When working with vectors, you have to create distinct paths and shapes in order to apply a fill to add color. In other words, you can't just apply a fill to any arbitrary area on your artboard; rather, you need to select a distinct object to which to apply the fill. This need to create distinct objects can make drawing in Illustrator seem nonintuitive or time-consuming at best. Live Paint introduces a new concept of working with vector paths, where you can colorize vectors and edit them without having to follow the traditional vector rules we've been covering up to this point.
This feature makes it a lot easier to draw and edit in Illustrator. Let's take a closer look. First let's draw something using Live Paint so you can get a feel for what the feature is all about. Then we'll discuss how the feature works, and at that point, you'll better understand how to use it in a meaningful way.
The art itself may not be that exciting to look at, but the concepts you learn will be priceless. Figure 4. Pick a fill color a solid color, gradient, or pattern from the Control or Swatches panel, and move your pointer over the center area of the four paths. The enclosed area in the middle becomes highlighted in red, which indicates an area that you can fill with color Figure 4.
Click once with the Live Paint Bucket tool to fill the highlighted area Figure 4. The resulting behavior is very "Photoshopesque"—you've filled an area that looks like it is enclosed on all sides, but you didn't apply a fill to an actual object.
Select the Direct Selection tool, then select one of the anchor points on one of the paths, and move it just a bit. Notice that the color in the area updates to fill the center Figure 4.
If you move one of the paths far enough so that it no longer touches the other paths, you'll find that the fill color disappears, because there is no longer an enclosed area to fill Figure 4. Let's take a moment to understand how Live Paint works. When you select several overlapping paths or shapes and click them with the Live Paint Bucket tool, you are creating a Live Paint group.
This is a special kind of group in which the object stacking order is thrown out the window. All objects in a Live Paint group are seemingly combined onto a single flat world, and any enclosed area acts as a closed shape that can be filled with color. If you move a path so that an enclosed painted area becomes unpainted, Illustrator doesn't remember that the region was filled with a color prior to the edit. Moving the path to its original position will not bring back the fill; you'll need to reapply the fill color.
Once you've created a Live Paint group, however, you may find that you want to add paths or shapes to the group. To do so, draw the new paths, and use the Selection tool to select the existing Live Paint group and the new paths.
The new paths will become part of the group, and any intersecting areas will act as individual areas that you can fill with color. You can use the Live Paint Bucket tool to color multiple regions with a single color in one step by clicking one region and dragging the pointer across additional contiguous regions. Live Paint groups can also use the isolation mode feature that enables you to draw objects directly in existing groups. Using the Selection tool, double-click an existing Live Paint group to enter isolation mode, indicated by a gray bar that appears across the top of the document window.
Now switch to any shape or path tool to add paths directly to the Live Paint group Figure 4. This ability to add paths directly to a Live Paint group is extremely powerful because it allows you to define regions for color in just a few quick steps.
Exit isolation mode by pressing the Esc key. When using the Live Paint Bucket tool, you can press the Shift key to toggle between painting the fill and painting the stroke. It's important to understand that the geometry of the paths themselves define the paintable regions. So if you wanted, you could set the stroke attributes for the additional paths to none Figure 4. Unfortunately, the Live Paint feature doesn't work with paths that have brush attributes or width profiles applied.
If you do try to turn paths with brushes into a Live Paint group, the appearance of the brush or profile will disappear, leaving just the appearance of the stroke. The exception to this rule is Illustrator's Blob Brush, covered later in this chapter. In the Tools panel, double-click the Live Paint Bucket tool to change its behavior. By default, the Live Paint Bucket tool affects only the fill of a path, but you can also set the tool to apply color to strokes as well Figure 4.
These boxes represent swatches that appear in the Swatches panel, and when the Live Paint Bucket tool is active, you can press the arrow keys on your keyboard to select a color swatch. This allows you to choose colors and quickly fill areas without having to return to the Swatches panel.
Additionally, you can specify the color that the Live Paint tool uses to highlight closed regions. Until now, all the regions you were filling with color were completely closed.
But what happens if your paths don't exactly meet each other? That's where the Gap Detection feature can really make a difference. If you don't have any Live Paint groups selected when you choose this option, the settings you pick become the default settings for all new Live Paint groups.
You can specify different gap options for each selected Live Paint group in a document as well. With Gap Detection turned on, you can specify that paint will fill areas containing small, medium, or large gaps Figure 4. Additionally, you can specify an exact amount for how big a gap can be before Live Paint considers it an open area instead of a closed one. Illustrator previews gaps in the selected color, and you can also have Illustrator fill any gaps in an object with physical paths Illustrator always uses straight paths to do so.
Live Paint groups can be expanded, at which time they behave like ordinary vector paths. The appearance of an expanded Live Paint group remains identical to the original, but it is split into multiple objects for both fills and strokes. This is similar in concept to expanding live effects.
The Live Trace feature in Illustrator can quickly convert traced vector art into Live Paint groups for easy coloring. Refer to Chapter 10, "Working with Images," for more information. From a production standpoint, you don't need to expand Live Paint groups in order to prepare a file for print.
Live Paint groups print perfectly, because Illustrator performs the necessary expansion of paths at print time similar to live effects.
As I mentioned previously, the gradient mesh is made of mesh points with interconnecting mesh lines. When you first create a mesh object, the only colors applied are the original color and white, with shades in between. Each of the mesh points can have a different color or transparency applied.
Not only can you add or subtract mesh points or move them to suit your needs, but you can also change the color of each mesh point. We'll try that next. I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from Adobe Press and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.
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Marketing preferences may be changed at any time. You may do this by either creating a shape with the shape tool. Next, you will have to set the number of rows and columns you want within the object. At every end and intersection of the grid lines, you will see that the grid has anchor points. Once you do that, the Connector Points with Bezier handles will appear.
This will allow you to adjust the contour of the grid lines in any way that you want. Once you have checked that, click on any of the grid points within the object. To add more colors to the object, you can continue selecting different grid points and apply different colors to them.
However, one thing that you must remember is that you should be careful not to click on a path where there is no grid point. Doing this will instead create another grid line to your object. If that is not what you want, avoid doing this. Another factor that you should keep in mind that the Gradient Mesh Tool only allows you to select one grid point at a time. Doing this will allow you to select additional grid points that you want to apply the color to.
After adding in the first color, you may continue selecting different grid points to add other shades or colors. As you can see in the example below, darker shades of indigo are being added to the outer edges of this circular shape. Doing this helps add more depth to the object, creating more of a 3-dimensional feel to it. Therefore, depending on the specific shape that you desire for your design, you may adjust the grid points in any way that best suits you.
For a full video tutorial of how to use the Gradient Mesh Tool , feel free to check out the screen recording below:. The Gradient Mesh Tool can be applied to all types of designs.
It ultimately provides you with the flexibility to customize the colors within your design in any way that you want. The screenshot examples that we have shown earlier is a simple demonstration of how the tool can be used.
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