Support for Live Paint groups
Last updated on
May 29, 2026
Learn about Live Paint in Adobe Illustrator and how it lets you paint path segments and enclosed areas as if on paper or canvas.
Converting objects to a Live Paint group lets you color them freely. You can stroke each path segment with a different color, and fill each enclosed area with a different color, pattern, or gradient, even if it isn’t fully enclosed.
Live Paint is an intuitive way to create colored drawings. It lets you use the full range of Illustrator’s vector drawing tools, but treats all the paths as though they are on the same flat surface. So, no path is in front of or behind any other path. The paths divide the drawing surface into areas that can be colored, regardless of whether an area is bounded by a single path or by segments of multiple paths. Painting objects in a Live Paint group is like filling a coloring book or painting with watercolors after sketching with a pencil.
Edges and faces of Live Paint groups
The paintable parts of a Live Paint group are called edges and faces. An edge is the part of a path between the points where it intersects with other paths. A face is the area enclosed by one or more edges. You can stroke edges and fill faces.
For example, if you convert a circle with a line drawn across it into a Live Paint group, the line becomes an edge that divides the circle into two separate faces. You can use the Live Paint Bucket tool to fill each face and stroke each edge with a different color.
Path editing within Live Paint groups
Each path within a Live Paint group remains fully editable. When you move or adjust a path’s shape, the colors you had previously applied don’t stay where they were, like in natural media paintings or image editing programs. Instead, Illustrator automatically reapplies them to the new regions formed by the edited paths.
Live Paint limitations
Fill and paint attributes are attached to faces and edges of a Live Paint group, not to the actual paths that define them, as in other Illustrator objects. Because of this, some features and commands either work differently or are not applicable to paths inside a Live Paint group.
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Features or commands |
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Features and commands that work on an entire Live Paint group, but not on individual faces and edges |
Window > Transparency, effects, multiple fills and strokes from the Appearance panel, Object > Envelope Distort, Object > Hide, Object > Rasterize, Object > Slice > Make, Make Mask in the Transparency panel, Window > Brushes (you can apply a brush to an entire Live Paint group if you add a new stroke to the group using the Appearance panel) |
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Features that don’t work on Live Paint groups |
Gradient meshes, graphs, symbols from Window > Symbols, flares, Align Stroke options in the Stroke panel, and the Magic Wand tool |
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Object commands that don’t work on Live Paint groups |
Effect > Path > Outline Stroke, Object > Expand (you can use the Object > Live Paint > Expand command instead), Blend, Slice, Object > Clipping Mask > Make, create gradient mesh |
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Other commands that don’t work on Live Paint groups |
Window > Pathfinder commands, File > Place, View > Guides > Make Guides, Select > Same > Blending Mode, Fill & Stroke, Opacity, Graphic Style, Symbol Instance, or Link Block Series, Object > Text Wrap > Make |
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