Last year I got Procreate and the Apple Pen to use with my ipad. I first used it to do quick contour maps, and other digital maps and illustrations for a book I wrote. I have made quick digital paintings that simulate watercolor with pen and ink, and others that simulate acrylic. I am interested in art purely for my own enjoyment, and to keep my mind off of a serious illness. I do things that I find fun, not fine art. I hope this article does not insult anyone’s intelligence by the simple illustrations, but I have enjoyed using Procreate so much to plan my wacky color schemes for paintings, that I thought some of you might like to know more about it if you have never used it.

You can use Procreate to do any sort of painting that you would like. It has a large selection of pens and brushes, and you can paint transparently or opaque. There is a color wheel to select colors, or you can use a pallet that comes with the app or make your own.

I usually import my reference photo and draw over the top, then turn off the reference photo layer to see what the painting will look like without all the background. It is a great tool to plan your colors when you are doing art that is more abstract, imaginative, etc. I have not found a way to import more than one photo to try to combine them into one composition.

I have used Procreate on a painting already in progress, to see if one of several boats I was painting would look better in another color. I have had photoshop for years, but use it very little because it ties me to a desk, a mouse, and is a pain to use.

Yesterday, I wanted to paint some giraffes that I saw at a zoo awhile back, in my usual wacky colors, so I used Procreate to see what the image might look like in watercolors, then in more opaque paint like gouache or colored pencil.

I found that the palettes that come with the app are very limited. So I first saved a decent color wheel off of the internet, and saved it as a .jpg file. I imported it into Procreate as a photo, then used the eye dropper tool to create my own palette. It is fairly frustrating that the palette in Procreate is limited to 30 colors, because I would love to make custom color charts to use in Procreate based on some of my colored pencil charts, one of which has 150 colors. Of course, you can pick your own color from the color wheel, but you will never get the exact same color twice unless you save it or use the eye dropper tool on the same spot over and over. You can though save and use many palettes. There might be a limit to how many, but I have not reached it.

Since I was thinking of doing something in watercolor and pen, I first imported my photo and used the pen setting to do an outline. Since I am not trying to make a completed digital painting, but rather plan a painting on paper, there was no need to be exacting. I had to cut the photo down because it was too big for wet canvas, but here is a portion showing the ink pen tool and a rough outline.

I had an idea to do the mother Giraffe in cool colors, and the baby one in warm colors. So first of all, I tried more or less the default round brush, with transparent colors. I drew right on top of the photo, then turned the photo layer off.

Since I like painting in opaque gouache, I turned my brush to an opaque setting.

I wondered what it would look like with a different color background too, and you can change that very fast.

So here is the painting on paper. I ended up using ink and watercolor pencils, in order to match my version of Timothy Leary’s Zebra. This painting is called Lucy in the Sky with Zebras.