Procreate for Beginners: Getting Started Without the Overwhelm
If you’re thinking about trying digital art, chances are you’ve heard of Procreate.
It’s one of those apps that seems to be everywhere, and for good reason. It’s made specifically for the iPad and works beautifully with an Apple Pencil, so drawing on screen can feel surprisingly close to drawing on paper.
And you don’t have to be an experienced digital artist to use it.
If you’re completely new to digital art, you can start with simple sketches and doodles and gradually work your way up to more finished illustrations. If you’ve already been drawing for years, there’s plenty in Procreate to keep you busy too.
I’ve always liked the fact that you can start off keeping things really simple and then discover more features as you go. You don’t need to understand the whole app before you make your first drawing.
Is Procreate Right for You?
Before buying Procreate, there are a couple of things worth thinking about.
The biggest one is that Procreate is designed for the iPad. It works particularly well with an Apple Pencil, and the combination of the two makes the whole experience feel very natural.
The downside is that you’re pretty much committing to the iPad ecosystem. So, if you like switching between different devices or want your artwork to work seamlessly across lots of different platforms, it’s worth taking that into consideration.
File compatibility is another thing to think about, especially if you’re working on complicated illustrations with lots of layers and need to move them into other programs later.
For straightforward digital painting and illustration, though, Procreate can be a really enjoyable place to start.
Creating Your First Canvas
When you first open Procreate and go to create a canvas, you might find yourself staring at all the different settings wondering what on earth you’re supposed to choose.
Don’t panic!
You don’t need to know what every setting does before you start drawing.
The main thing to think about is what you’re actually creating.
If you’re making an illustration just to share online, you won’t necessarily need the same canvas settings as someone creating artwork that’s going to be printed at a large size.
Think about where your finished artwork is going before you create the canvas. Is it going on social media? Is it going to be printed? Are you creating something just for yourself?
Once you’ve used Procreate a few times, things like canvas size, resolution and colour profiles will start to make much more sense.
Don’t Try to Learn Everything at Once
This is probably one of the biggest pieces of advice I’d give anyone starting out with Procreate.
You don’t need to learn everything.
There are brushes, layers, selections, Transform, QuickShape, blend modes, adjustments, gestures… and that’s before you’ve even started looking at some of the more advanced features.
It can feel like a lot.
Instead, pick a small handful of tools and get comfortable with those first.
You’ll probably find yourself using brushes and layers constantly. From there, you can start playing around with selections, Transform and some of the other tools when you actually need them.
That’s a much less overwhelming way to learn.
A Simple Procreate Workflow
When you’re starting a new illustration, it can help to have a basic process to follow.
I usually think of it as building the artwork up in stages.
Start with a rough sketch.
Don’t worry about making it beautiful. Get your idea down first.
Refine your drawing.
Once you’re happy with the basic idea, you can work on your line work and start cleaning things up.
Add colour.
This is where things can start to feel really exciting. You can experiment with different colour combinations and see what works.
Add shadows, highlights and details.
This is where your artwork can really start to come together.
And throughout all of this, keep an eye on your layers.
Trust me on this one.
It might seem perfectly reasonable to leave your layers named “Layer 1”, “Layer 2”, “Layer 3” and so on when you’re working on a small illustration.
Then you come back to it a few days later and wonder which one contains the hair.
A few sensible layer names can save you a lot of head scratching!
Make Procreate Fit the Way You Work
Once you’ve got the basics under your belt, have a play around with the gesture controls.
Procreate uses gestures for lots of everyday actions, such as undoing, zooming and rotating your canvas. Once these become second nature, you can move around your artwork much more quickly.
You can also customise some of the controls to suit the way you work.
It’s a small thing, but it can make a big difference when you’re spending hours drawing.
And don’t forget about the Reference feature. Having a reference image available while you’re working can be incredibly useful, particularly when you’re drawing something you’re not familiar with.
I’d also recommend keeping your Gallery organised.
It doesn’t take long to give your artwork sensible names and put related projects into stacks. You’ll be glad you did once you’ve created dozens — or even hundreds — of drawings.
Taking Your Artwork a Step Further
Once you’re comfortable with the basics, this is where Procreate starts getting really interesting.
You can experiment with things like Clipping Masks, Alpha Lock, blend modes, brush settings and adjustments to add more depth and detail to your work.
For example, you might use a Clipping Mask to add shading without painting outside the area you’ve already created. Or you could experiment with blend modes to see what happens when you layer different colours over each other.
You don’t need to understand all of these features immediately.
Honestly, the best way to learn is often to have a play.
Try something. See what happens. Undo it if you don’t like it.
That’s how a lot of us learn digital art!
Get Into the Habit of Saving Your Work
There’s nothing quite like spending hours working on an illustration and then realising you’ve accidentally changed something you really liked.
That’s why it’s worth getting into a few good habits early on.
Duplicate important files before making major changes. Give your layers useful names and group them together where it makes sense.
For bigger projects, you might also want to save different versions as you go.
Think of these as little checkpoints. If something goes wrong later, you can go back to an earlier version instead of desperately trying to recreate something you’ve just lost.
Future-you will thank you for it.
A Quick Word About Procreate Brushes
One of the most fun things about Procreate is playing around with brushes.
There are loads available, and you can find brush packs created by other artists as well as the brushes that come with Procreate.
Just remember to check the licence before downloading and using brushes from someone else.
Some may be fine for personal projects but have restrictions on commercial use. If you’re creating artwork to sell or using Procreate for client work, it’s particularly important to know what you’re allowed to do with the brushes you’ve downloaded.
It’s a small thing, but respecting another artist’s work is just as important as protecting your own.
What Can You Actually Create with Procreate?
Pretty much anything that suits your style of working.
You could use it for character illustrations, digital paintings, lettering, pattern design, social media graphics or artwork you’re planning to print.
It’s also perfectly capable of being part of a professional workflow.
The more projects you create, the more you’ll learn about what Procreate is good at — and where you might need another piece of software.
That’s actually quite useful because you don’t need to find one program that does absolutely everything.
Choosing the Right Export Format
When you’re ready to save or share your finished artwork, you’ll have several different file formats to choose from.
PNG is useful for web graphics, especially if you need a transparent background.
JPEG is handy when you want a smaller file that’s easy to upload or share.
PSD is useful when you need to move a layered project into software such as Photoshop.
PDF can be useful for sharing and certain types of printed work.
TIFF is often used when you’re preparing high-quality artwork for professional printing.
The important thing is to think about what you’re going to do with the artwork afterwards rather than automatically choosing the same format every time.
Preparing Artwork for Print
Printing digital artwork can be a little more complicated than sharing something online.
You’ll need to think about the physical size of your artwork, resolution, DPI, bleed and colour settings.
And then there’s colour.
Something that looks gorgeous and vibrant on your iPad screen might not look exactly the same when it comes out of a printer. That’s because screens and printers use colour differently.
If you’re sending artwork to a professional printer, I’d recommend asking them what settings and file format they require before you start.
It could save you a lot of frustration later.
When Procreate Starts Misbehaving
And finally, there’s the inevitable bit that nobody really enjoys — troubleshooting.
You might occasionally run into brush lag, run out of layers or accidentally make a mark somewhere you really didn’t want one.
Large, complicated artworks can also take up quite a bit of storage and may become more demanding for your iPad.
If things start getting sluggish, it can sometimes help to simplify the artwork, reduce unnecessary layers or check how much storage you have available.
And sometimes, you simply reach the point where Procreate isn’t the right tool for the job.
That’s okay.
If you’re working on an enormous file, need particularly complex editing tools or have to move between several different programs, desktop software might make more sense.
The important thing is not to feel as though you have to force every project into Procreate.
The Bottom Line
Procreate is a great place to explore digital art without feeling as though you have to become a technology expert first.
Start with the basics. Draw things you’re actually interested in. Experiment with the brushes. Get comfortable with layers and gradually introduce new tools as you need them.
And don’t worry if your first few digital drawings don’t look anything like you imagined.
That’s completely normal.
The more you use Procreate, the more comfortable it becomes — and before long, you’ll probably find yourself reaching for features you didn’t even know existed when you started.