Painting with Illustrator

Introduction to Painting

To add visual interest to your artwork, Illustrator provides calligraphic , scatter, art, and pattern brushes. In addition, you can use the Live Paint feature, to paint different path segments and fill enclosed paths with different colors, patterns, or gradients. Using opacity, masks, gradients, blends, meshes, and patterns provides limitless opportunities for creativity.

• Painting with fills and strokes
• Live Paint groups
• Brushes
• Transparency and blending modes
• Gradients
• Meshes
• Patterns

Painting with fills and strokes

Painting methods

Illustrator provides two methods of painting: 

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

1 - Paint an object( fill & stroke)

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.

About fills and strokes

• 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 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 are displayed in the Tools panel.

Fill and Stroke controls

How to use Fill and Stroke controlsFill button : Double-click to select a fill color using the Color Picker.

Stroke button : Double-click to select a stroke color using the Color Picker.

You can also swap Fill And Stroke button. Click to swap colors between the fill and stroke.

Apply a fill color to an object

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.

1 - Select the object.

2 - Click the Fill box in the Tools panel or the Color panel. Doing so indicates that you want to apply a fill rather than a stroke.

3 - Select a fill color by doing one of the following:

•Click a color in the Control panel, Color panel, Swatches panel, Gradient panel, or a swatch library.

•Double-click the Fill box and select a color from the Color Picker.

•Select the Eyedropper tool and Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) an object to apply the current attributes, including the current fill and stroke.

•Click the None button to remove the object’s current fill.

Note:You can quickly apply color to an unselected object by dragging a color from the Fill box, Color panel, Gradient panel, or Swatches panel onto the object. Dragging does not work on Live Paint groups.

Stroke an object

You use the Stroke panel (Window > Stroke) to specify whether a line is solid or dashed, the dash sequence if it is dashed, the stroke weight, the stroke alignment, the miter limit, and the styles of line joins and line caps.

Stroke panel  showing the options 

You can apply stroke options to an entire object, or you can use Live Paint groups and apply different strokes to different edges within the object.

Apply a stroke color, width, or alignment

1 - Select the object.

Stroke box

2 - Click the Stroke box in the Tools panel, the Color panel, or the Control panel. Doing so indicates that you want to apply a stroke rather than a fill.

3 - Select a color from the Color panel, or a swatch from the Swatches panel or Control panel. 

• Double-click the Stroke box to select a color using the Color Picker.
• If you want to use the current color in the Stroke box, you can simply drag the color from the Stroke box onto the object.
• Dragging does not work on Live Paint groups.

4 - Select a weight in the Strokes panel or Control panel.

5 - If the object is a closed path (and not a Live Paint group), choose an option from the Stroke panel to align the stroke along the path:

From left to right

• Align Stroke To Center

• Align Stroke To Inside

• Align Stroke To Outside

Note: If you try to align paths that use different stroke alignments, the paths may not exactly align. Make sure the path alignment settings are the same if you need the edges to match up exactly when aligned.

2 - 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.

Thanks

MR
Manal Raafat