Learn how to draw a Mardi Gras themed celebration mask using Procreate
Mardi Gras is a fantastic celebration of eating great food, partying at carnivals and spending time with loved ones. The image of Mardi Gras which comes to mind for most of us is elaborate costumes featuring masks, feathers and bright colours; most often green, purple and gold.
In this tutorial, we’ll draw a simple Mardi Gras style mask featuring feathers and embellishments. We’ll also make use of Procreate’s symmetry tools (super handy!) and use a few downloads from Creative Fabrica. This project has plenty of scope to truly make it your own, so if you’d prefer to use different colours, fonts or patterns to me, please feel free. It’s also really beginner-friendly so only very basic Procreate knowledge is required!
Below is the final project which we’ll be working towards:
Downloads we’ll be using
There are a few downloads for this project which are listed below. Ensure to install these to your Procreate app before we start, and save the digital patterns to your iPad’s image gallery.
Les Bons Temps Colour Palette
Procreate Stars Brushes
Mardi Gras Digital Pattern Papers
California Font
Let’s draw!
1. Let’s get started. The first step is, as usual, to create a new canvas. Do this by pressing the + in the top right corner of Procreate’s gallery page, and select the option Screen Size.
2. Open your Brush Library, and select the Monoline brush which is in the Calligraphy section. This is my favourite brush to use for outlines and drawing.
3. Open the Actions menu (the button on the top left-hand side which looks like a wrench) and then in the Canvas section, toggle the Drawing Guide button to on – when it’s blue, it means it’s switched on.
4. You’ll now see the drawing guide. Along the bottom of the screen, tap on Symmetry, and then done.
5. There should now be a vertical line down the middle of your canvas, like below.
6. So, with the symmetry tool switched on, it means that anything we draw on one side of the canvas will be mirrored on the other – it’s a really helpful tool for when you want to create a symmetrical element, it eliminates all of your worry about getting both sides even (it’s also a time saver!). Zoom in on your canvas and starting from the middle (so imagine where the mask would sit on the top of your nose) draw a rough teardrop shape. It’s a little tricky, so have a few tries until you are happy.
7. Zoom out, and you should now have the outline of a mask.
8. Draw an eyehole on one side.
9. And now, start drawing upside down “C” shapes around the entirety of the mask.
10. Draw the same shapes but smaller along the top of the eyeholes.
11. Can you believe how easy that was? Let’s now add some feathers, start with one vertical feather going up from the middle of the mask. Don’t worry too much if your outlines overlap or are a little messy – we can tidy that up later.
12. Repeat this with a second feather.
13. And now draw a third feather, like below.
14. Finally, draw a middle line through each feather from the bottom to top. Again, these may be a little tricky so take your time, it’s normal to have a few attempts!
15. Add a squiggly shape hanging from the bottom of the mask, this will be a ribbon.
16. Zoom in on any parts of your outlines which may have overlapped or gone slightly messy. As you can see, the top of my feather has crossed over into the other side of the canvas, so I’m just going to carefully get rid of the excess line with the eraser tool on a very small brush size.
17. And our mask outline is finished!
18. Add a new layer, and select a green shade from the Les Bons Temps colour palette. Drag your new layer below the one containing your mask outline.
19. Still using the Monoline brush, manually colour in the mask but on the new layer – be careful not to go out of the lines. The reason that we aren’t simply filling in the space is because we’re going to add our star patterns.
20. The next step depends on what you want to do. If you want to add decoration or texture to any other parts of the mask, colour each section (the feathers, ribbon etc.) in the same way we have done with the main mask – on new layers. If you know you’re going to leave these parts plain (everything except the ribbons) like I am, then you can just fill them in on the mask outline layer.
21. I’m going to colour the feathers and ribbon in a couple of different shades of green, purple and gold.
22. Colour in, or fill in, your mask outer sequins in alternate colours.
23. Select the brush named Star6 from your Stars brush set.
24. Add a new layer, and ensure that this is placed directly above the layer containing the green of the main mask, like below.
25. Tap on your new layer, and select Clipping Mask from the menu. This will attach the new layer to the one containing the green colour, which will ensure that anything we draw on the new layer will only appear where there is already colour.
26. In a gold shade, stamp the star brush randomly on the mask.
27. Stamp some smaller stars using the brush named Star40.
28. Repeat these steps on the ribbon if you’d like to – so make a new layer, and attach it as a Clipping Mask to the layer containing the ribbon colour. I’m going to use Star40 again.
29. Our mask is all finished! You can continue adding extra elements or textures if you want, there really is so much scope for you to add your own spin to this project. I’m going to add in a background and some text now. Tap on the Actions menu and then select Insert a Photo.
30. Select your chosen Mardi Gras pattern from the download and choose it from your iPad’s photo gallery. You’ll then see it appear on the canvas as a new layer.
31. Drag this layer down to the bottom of your layers list, so that it’s below everything. Use the Transform tools to stretch the image so that it’s larger than your canvas.
32. It’s looking a little too bright and our mask isn’t standing out, so tap on the image layer and then on the N next to the check box. Lower the opacity using the slider – to around 40%. This may be different depending on which background pattern you have chosen to use, you could also just use a solid colour or create your own background!
33. Open the Actions menu again, and then select Add Text.
34. Using the California font – or any other font of your choosing, add some text. I’m going to write “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” which means “let the good times roll!”
35. Next, open the layers panel and swipe right on each one which contains anything relating to the mask itself so that it highlights blue. Tap Group. This means that we can move our mask around on the canvas easier.
36. Swipe left on the layer containing your text, and tap Duplicate.
37. Tap on your duplicated text layer, and then select Edit Text from the menu.
38. Double tap on your text so that it highlights blue, and then select a different colour from the colour palette. I’m going to choose a yellow.
39. Now, zoom in and use the Transform tools to ever so slightly move your duplicated text to the left and downwards from your original text, this will make it look 3D.
Ok, so we’re all done! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial as much as I did, it’s really fun and festive, and it’s also so straightforward! You don’t have to only use this image for Mardi Gras celebrations, you could switch up the colours or patterns and make it fit any theme you like. Let us know how you got on in the comments.
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