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. When working with vectors, you have to create distinct paths and shapes in order to apply a fill to add color. In a paint program, you can perform flood fills, in which you choose a color and use a paint bucket–like tool to fill areas with color. Drawing with Live PaintĪlthough you can appreciate the power and precision that vector graphics have to offer, you can also appreciate how easy it is to use pixel-based paint programs such as Photoshop or Corel Painter to easily apply color to artwork. The artwork featured throughout this chapter comes from Cheryl Graham (iStockphoto username: freetransform). So put on your creative hat and come inside-this chapter has something for everyone. The Live Paint feature adds an entirely new dimension to drawing and editing in Illustrator, and the new Bristle brush helps you create truly expressive artwork. After experiencing frustration in the attempt to grasp the concept of the underlying vector graphics structure, they never realize there's an entirely different side of Illustrator-a side that not only can be fun to use but that can also be rather addictive. Unfortunately, many people get caught up in the technical drawing aspect of Illustrator. The importance here is color, composition, texture, and feel. In creative drawing, you couldn't care less about anchor points and control handles. On the other side of the spectrum is creative drawing, where the focus is on the appearance of the path. In the previous chapter, we discussed technical drawing.

Merge live paint button