Create a Vintage Orange Seamless Pattern in Procreate

In this article, we’re going to use Procreate to draw a vintage style orange pattern, complete with leaves and small flowers. It’s got tropical vibes and is bound to make you feel like you’re by the beach on a hot Summers day!

All of the tools which we’ll use in this tutorial are presets within Procreate, so you don’t have to download anything unless there are specific brushes or colour palettes you prefer to use.

So, let’s get started. The first step is to create a new canvas, do this by pressing the + symbol in the top right-hand corner of your gallery page. Select the canvas size named square.

Now we have our canvas set up, let’s get drawing. First, create a new layer. Open the brush library, and under the calligraphy section, select monoline.

Select an orange colour and set your brush size to around 10%. Draw a rough circle on the page, this will be the basis for our orange.

It doesn’t have to be exact as fruits aren’t exact shapes. Ensure that you don’t hold down the stylus and snap the shape to a circle.

Fill in your shape with orange, by dragging a colour from the top right-hand corner colour tool.

Tap on the select tool, which is the fourth icon along on the top left side, which looks like a cursor. You should now see the transform menu appear, use this to move and resize your orange. Don’t make it too big as we’re going to fit a few on this canvas.

Create a new layer, and then select an orange tone just slightly darker than the colour of the fruit. Draw a small cross shape that is going to be where the orange was joined to the tree. Reposition or resize this as applicable.

Now let’s add a little dimension to the orange. We’re not going to add much, as vintage patterns are typically quite flat.

Open the brush library and under airbrushing, select soft brush.

Go back to the layer containing the orange, tap on the small preview image and then tap on alpha lock.

Using alpha lock will ensure that any colour we add, will stay on the orange. For a quick guide to Procreate’s masking tools, check out this article.

Using a colour a little darker than the main shape, add some shading to the side. Your brush size should be around 30% and opacity around 20%. Take a little time to experiment with the sizes to find something you like.

To make the shading look a little softer, tap on the adjustments tool (the button which looks like a magic wand) and then tap gaussian blur, and then layer.

Slide your stylus across the screen to adjust the blur. I’m going to set mine to 12%.

Repeat this step with a slightly lighter shade to the right side of the fruit. The effect is very subtle but it just gives a little dimension.

If you’re happy with the look of your orange and the placement of the cross, open the layers panel and tap on the cross layer. Select merge down to merge the layers together.

You should now have one layer containing the orange.

Select the monoline brush again, and draw a second orange, but this time in a lighter shade. Repeat the steps above and create light and shadows using soft brush and gaussian blur.

Position your second orange so that it’s slightly behind the original one.

Open the layers panel and swipe right on each one to highlight them. Tap group.

You can now move your oranges around as if they’re one element by using the transform and move tools.

Open the layers panel again, swipe left on the group, then tap duplicate.

Repeat this step four times, and position your four pairs of oranges on the canvas.

For this step, it’s very important that none of our elements overlaps the edges of the canvas, as we want to be able to create a seamless pattern.

Create a new layer, and select the monoline brush alongside a dark green colour.

Draw some leaf shapes like below.

Select a lighter green, and draw a line up the middle of each leaf.

Use the gaussian blur to soften the lines.

Tap on the select tool to resize your leaves if you want to, and then in the layers panel, drag the leaf layer down to the bottom so that it’s behind the oranges.

Swipe left on the leaf layer to duplicate it as many times as you wish.

Position more leaves around the canvas. Play around with the positioning of the layers, so that some are under the oranges, and some are over.

Open the layers panel and swipe left on each layer and group. Tap group in the top right corner.

Choose a dark colour, this is a temporary background that is going to act as a guide – so don’t worry about picking one which you’ll want for the finished project.

Create a new layer, tap on it and select fill layer.

Tap on the small N next to the check box on the new layer, and then adjust the opacity slider down to 50%.

Move the fill layer down below the group.

Group all of these layers together again.

Swipe left on the group and duplicate it.

Zoom out on the canvas so that you have a full view alongside some of the surrounding area.

Select the first layer group.

Tap on the select tool (the button which looks like a cursor) and move the contents of the layer to the bottom half of the page. This can be a bit tricky, but use Procreate’s magnetic guidelines to get it exactly halfway.

Go back to the Layers panel, select the next group and repeat this step – but move the other group to the top of the page.

Expand the groups and delete the fill layers.

You’ll also see that there are some gaps. Open the groups and duplicate some of the leaves and fill the gaps in. Again, be careful not go to over the edges of the canvas.

Again, create a new layer and then fill this with a dark colour.

Adjust the opacity again to 50%.

Swipe left on every layer and group in the project, and then group them all together.

Tip: if you receive a warning message that you don’t have enough space for more layers, open some of the groups and merge down elements to free up layer space.

Now you have two groups again, select the lowest one.

Repeat the steps above, but move each layer group to the left and the right this time.

Fill in the gaps again with more leaves. Remember not to go over the edge of the canvas.

You may want to leave the pattern here, but we also have the option of adding a little more detail.

I’m going to add some small white flowers, which you typically see on fruit plants.

To do this, add a new layer and draw a rough oval shape with pointed ends like below.

Duplicate this layer five times and position them to make a flower shape.

On a new layer, draw a few stamens in a yellow tone.

Once you’re happy with your layers, merge them down. If you have a lot of layers free (i.e. if you have an iPad Pro or one with a lot of storage), you can just group them if you’d prefer.

Duplicate your original flower and reposition them across the canvas as you wish.

We’re almost there! We now just need to choose a background colour. Do this by scrolling to the bottom of the Layers panel and tapping on the background.

I always find it hard to decide which colour I want the background to be, so I usually save a few different versions with different colours.

You can now use this pattern for digital backgrounds or as backing papers for card making or scrapbooking. You can duplicate the pattern as many times as you want and it’ll always match up – it’s seamless!