Hi there! I’m having a problem regarding a simple feature in Illustrator CC.

[coffeeinthepot]

I’ve been raking my brains trying to figure out why I can’t add a gradient to a brush stroke. As soon as I select the drawn brush stroke and I try playing around with the gradient, the whole stroke goes black…This is driving me nuts. And the weird thing the gradient can be applied only to the basic brush type…not the one that I need unfortunately. I’m not sure why that is…I can only add colour to the brush stroke but no gradient sadly. Is there something I’m doing wrong or a setting which prevents this from happening? Thanks.

[Albacore]

I don't have illustrator open as I have a H/Disc fault so I'm going to guess the names of the options..

1. Right click on your brush stroke and there should be an option "Break way from brush..?" or something similar to that..

2. If not, select your brush stroke and then go to Object > Expand - hit ok.

One of these two options should work, you should then be able to apply a gradient.

If it doesn't work, then I'll have to open up AI when I get it sorted maybe Mike will give us a clue if he reads this post but I think that's right!

[iamtheblues]

Peter is correct that going to the Object Menu>>Expand Appearance will do the trick, allowing you to apply a gradient, but I can find no right click menu item that he refers to.
After expanding, you might have to ungroup to apply the gradient.
Here are a couple of grunge brush gradients.
Bob.

[handrawn]

same as Bob - I am using an older version, not CC, which might make a difference - I found ungrouping the stroke and the fill necessary on testing

[Albacore]

Thanks Bob for doing that, thought I was right but couldn't remember if that was for CS2 or 5