In this article we’ll show you how to create a couple of basic but effective watercolour designs in Procreate. Everything which we’re going to use in this tutorial is either downloadable from Creative Fabrica, or a preset in Procreate.
Below are the downloads which we’ll be using in case you want to install them before we begin.
- Watercolour brush set
- Rainbow colour palette
- Watercolour paper textures
- “Magical” font
- Metallic paper textures
First of all, we’ll work on a watercolour frame design. Create a new canvas in Procreate by clicking the + in the top right corner. Then, click the + underneath this. Enter the below dimensions, ensuring to set 400 DPI. I always find that 400 DPI is a great setting for printing out our work, and I always like to have the option to do this.
Now we have our canvas ready, it’s time to start! The brushes we’re going to use are the Delicate Watercolor Procreate Brush Set, downloadable here. We’re also going to use a colour palette which you can download here, if you haven’t already.
If you’ve chosen to use the colour palette mentioned above, you’ll see it has a good variety of pastel shades, I think these are pretty perfect, as real life watercolour tends not to use dark or strong shades. You can of course, use any colours of your choosing, but I’d advise pastel or muted tones.
Go to your brush library and select the brush set which we’ve just downloaded. First, we’re going to use Stamp 02. Set the brush size to 65% and choose your first colour – I’ve picked a light pink.
It’s important to remember that we’re going to be using these brushes as stamps, so to use them, we have to simply “stamp” them rather than swipe across the canvas as if we were painting.
Stamp a few times around the sides, you need the brush to overlap the edge of the canvas, so ensure to place your stamp close to the edges.
Once you’ve done this, choose your next colour and stamp around the sides some more. Change your brush size down to around 27%, ensuring to keep a blank space in the middle, we don’t want to fill the page as we’re creating a border effect.
There are a good selection of realistic watercolour stamps in this set, so have a play around and design your border how you wish. Remember to change the brush size so you get a good variety.
Once you have your border finished, go to the smudge tool and select one of the watercolour brushes – it doesn’t really matter which one, as long as it’s not one of the “drip” types. I’ve used Stamp 04 with a brush size of 10%. Gently blend a few of the colours into one another, to make it look as if they’ve merged together as they would with real life watercolour. Don’t do too much or it may start to look too blurred and not as realistic.
Now you have your watercolour background finished! It probably looks really effective as it is, but for an even more realistic finish, we’re going to add a paper texture.
I’m going to use paper number 2 from the texture collection which you can download from Creative Fabrica here.
Make sure you have your chosen paper texture downloaded to the images gallery of your tablet, once you’ve done this, our next step is to add the texture into our canvas. Click on the settings tool in the top left corner of Procreate and choose insert a photo. Pick your paper texture from your image gallery.
You’ll then see the image on your canvas as a new layer. It won’t be the same size, so now drag the edges of the paper texture out to cover the entire canvas. It doesn’t matter at all if it ends up larger than your original canvas.
Once you’ve done this part, open the layers menu, and click on the N, which you’ll see towards the right hand side of the layer, next to the tick box. Select the option for multiply. Then on the opacity slider which appears, experiment with how visible you want your paper texture to be. I’ve set mine to 58%.
Now your background is finished! You could keep it like this if you want to, but I’m going to add some text.
If you do want to add text, to do this, click on the settings tool again in the top left corner, and then add text. Type your desired greeting and place how you wish on the canvas. The font I’ve used is called Magical, downloadable from Creative Fabrica here.
Experiment with your text colour, or add a texture to it, keep reading for tips on how to do that…
There are so many fun projects you can create with this simple watercolour technique and brush set. It’s so easy and really fun. I’ve created another idea below using some different colours and a slightly different design.
On this design, I also want to add a greeting but this time, inside of a box. I’m going to use a metallic paper set downloadable from Creative Fabrica here.
So, to create your box, first ensure your chosen metallic paper is downloaded to your tablet and saved in the image gallery.
To draw the our rectangular box, pick one of the drawing brushes (Procreate presets), I’ve used monoline. It doesn’t matter about the brush colour at this point.
Draw a rough rectangle or square towards the middle of the canvas. Don’t worry about getting it even! It’s really important in this part not to lift your stylus off the screen, whilst your stylus is still touching, press down relatively firmly and your shape should snap to a rectangle.
The rectangle won’t be exact, so click edit shape at the top of the screen, then choose rectangle. Re-shape and reposition on your canvas.
Now, we’re going to add our metallic paper as the “colour” of the rectangle. Insert the paper as an image onto your canvas, and then, click on the layer containing the image and select clipping mask.
You’ll now see that your box has changed colour, to the metallic paper.
Add whatever text you want into the middle and you’re all finished! You can even use the metallic paper and clipping mask technique on text too.
My final designs are below, have a play around with colours, fonts, and textures. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and have fun!
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