Filling Object with Background

[drewcolby16]

Hello, what I have here is a series of brush strokes and a tan rectangle object i have erased around the edges to loosely follow the shape of the outer brush strokes. I am trying to get the tan background "rectangle" to go along the outer brush strokes perfectly so there is none outside of them. Could someone direct me to a discussion or help me out. Thank you

[Omar.Fathy]

You can't do that.

- But you can instead draw a nice shape again.

- select your shape and use the Erase Tool to erase edges.

[rcraighead]

Actually, you can duplicate the outer lines, convert them to a "Live Paint" object and fill with tan with "no stroke". Edit the paths to close the gaps or play with the Live Paint "Fill Gap" setting to automatically fill the gaps.

It used to be very easy to select all the outer strokes then using the "Pencil" tool to extend the strokes where needed, without losing the multi-selection, but that feature was lost with the introduction of AI CS6, never to be seen again.