Create a Mountain Landscape and Sunset in Procreate

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to create a mountain landscape effect, with an optional sunset. All brushes which we’ll use are presets in Procreate, so you won’t need to download anything extra.

I’m going to create a quite dramatic (and not so realistic looking) sunset, with some green mountains. The great thing about creating our own artwork is that we can choose how realistic we want it to be, if you want to go for a more subtle look you can, but also if you’d like to create artwork that is a little different and “out there” we can be as free as we want!

Our first step is to create a new canvas in Procreate. Do this by clicking the + in the top right-hand side of the gallery page. We’re just going to use one of the preset sizes, the one named Screen Size, which should be the top option.

Now you have your canvas, click on the layers menu in the top right-hand corner and click the + to create a new layer.

Click on the layers menu again and select the bottom layer, named background colour. You’ll now see the colour palette pop up. Select the colour which you want to be the base to your sky. I’m going to create a dramatic sunset, so I’ll choose a peachy pink.

If you want to use the same colour, the hexadecimal is #ffab95.

On your newest layer, go to the brushes tool and under the Airbrushing section, choose Soft Airbrush. We also need to pick a first colour for our sunset or sky. I’m going with a darker peachy pink. My brush size and opacity are both on around 50%, you don’t have to be too accurate though.

Next, draw some rough lines on the canvas, it will look quite messy but don’t worry! Scale your brush size down and select a different colour. I’m trying to select pinks and peaches to create my sunset. Draw more, thinner lines on the canvas in each colour.

Now let’s blend them. Click on the magic wand tool on the top left-hand side menu (the second icon along) and then select Gaussian Blur. Within the menu, select layer.

Move your stylus along the screen to the right to alter the blur percentage. I’ll blur to 21.2%.

Add a new layer, draw more lines with the Soft Airbrush in relevant colours. Use the Gaussian Blur to blend the colours in.

Tip: Always create new layers for each element you add to your canvas, then, if we make a mistake we don’t lose any previous work.

Repeat the step another time with a different colour. You can do this as much or as little as you want.

We’re now going to draw a setting sun, this part is optional, so feel free to skip it if you just want to create a sky.

Grab a yellow hue from your colour palette and draw a rough semi-circle shape across the page, this is going to be our sun’s glow.

Choose a darker orange and add this to the middle.

Now, choose an even darker orange and draw a circle in the middle of your glowing semi-circle, this is going to be the setting sun.

Click on the magic wand tool and do your Gaussian Blur again, I’ve set it to 26.1%. You can of course blur this as much or as little as you want. If you really want your sun to stand out, you could also do this on a separate layer to the “glows”, and blur those, but leave the sun pretty circular and clear.

Create a new layer, and in the Elements section, select the brush named Clouds.

Choose a light colour and use the brush as a stamp to add some clouds around the top of your sky.

I’m also going to Gaussian Blur this layer ever so slightly too.

Go into your brush tool and within the Calligraphy section of the Brush Library, select a simple drawing brush. I generally go with Monoline in my projects as it’s a nice, clean, straight forward brush.

Click on the brush itself to show the Brush Studio. As we’re now going to draw mountains, we don’t want any perfect lines. On the Streamline slider, change this to around 30%.

Create a new layer and select your first colour.

We’re going to create mountains which we’ll aim to give the illusion of perspective. Have you ever noticed how in real life, mountains or hills that are further away appear lighter in colour, and those which are closer are darker? To achieve this effect, we’re going to draw a few “rows” of mountains, with our furthest away one being in the lightest colour.

Create a new layer and select a light tone, but not too light. I’m going with a middle green.

Starting in roughly the middle of your canvas, at the left side, draw a jagged line to the other side of your canvas. I’m going to create a dip in the middle as I want the sunset to shine through, so it has the appearance of a valley.

Once you’re happy with this, drag the colour in the top right corner down and fill your furthest away mountain range.

Create a new layer, and then repeat this step with a slightly darker colour.

Repeat this again, and then draw a jagged line from the bottom side of your canvas to the middle.

Repeat at the other side, but with this mountain being the closest one – overlap your other front mountain very slightly.

Fill with colour – the one at the front should have the darkest colour of all the mountains.

You could leave your mountains like this if you want, but I’m going to add a little texture.

The next part is a little confusing as we’re going to add some layers in between. Follow along and you’ll be just fine.

Go to your first mountain layer, so the one with the lightest colour. Click on this layer so that it’s highlighted. Now, click the + to add a new layer, which should appear just above this one.

Ensuring the new layer is directly above our furthest mountain, click on the new layer and select Clipping Mask from the menu.

A clipping mask ensures that anything we draw on this layer, sticks to the one which it’s clipped to – i.e., the layer directly below.

Choose a different shade of green or grey for this part, it doesn’t really matter about the colour as we’re just adding a bit of texture.

Go to your Brush Library and in the Charcoals section, choose the 2B Compressed brush. Set your size to around 55% and your opacity to around 40%.

Roughly draw over your layer with this texture, you’ll see that it only ever stays on the lightest mountain. If the 2B Compressed brush is appearing anywhere else, you may not have your Clipping Mask correct.

Repeat this step above every mountain layer to achieve your desired texture effect.

We’re now going to add a little bit of fog, or even clouds, onto the mountains. Have you ever been really high up in mountains with the clouds around you? This is the effect we’re going to look to create now.

Choose white from the colour palette, and in your Brush Library under the Airbrushing section, choose Soft Brush.

Go to your layer which contains your first full canvas length mountain. Create a new layer above this and apply the Clipping Mask.

This may be a little confusing with all the layers, however, if you look at the screenshot below it may make it a little clearer on what your layers menu should look like.

With your airbrush (size 30% and opacity 10%), lightly dust along the bottom of the mountain layer. Repeat this step for as many of the other layers as you would like.

Your mountain scene is now complete! I really love this effect, it’s so simple but effective, and the different colours and layers really give it depth. You can experiment with textures and colours, you could create a scene for every month of the year. You could also even add elements to the mountains or sky, such as birds or buildings.

Have fun and I hope you enjoy creating this project as much as I did!