Paint with fills and strokes

Illustrator provides two methods of painting:

• Assigning a fill, stroke, or both to an entire object
• Converting the object to a Live Paint group and assigning fills or strokes to the separate edges and faces of paths within it

Paint an object

After you draw an object, you assign a fill, stroke, or both to it. You can then draw other objects that you can paint similarly, layering each new object on top of the previous ones. The result is something like a collage made out of shapes cut from colored paper, with the look of the artwork depending on which objects are on top in the stack of layered objects.

Paint a Live Paint group

With the Live Paint method, you paint more like you would with a traditional coloring tool, without regard to layers or stacking order, which can make for a more natural workflow. All objects in a Live Paint group are treated as if they are part of the same flat surface. This means you can draw several paths and then color separately each area enclosed by these paths (called a face). You can also assign different stroke colors and weights to portions of a path between intersections (called an edge). The result is that, much like a coloring book, you can fill each face and stroke each edge with a different color. As you move and reshape paths in a Live Paint group, the faces and edges automatically adjust in response.

For more information about Live Paint in Illustrator, see Live Paint.

A fill is a color, pattern, or gradient inside an object. You can apply fills to open and closed objects and to faces of Live Paint groups.

A stroke can be the visible outline of an object, a path, or the edge of a Live Paint group. You can control the width and color of a stroke. You can also create dashed strokes using Path options, and paint stylized strokes using brushes.

Note: When working with Live Paint groups, you can apply a brush to an edge only if you add a stroke to the group using the Appearance panel.

The current fill and stroke colors appear in the Tools panel, the Control panel, and the Properties panel.

To watch the tutorial on applying fills and strokes, see Color basics.

Controls for setting the fill and stroke are available in the Properties panel, the Tools panel, the Control panel, and the Color panel.

Use any of the following controls in the Tools panel to specify color:

You can also specify color and stroke for a selected object by using the following controls in the Properties panel and the Control panel:

You can apply one color, pattern, or gradient to an entire object, or you can use Live Paint groups and apply different colors to different faces within the object.

Converting a stroke to a compound path lets you modify the outline of the stroke. For example, you can create a stroke with a varied width or divide the stroke into pieces.

Use the Blob Brush tool to paint filled shapes that you can intersect and merge with other shapes of the same color.

The Blob Brush tool uses the same default brush options as calligraphic brushes. (See Calligraphic brush options.)

To see a video on using the Blob Brush tool, see Using the Blob Brush and Eraser Tools.

When using the Blob Brush tool, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• To merge paths, they must be adjacent in stacking order.

• The Blob Brush tool creates paths with a fill and no stroke. If you want your Blob Brush paths to merge with existing artwork, make sure that the artwork has the same fill color and no stroke.

• When drawing paths with the Blob Brush tool, new paths merge with the topmost matching path encountered. If the new path touches more than one matching path within the same group or layer, all of the intersecting paths are merged together.

• To apply paint attributes (such as effects or transparency) to the Blob Brush tool, select the brush and set the attributes in the Appearances panel before you start drawing.

• Use the Blob Brush tool to merge paths created by other tools. To do so, make sure that the existing artwork doesn't have a stroke. Then set up the Blob Brush tool to have the same fill color, and draw a new path that intersects all of the paths that you want to merge together.

Double-click the Blob Brush tool in the Tools panel and set any of the following options:

You can select objects that have the same attributes, including fill color, stroke color, and stroke weight.

• To select objects with the same fill and stroke, select one of the objects, click the Select Similar Objects button  in the Control panel, and choose what you want to base your selection on in the menu that appears.
• To select all objects with the same fill or stroke color, select an object with that fill or stroke color, or choose the color from the Color panel or Swatches panel. Then choose Select > Same and click Fill Color, Stroke Color, or Fill & Stroke on the submenu.
• To select all objects with the same stroke weight, select an object with that stroke weight or choose the stroke weight from the Stroke panel. Then choose Select > Same > Stroke Weight.
• To apply the same selection options using a different object (for example, if you have already selected all red objects using the Select > Same > Fill Color command and now you want to search for all green objects), select a new object and then choose Select > Reselect.

  Tip: To consider the tint of an object when selecting based on color, choose Edit > Preferences > General (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > General (Mac OS), and then choose Select Same Tint %. Now if you select an object filled with a 50% tint of PANTONE Yellow C and choose Select > Same > Fill Color, Illustrator selects only those objects filled with a 50% tint of that color. If you deselect this option, Illustrator selects objects with any tint of PANTONE Yellow C.

Use the Appearance panel to create multiple fills and strokes for the same object. Adding multiple fills and strokes to an object is the basis for creating many interesting effects. For example, you can create a second, narrower stroke on top of a wide stroke, or you can apply an effect to one fill but not the other.