1. Draw a small circle or whatever shape you like.

2. With the SELECTION TOOL drag your newly drawn object into the BRUSHES PALETTE. (WINDOW>BRUSHES) Check NEW SCATTER BRUSH in the NEW BRUSH box that pops up and click OK.

3. You will now get your SCATTER BRUSH OPTIONS.

a. Name your brush, if you wish.

b. Set your size, spacing and SCATTER to RANDOM.

(ROTATION is irrelevant in this case because the object is a circle. If it were a star for instance you could also set is to a random or fixed rotation, relative to the page or path.)

c. Once set to RANDOM you can begin to drag the arrows or type in the percentages you would like your randomness to occur. (you may need to experiment to get you desired effect)

d. As for COLORIZATION, I always select method HUE SHIFT. This allows you to change the color of your path. (You can click the “tips” button to get an explanation of the colorization methods.)

e. Click OK and your ready to rock and roll.

4. Delete your object that you had dragged into the BRUSHES PALETTE.

5. Now I am going to use my new brush to give a background a little texture.

Draw a box that is to be your background and then use the RECTANGLE TOOL to draw some boxes. (you can use whatever tool you want just get some lines on the page.)

6. Now select all of your newly drawn lines, or boxes in this case, and go to the BRUSH PALETTE and select your brush you created.

7. Adjust the color of your lines to whatever you like. And there you go.

Close up view.

You can see how the size, spacing and relation to the path of the circles varies.

Here is example of a background I made using a scatter brush.

Here is another quick illustration that I gave texture to by using Illustrator brushes.

(The background was done in the same way as this tutorial explains.)