Procreate Day 1: Basics

This day is all about getting to know the basics of procreate so that students will be ready for the more advanced topics on the other three days. Students may come to this class with a wide variety of experience with the app, so try to adjust to keep it interesting for everyone.

Objectives

Students will:

  • Make new files
  • Navigate Procreate interface
  • Select brushes
  • Sketch with brushes
  • Change colors
  • Color with brushes
  • Erase using the eraser tool
  • Understand what layers are
  • Make new layers
  • Know where export projects are

Outline

Procreate Interface
Intro to Brushes
Layer Basics
Color Panel
Saving and Exporting

Example Lesson Plan

This is just an example lesson plan. Make sure that you make your own lesson plan.

Make sure that you have the class iPads and Apple Pencils charged and ready ahead of time. Make sure the lab iPad you will be teaching on is charged as well. You connect the iPad to the screen by unplugging the HDMI to USBC adapter in the teaching computer and plugging the USBC end into the iPad.

Intro (5 min):

  • Get to know you question
  • Does everyone have an iPad and Apple Pencil to use, and Procreate downloaded? (Apple Pencil not required, but recommended)
  • What do you hope to do with Procreate?

Hook: The State Map, we will try to make something like this today

Today is all about getting familiar with the program, it’s going to be very basic stuff, but once we have this foundation we will be able to dive into some much more advanced stuff. Also this is not a drawing class, its meant to teach the software tool.

Gallery View and Files (5 min)

  • When you open Procreate you will see the gallery view
    • For those who have been using Procreate for a while, how messy is your gallery view?
  • Select will let us manipulate files, including organizing them in to stacks
    • Stack
    • Duplicate
    • Delete
  • Tapping a file opens it
  • Hold down to drag and change order
  • Import will let you bring in a file (which is then stored in Procreate)
  • Photo will let you bring in a photo from your camera roll and start a project (you can also bring photos in later to a project you have already started)
  • Creating new File
    • Most often you will just start by hitting the plus button and making a new canvas
      • Screen size is fine for messing around, but is pretty low quality for a final piece
      • We probably want to start with a custom, hit the plus button
      • Choose size, DPI= dots per inch (should be at least 300)
      • Max size depends on your model of iPad
      • Size, quality, and layers are all related, bigger size means fewer layers
    • Color profile: CMYK vs RGB
      • What is the difference between CMYK and RGB?
      • Cannot be changed later

Procreate Interface (3 min)

  • Wrench – setting and preferences
  • Wand – Adjustments (will tackle these on a later day)
  • S – selections (we will talk more about this later
  • Arrow – transform
  • Brush tools – all use the brush library
    • Brush – for drawing
    • Finger – smudge tool for smudging
    • Eraser – for erasing
  • Squares – your layers (more on this in a minute)
  • Circle – your color tool (more on this shortly)
  • Canvas – your art work 
  • Control bar – make adjustments to the tool you are using
    • Size and opacity sliders
    • Modifer key – can be used for different shortcuts and actions in the preferences
  • Gestures are a great way to save some time
    • do you know any gesture shortcuts?
    • two finger tap to undo
    • three finger tap to redo
    • Four fingers to hide interface
    • Pinch to zoom and rotate

Intro to Brushes (6 min)

  • Brushes are how you draw
  • There are a lot of brushes that try to mimic real word drawing devices
    • Peppermint- a great sketching pencil
    • Studio pen- great for line art and filling in color
    • Syrup/ Technical pen- streamline makes them draw very smoothly
    • Oil paint- feels like working with paint, good texture that brings artwork to life
    • Gouache- bleeds like watercolor
    • Noise- great for adding texture
    • Smudge to blend
  • You can create a folder of brushes, pull down on list on brushes, hit plus, creates a folder you can name, Drag and drop your favorite brushes in and they will duplicate into this folder
  • Great for having  your favorites or brushes you are using for something specific all in one place
  • We are going to choose a sketching brush
    • now we can draw, using the control bar to adjust our size
    • you can save a size by tapping on the bar, hitting the plus sign, then tap on the mark it created whenever you need to go back to that size, saves that only within this project, also works for saving opacity settings

Activity: Sketching the map (5 min)

  • Sketching before you draw is absolutely crucial
  • Now take 5 minutes and sketch the outline of your state and the place names. If you have time start sketching the landmarks
  • Ask questions if you have them

Layer Basics (3 min)

  • Now are going to talk about layers, who has used a layers based program before (like Ps, Illustrator, etc)?
  • Who can explain briefly what layers are?
  • Layers, for me are the main advantage of digital art over physical art, non destructive work
  • The number of layers is limited by the ram your iPad has
  • Layers can be moved up and down
  • Swipe to the left for the lock, duplicate, delete options
  • Swipe to the right to select multiple
  • We will be talking a lot more about layers next time, but always be aware of what layer you are working on

Activity: Inking (5 min)So we have our sketch layer, now we are going to ink over it on another layer

  • Make a new layer
  • select and inking brush
  • Go over your sketch lines
  • To make really smooth, stable lines:
    • wrench, prefs, pressure and smoothing, increase stabilization
    • go back and bring it down to zero to draw normal lines again

Color Panel

The color panel is a really important part of procreate, there is a lot here though so we will only cover the basics today.

  • Different views
  • Palettes, which ever you set as default is what will appear
  • Detach
  • Color drop

Activity: coloring (5 – 10 min)

  • Choose a brush from the drawing section
  • Color your map
    • background
    • base layer
    • behind text

Saving and Exporting

  • Procreate saves automatically
  • Exporting is how you would take it somewhere else
    • Who knows what different types of files would be used for
    • PSD is what you want if you are going to finish it in Photoshop
    • PNG if you want transparency

Conclusion: (1 min)

  • Thanks so much for coming
  • Next time we will begin learning more advanced layer options and how to create masks