Creating Small Shapes from Larger, Overlapping Paths

[Elizabeth Seney]

I'm a beginner in Illustrator, but after testing out all the different Pathfinder options I could not quite see if this is possible.

I've created a wagon wheel shape using circles and lines. Now I'd like to consider each section of the overlapping paths a different shape that can be filled with different colors. Is this possible?

The image blow is made of:

1 rectangle, 2 circles, and 3 lines. This was the easiest way I could think to draw a perfect wagon wheel quilt design. But now I cannot quite figure out how to get each area to be considered a different shape.

Thanks!

[Ton Frederiks]

You could try Live Paint.

[Ton Frederiks]

See: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/live-paint-groups.html

[Jacob Bugge]

Gizerd,

Only 3 lines?

And what Ton said, of course.

[Elizabeth Seney]

Hah! Four lines obviously. :)--Thank you for pointing out my typo.

I will try live paint. Thank you for the feedback.

What I ended up doing in the meantime was using a rectangle to cut out an arch and then copy-paste-rotate them as 8 (16 total) different objects. With some fiddling I was able to get it quite precise--but it was a lot more work than just drawing the lines 🙂

--Elizabeth

[Elizabeth Seney]

Ok, so I solved my own problem with the Shape-Builder tool.

1. Create the shape using the circles and lines.

2. Select the whole pattern.

3. Use Shape-Builder and click inside a single shape.

4. Direct select the shape and move it off the original pattern.

5. I chose to go around the circle and remove each shape like a puzzle piece. I suppose there's nothing wrong with copy-paste-rotate either.

FYI:

Live Paint did color in each section--but I also needed the "puzzle" pieces. What a cool tool for me to have learned!! Thank you Ton and Jacob.

This is what I ultimately did with the graphic (and four others) for a digital interactive elementary lesson in case anyone is interested:

[Ton Frederiks]

There are always many ways to get to the end result.

You could also have done it with Pathfinder panel Divide.

I filled the lines, ovals and rectangle with white, set the Pathfinder panel Precision in the Pathfinder Options to the smallest value. Used Divide and ungrouped the result.

[Elizabeth Seney]

Wow look at that. Thanks! I'm going to play around with that too and learn it.