Live Paint Groups

We've discussed groups, but Illustrator also has a special kind of group called a Live Paint group. Ordinarily, coloring objects in Illustrator requires the careful creation of closed vector shapes. For example, if you were to draw a tic-tac-toe board using four straight lines (see Figure 7.83), there would be no easy way to fill the middle section with a color, even though it appears to be a closed area. With Live Paint however, you can do so.

Figure 7.83. Drawing four intersecting paths.

With the four lines selected, you could select the Live Paint Bucket tool (see Figure 7.84) and then click on any of the paths to convert to them a Live Paint group (see Figure 7.85). In a Live Paint group, any area on your screen that looks like a closed shape acts like one. You can then choose a color from the Swatches palette and click on the center region of the art with the Live Paint Bucket tool to fill the area (see Figure 7.86). As you move the Live Paint Bucket tool, areas that can be filled with color are highlighted (see Figure 7.87).

Figure 7.84. Selecting the Live Paint Bucket tool.

Figure 7.85. Converting objects into a Live Paint group.

Figure 7.86. The center area of the lines filled with color.

Figure 7.87. Areas that can be filled with color are highlighted when the Live Paintbucket tool is passed over them.

Live Paint groups are also easier to use when making edits. You can switch to the Selection tool and double-click on the group to enter group isolation mode (see Figure 7.88). Then you can use the Line tool to draw a new line through the middle of the group. Using the Selection tool, double-click outside the group to exit group isolation mode. You can use the Live Paint Bucket tool to apply color to the dissected regions (see Figure 7.89).

Figure 7.88. The Live Paint group in isolation mode. Note that the stars in the corners of the gray box indicate that the group is a Live Paint group.

Figure 7.89. Coloring the newly dissected regions.

Did you Know?

You can click and drag with the Live Paint Bucket tool to color multiple regions simultaneously.

The Live Paint Selection tool enables you to select regions or segments of paths and even delete them (see Figure 7.90).

Figure 7.90. Selecting a segment of a path to delete it.

When creating freestyle art, there are sometimes gaps between the paths because not every path lines up perfectly. You might want to fill a region with color even if the region isn't visibly closed. With a Live Paint group selected, you can choose Object, Live Paint, Gap Options, to specify that gaps of a certain size (which you define) will close filled areas (see Figure 7.91).

Figure 7.91. The Gap Options dialog box.

At any time, you can also expand a Live Paint group by selecting the group and choosing Object, Live Paint, Expand. This returns the objects to normal Illustrator vector objects.