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With an iPad and a painting app, it can be easy to start digital painting. It seems overwhelming to start and produce aesthetically pleasing results, but with these tips, you’ll find the easiest way to get into and create beautiful digital paintings.
Choose a Digital Painting App
There are manyiPad apps that boost your drawing skills, and most of those are also great options for digital painting. My personal favorite isProcreatebecause of its easy-to-navigate user interface. It’s designed to be used exclusively on an iPad and with an Apple Pencil.
I also like to useAdobe Fresco as a Procreate alternative—Frescooffers vector drawing and live paint options for new textures in your digital painting journey, but I find the interface to be more complex than Procreate.
If you’re new to digital painting, now is a great time to explore different app options. Procreate is popular and affordable with a one-time cost of $12.99. It only offers raster-based digital painting, which is usually fine so long as you set the size correctly before you begin.
Before you begin your digital painting, decide if you want to print your art or keep it digital—you’ll need toset your Procreate canvas to the correct color settingbefore you start. The process is the same for other apps, although some may allow you to convert color profiles midway through. Procreate does not.
Find a Reference Image
I started digital painting after one of my family dogs passed away. I wanted to memorialize Luka the Rottweiler by painting him, so I needed to find the perfect reference image first.
A good rule of thumb is to find or take an image that has a large depth of field rather than a shallow depth of field, to keep more of the subject in focus. Depending on the colors of your chosen subject, a high-contrast image will usually provide the best results.
If you’re painting a person or animal that is personal to you, find an image that depicts their uniqueness—such as specific markings on pets, a certain facial expression someone is known for, or simply an image that depicts them in a recognizable way.
Import Your Reference Image
Upload your chosen reference image or composition as a new layer in your painting app and move it to the background layer. This acts as a permanent reference throughout your painting exercise, which can be viewed or hidden at any point.
In Procreate, you can set a floating reference image that you can zoom in and out of, move around your canvas, and keep in full color and opacity for true referencing. Set your reference image by tappingActions (Wrench)>Canvasand toggle onReference.Then chooseImageto upload your picture. You can resize and move the reference window at your convenience.
Sketch Your Image
All good paintings begin as a light sketch. You can keep your rough drawing in its own layer and delete it when your painting is finalized.
This may be a controversial step for some artists, but I recommend—especially to new digital painters—to trace directly over your reference image on a new pencil layer. It doesn’t make you less of an artist to trace a rough outline.
If you don’t want to trace directly over your reference image, you could also implement a grid system on both the reference image and your canvas or just draw your rough draft by referencing by eye—all are valid options and down to your personal preference.
Once the sketch is done, you can turn off visibility for your reference layer. Then start painting within your sketch, only using the reference layer when you need to check more precisely.
Choose a Digital Brush and Start Painting
Procreate’s busting brush library has endless options for brushes of different textures and uses, and you candownload some great Procreate brushes from third-party sites, too. You don’t need anything special to create an authentic digital-painted look, though.
After initially using Procreate for digital illustration, learning how to paint has been a new experience for me. I’ve found the Medium Airbrush brush in Procreate’s Airbrushing library is perfect for painting.
Use varying sizes for digital painting, as well as varying opacity for a layered result. TheColor Picker can be used to get colorsfrom your reference image, or you can find your own colors within the Colors tab. Feel free to do all your painting on one layer—above your reference and sketch layers—or utilize the layers further by keeping each color or image element on its own layer.
Smudge and Blend Your Paint
Procreate’s Smudge Tool is a tool I never used before I started digital painting, and now I won’t ever ignore it again. After laying down your paint strokes, tap the Smudge tool and choose the same brush to blend with.
This simple tool helps digital paint blend more naturally like with real paint—especially watercolor or oil paints. Blending and smudging are down to your personal style, but the results are authentic, and it’s fun to see them take effect.
you may change the size, opacity, and the smudge brush, letting you have more control over how you blend your colors. Switch between smudging and painting as you create your art. Paint, then smudge, then add more color, then smudge until you’re happy with the blending coverage.
Add the Fine Details
As with most painting styles, the base is typically more blurred and less refined. Once the base is laid, you should go in and add any fine details, delicate areas, or added precision to finalize your painting.
Choose a more precise brush than the one you’ve been using; you can also continue with the Medium Airbrush at a much smaller size. Paint in fine details like fur or hair strands, eyelashes, or spots of light reflections on shiny areas like the eyeballs.
If you’re painting large areas of fur or hair, then using one of the hair brushes in Procreate’s Materials library is a good option, such as the Short Hair or Fine Hair brushes.
Finalize Your Digital Painting
Although an artist’s work is never truly complete, there are a few things you’re able to do to push your digital painting towards what you might consider “finished”.
Firstly, you can add a texture to replicate paper or canvas to your digital work. This is a great option if you create an RGB piece that will be viewed digitally as a final product. Add a paper texture to a new layer, then chooseMultiplyfrom the blend modes. The result is a subtle, but visible, texture.
You can download or scan your own paper texture—such as canvas, watercolor paper, or slightly crumpled copy paper—and experiment with layer placement and blend modes—like Multiply—for the preferred results. Once finished, don’t forget toadd your signature to your Procreate artworkbefore you share or print your painting.
For sharing online, export your painting as a PNG or PDF, as you’ll lose quality if saved as a JPEG. If you plan to print your digital painting, let the real paper or canvas do the work and leave the digital texture off. For printing, it’s best to save your painting as a PDF, unless the print store requests a different format.
Digital painting is a fun and therapeutic way to explore digital art apps like Procreate or Fresco, and you can easily keep a log of your painting progress without taking up space on the refrigerator door. With these easy-to-follow tips, you’ll find your style and create beautiful digital paintings quickly to share with friends and family. I was impressed by my own painting skills, even on my first attempt at digital painting—it’s much easier than painting with real paint on paper.
