Starting Fresh with Procreate
I decided to download and learn Procreate. I did some design in college when I was majoring in web design. I did business cards for people, logos, also some web design- but that’s about it.
I wanted to create an app for my kids. Hear me out…
It’s an app that helps them do their chores. They would have a little pet that they would get to take care of, dress up, and change their room.
But in order to do any of that, they would have to complete all the chores in the app that they were assigned.
Why I started
Enter my sister telling me about an app called “Finch”, ha ha. Basically, the adult version. I looked to see if there was a kid version or a way to have multiple users on one account, but I didn’t see any. (So hint, Finch, you should create a kids’ version of this!)
Anyway, I wanted to make this app, and I didn’t want to pay for anyone to design it, since it was just going to be for my kids at first. So I decided to try it on my own. Here’s what I came up with:
Little fox I created from scratch
Not bad, huh? But I felt like I didn’t quite capture all that Procreate could do. That’s when I decided I really wanted to learn more about illustration, not just for the app, but also because I’ve always wanted to illustrate my own children’s book.
So I started taking some classes, and here’s the art I created step-by-step in the class.
First Procreate course project
Learning by Experimenting
I learned about:
- Texture
- Different brushes
- Layers (similar to Photoshop, which I had already done some design in)
- Masks
- How to combine them all to create these mushrooms.
The teacher said it was hard to mess up on mushrooms since they all look different anyway, ha.
Then I decided to try it on my own. We were at a park with my kids and some of their friends, and my son, daughter, and her friend were sitting under a tree.
I made a quick sketch of them on the first layer. Then I used different brushes, smudging, and layering to create this piece of art!
My very first attempt on my own
I was pretty proud of what I did, even though it’s pretty amateur, ha.
Growing with Every Line
I think that’s one of the hardest parts about learning something new:
Letting yourself be okay with being a beginner.
There are moments when I look at my work and feel like it’s so far from where I want it to be. But we have to start somewhere.
We have to make mistakes, use the wrong brushes, say the wrong things, and do the wrong things to grow, learn, and become better.
A year from now, I know I’ll look back and be glad that I took these first steps. These first pieces are just as much a part of the journey as the polished projects I hope to one day create.
I’ll keep posting some of what I create. I’m excited to keep going and to see how my work grows over time. Thanks for being here with me on this journey.