clouds, and if the Appearance palette isn’t showing, choose Window > Appearance. The Appearance palette lists appearance attributes—properties that affect the look of an object without altering its underlying structure. These include fills, strokes, transparency settings, and effects.
In our case, no artwork is targeted, so the top listing should read “No Selection:” followed by the name of the current graphic style. The specific appearance attributes depend on the graphic style you selected in step 2. Some attributes may have triangles to the left of them. This means that the attribute includes effects or transparency settings. You can expand or collapse the attribute by clicking the triangle. (See Using the Appearance palette.)
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