Why doesn’t the area where my vine loops color?

In drawing a vine or stem in PatchDraw, if you loop (or “figure eight”) a patch line over itself, you will not be able to color the overlapped area. It will create a “hole” which colors the same color as the background.

To create the look of a looped vine, you must draw the vine in segments:

  • Stop at the point where the line begins crossing over itself.
  • Then start a new segment at that point.
    That new line segment can overlap, and you can even use Send to Back to tuck in the ends of each segment beneath, hiding the place where the line is in sections. (Think of it like this: in the same way, you cannot cut out a loop without cutting across the original line.)