How to convert brush strokes to path in Illustrator?

[Chizu Hapu]

Hi everyone,

I'm an Illustrator newbie. Could anyone teach me how to convert brush strokes into path?

The context is, I'm drawing by touch pen for laptop by Blob brush, then I want to fill the shapes made by the brush strokes but cannot.

Or is there other tool in Illustrator that can help me draw by touch pen, thus making path by drawing?

[Ko.Maruyama · Accepted solution]

If you use cmd+Y (ctrl+Y) you can see the paths that the blob brush generates.  

By using the blob brush, you're making a container, filled with a color. To change the color of your illustration, you can change the FILL, not the stroke.

If you use the paintbrush tool, you're making a path that presents an appearance based on the brush style.

It sounds like you may want the paintbrush tool instead.

[Chizu Hapu]

Hi Maruyama-san,

Thankyou so much for your kindly reply, very clear and useful to me.

It is not relevent to the subject but I'm having one more problem:

I have different paths that make a closed-shape, but it's still not a shape, so I can't fill color to the shape that made by the paths. What should I do?

Is the only way is re-drawing the shape by only 1 path?

[Monika Gause]

You can do different things:

you can use functions in the pathfinder panel to combine the shapes.

Or you can use the live paint tool to color them without first combining.

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/combining-objects.html

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

[Chizu Hapu]

Hi Monika,

Thankyou so much for your nice answer, and thankyou for the links, too.

I'm reading them I found that they help a lot!

[Monika Gause]

You're welcome, Chris-le!