First, the “superfast” method. You have an image area you want make a brush from it, to be used with a tool like pencil, airbrush... Select it with the rectangular (or elliptical) select tool, then do a Copy of this selection and immediately you can see this copy in the first position of the Brush Dialog, and its name is “Clipboard”. It is immediately usable.

图 7.21. Selection becomes a brush after copying

The second method is more elaborate.

Do File → New with, for example, a width and a length of 35 pixels and in the advanced options a Color Space in Gray Level and Fill with: white.

Zoom on this new image to enlarge it and draw on it with a black pencil.

Save it with a .gbr extension in the directory /home/name_of_user/.gimp-2.8/brushes/.

In the Brushes dialog window, click on the button Refresh brushes .

And your marvellous brush appears right in the middle of the other brushes. You can use it immediately, without starting GIMP again.

图 7.22. Steps to create a brush

Draw image, save as brush

Refresh brushes

Use the brush