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can't color a compound path

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sheila6

Technical User
May 23, 2013
2
US
picture-26-62.html
picture-26-62.png
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Hello I'm new to Illustrator.
What I know comes from photoshop but I can see there are a lot of differences.

I have this letter "Y" looking image. I made it with the pen tool and some circles.
With the pen tool I made a thick stroke vertical path straight line, then I made thick stroke path curves for each side, then I added filled cicles to the tips of the Y
( but I didn't do it on the bottom as you can see the bottom ends straight)

Then I grouped it thinking this would be a way to change the color of the whole thing at once.
I can't figure out how to change the color. I tried various things, rasterizing, flatten.
And I can't ungroup it now. Now there are no complet cicles path at the tips of the Y , the whole path is a simple outline naw and it's attached to that outer box which I can't get rid of.
The live paint bucket won't allow color, a pop up calls it a clipping mask.
Swatch fills in "stroke" in the top tool bar or the color palette can't color it.
I tried clicking the magic wand on the inside but that doesn't work.

I want to change it to different colors easily for different versions.
Maybe I made too many changes to it and I can't color it now. Maybe I need to start over.
I what I'm describing a "compound path" ? or is it a "clipping path"
I got a pop up saying it couldn't live fill a clipping path

Basically what I want to do is make a few separate thick strokes paths, custome precise curves made with the pen.
I then want to overlap these path curves at certain places and then overlap circles or other objects overlapping the strokes to change the form even more. Including the ability to cut off the bottom and shorten it by overlapping a white rectangle.
I want all these pieces which look at this point like a letter Y type thing to become sensed by the program as one object which I can then change the color of.


Thanks
 
picture-29-34.html
picture-29-34.png
[/url]]

I just noticed when I grab the path with the direct selction tool I get this background shape. If I put the path back the black background pops back into a Y shape. When it's back to the Y shape from this new picture I have noticed that path is incomplete. Maybe that's the problem. This path is broken. When I drag the path back to it's location as in the earlier picture how can I finish the path precisely? I need a point at that V notch that will connect right
 
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