It is practically impossible to edit a white illustration on the default white artboard background.

Hiding the artboard makes the whole work area receive the artboard's white color.

So, is there...

We need to be able to change artboard background color.

Working on pure white is straining on the eyes and it's rarely appropriate for non-print projects (99% of my work). Having to draw colored rectangles, lock them or put them on separate layers, and then manage them when we resize or duplicate artboards is painful and tedious.

Let's have an icon for it next to the artboard name (in the Artboard palette) where we can choose a swatch (including transparent).

Let's support changing multiple artboard colors at once with multi-selection.

Thank you!