In this tutorial you will see the use of the Appearance Panel in creating multiple strokes or fills for the same object or path.
Click on the Appearance Panel Icon to expand it and drag it off the dock.
Choose the Rounded Rectangle Tool. Click and drag while pressing the up arrow on the keyboard so that you draw a rectangle with fully rounded sides.
Try to get an object as shown below.
Choose the shape, open the Colour Panel and input the following values: Red 178, Green 96 and Blue 72. Then set a stroke of 41 points.
Select the shape and expand the Appearance Panel menu. Select Add New Stroke to make a second narrow stroke on top of the first.
Choose the new stroke in the Appearance panel and change the colour to white and reduce its width to 31 points. You should end up with the shape shown below.
Click on the View > Outline (CTRL+Y). You can see the original path we drew, on which we applied multiple strokes.
Choose the path and repeat the same procedure. Add a 3rd stroke of 29 pt width and use the same light brown colour we used before
Important: First choose the rectangle (path), and then choose (Appearance panel) the stroke you last created. The new stroke we are going to add will be placed on top of the stacking order.
Repeat this procedure using the Stroke colours and Widths shown in the following image.
If you have done everything right, you will end up with this image.
Here, we applied several strokes (7) on a single path. Choose an anchor point with the direct selection tool, you can edit (move, delete etc.) that point. If you were dealing with a single stroke path you can produce some very interesting and impressive shapes.
Follow the same procedure and it allows you to apply multiple fills to single paths. Choose the track and change the fill colour.
Choose the path and fill in the Appearance Panel. On the menu choose Add New Fill. Select a grey gradient for the colour and change the blend of that fill to multiply so that you get a draft impression of grass stripes.
Now, delete the newly created fill (the grey gradient fill) and select No Fill for the remaining one.
Close to the Appearance panel, you will notice a Graphic Styles panel.
Activate it and ungroup it from the Appearance panel. Grab the tab from the title bar and drag it out.
Click on the little square in the Appearance panel and drag and drop it in the Graphic Styles panel.
An identical square is created in the Graphics panel. Double click on it and name it track.
Now you have created your own graphic style.
Draw a path using the Pen tool.
Choose the path and click on the track tile shown in the Graphic Styles panel.
Attributes of the style we created before are applied to the path 'in a snap' and it may be available for future use.
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