Illustrator: How to exclude textured strokes (Chalkboard effect)

Question

I'm trying to create a lettering with chalkboard effect in order to print it on a chalkboard mug. However, most tutorials I found for Adobe Illustrator recommend applying a textured stroke to the text. (One of the charcoal effect brushes)

Now I would like to exclude the stroke (with texture) from the text itself. However, I can't really figure out how to do that without throwing away the charcoal texture as well.

Here's an example: The red part should be excluded from the text. Using a certain color is not an option since we don't know the exact background color and we're only allowed to use 2 colors.

Thank you!

Answer 1

I'm assuming that your text is not live text, but already expanded, or outline created.

1. Select the text objet, and press expand to change it into a group of shapes.
2. Right-click and click on Ungroup, or press CTRL + SHIFT + G.
3. Repeat 2 another two times.
4. Carefully select only the red outlines and white text of one letter. Careful! there are some elements left over that might interfere with the following steps.

5. Press CTRL+SHIFT+F9 to open the Pathfinder window, and click on the Minus Front button.

You've now finished one letter! Repeat those steps on the rest of letters , and you're done.