Get Started with Procreate: The 10-Step Guide to Drawing on Your iPad: Contains 20 Project Tutorials

GET STARTED WITH

PROCREATE

The 10-Step Guide to Drawing on Your iPad

Liz Kohler Brown

Contents

An Introduction to Procreate

About This Book

Getting Started

The Projects

Beginner

1  

Sketch Some Fruit

2  

Draw and Ink Your Drink

3  

Design Donut Palettes

4 

Make Fast Calls

5  

Test Floral Colorways

6  

Design a Textured Stamp

7  

Make a Star Print

Intermediate

8  

Create a Vintage Snapshot

9  

Tools for a Scenic View

10 

Sketch Perspective at Your Desk

11 

Erase the Sun

12 

Mirror Nature

13 

Build a Layered Landscape

Advanced

14 

Paint a Cityscape

15 

Draw Your Avatar

16 

Step Out a Flatlay

17 

Create Jungle Textures

18 

Get Rolling with Layers

19 

Create a Botanical Repeat

20 

Make a Flame Flicker

What Comes Next?

Index

Acknowledgments/About the Author

AN INTRODUCTION TO

Procreate

When I discovered Procreate, I was in a creative dry spell. I wanted to travel and be mobile, but art supplies are heavy and take up a lot of space. I invested in a refurbished iPad and immediately went down the rabbit hole of color, texture, and limitless possibilities that were at my fingertips.

WHY PROCREATE?

Procreate has the most realistic feel of all of the iPad-based drawing apps and has become a favorite tool for iPad-based artists. As we dive into the projects in this book, you’ll see that Procreate has a unique brush interface that allows you to use (or create) any brush effect you can imagine. Whether you are trying to create a realistic watercolor composition or a bold black-and-white ink-pen look, you can achieve the exact texture and feel that you could create on paper or canvas. Let’s look at some of the advantages of working digitally.

Work Anywhere

When you work digitally, you can pull out your digital studio wherever you go, whether you are sitting in your favorite cafe, waiting to pick up your children after school, or stuck in an airport terminal when your flight is delayed. Just a warning here—after you go through the projects in this book, you may start hoping your flights are delayed so that there is nothing to do but draw on your iPad!

Drop the Guilt

Many creatives find working digitally to be more freeing than traditional materials. Financial pressures (and concerns about wasting materials) can put a strain on your creative brain and even cause creative block. You may have asked yourself in the past, is my creative skill even good enough to be worthy of this expensive canvas? When you work with digital brushes, you can hone your skills and find your style without ever facing the guilt of wasting expensive materials. You can even abandon artwork halfway through and start a fresh canvas without considering that you’re being wasteful.

Ease and Speed

It’s no secret that traditional art takes time. The prepping of materials alone can eat away at the precious moments we have to draw, especially for those of us juggling jobs, family, and other responsibilities. Digital art can be more efficient. The more you practice your digital art skills using the steps in this book, the faster your art-making process will be. Before you know it, you’ll be facing the problem of organizing your folders because you can’t find what you’re looking for amid the hundreds of canvases on the page (more later on how to organize your folders of artwork).

CREATE LIKE A PRO!

Procreate is a versatile tool that can be used to produce a wide range of artwork, from black-and-white linework to colorful realistic effects. In addition to styles, you can create artwork for a variety of products like stickers, fabric, stationery, clothing, and more. Let’s look at a few examples of artwork for products that I’ve created in Procreate so you can start to brainstorm what you might want to experiment with once you learn the basics.

Art Prints: You can create art prints featuring illustrations, lettering, or even simple geometric shapes, just as I did for this American-quilt-inspired composition.

Stationery: You can create repeat patterns and motifs for things like notebooks, scrapbooking paper, and gift wrap. See Project 19 for more on repeat patterns.

Clothing: You can use illustration, lettering, or a combination of the two to design clothing like shirts, hats, or other wearable items.

Fabrics: You can create illustrations or repeat patterns for printing onto fabric using an on-demand print website.

About This Book

This book is structured around 20 Procreate art projects, which are designed to work from the ground up, sequentially building skills and knowledge of tools. Each project is categorized as Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced skill level. The skill level of the projects is indicated on the contents page—and at the foot of each project page—with a star rating; one star for beginner, two stars for intermediate, and three for advanced.

While you could start with any project in the book, you may feel frustrated if you jump to a more advanced project without having learned the skills from the previous sections.

Each project is created by following 10 steps that will help you gain the skills you need to make the next one. All projects are produced at the same canvas size and each is presented with details of the palette and brushes used, so that, if you wish to, you can recreate it almost exactly.

WHAT TYPE OF CREATIVE ARE YOU?

I have been working with creatives long enough to know that there are several different types of inspired brains, each with their own unique learning style. Let’s talk about three different ways you could use this book, so that you can choose the style that works best for you.

1. The Star Student

The Star Student will enjoy following the steps in this book exactly as they are shown, perhaps even copying the project exactly. This is a great way to work when you want to focus on learning the app and tools, without having