Digital Art Course for Beginners: Procreate

What you'll learn

Learn how to draw and paint on your iPad using the Procreate app with our Graphic Design Courses in Sydney!

With Procreate, you can unleash your creativity by turning your iPad into a digital art studio. Procreate provides the opportunity to draw or paint using your iPad using its brush and shapes options, using your Apple pencil in combination with hand gesture control. You can also import your existing hand-drawn sketches or photographs and transform them into digital artwork.

Procreate is user-friendly and is accessible to use anywhere allowing you to sketch on the bus, in the park or at home. All you need is your iPad, Apple Pencil and your imagination. Learn how to use Procreate's intuitive tools to sketch, paint, shade, use colour and apply effects in this hands-on Procreate beginners course in Sydney.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this Procreate course, you should be able to:

• Create artwork using the Procreate app, employing a wide range of drawing and editing skills
• Use the creation and selection tools
• Use brushes and also be able to apply effects to their artwork
• Understand the difference between raster and vectorised art
• Know how to colour their artwork - making and using their own colour palettes and also creating them directly from photographs and how to recolour existing work
• Understand file formats for saving and sharing their work

After finishing this course, you might like to enrol in Learn Procreate Course for Continuers.

Course content

What will be covered in this Procreate course?

Session 1: Basic interface & getting started

• Outline of why Procreate is such a popular and powerful tool in the design industry
• Introduction to the key Interface tools and preferences
• Creating a new Canvas + Resolution and Colour Profiles
• How to then resize if necessary
• Understanding how size and dpi affect the number of layers available
• Using an existing file or illustration from photographs as a starting point
• Brush Basics and brush sensitivity
• Quick Shapes

Session 2: Starting to create a drawing

• Introducing some shortcut gestures.
• Drawing Guide and Symmetry
• Layers and Blend Modes
• Selection Tools and editing selections
• File Formats and saving your work and ways of sharing.

Please note, Sessions 1 & 2 will be combined for intensive Saturday workshops.

Session 3: Colour

• Introduction to the Colour palettes and the ways you can create your own palette the colour panel or from a photograph
• Different ways to recolour artwork via the colour panel
• Creating a gesture shortcut
• Adding colour interest through Transparency
• Adjusting colour with the Magic Wand

Session 4: Editing existing artwork and applying special effects

• Masking to create clean edges via clipping masks and layers
• Applying different effects to your artwork via the magic wand and selection cursor
• Understand different ways to be creative with the tools
• Saving work in a format for printing

Please note, Sessions 3 & 4 will be combined for intensive Saturday workshops.

Intended audience

Who is this Procreate course for?

This course is for beginners.

Course venue

Rozelle Campus

2A Gordon Street, Rozelle NSW 2039 (corner of Gordon St & Victoria Rd on the grounds of St. Joseph's Church)

Course materials

What to bring to class

• Students need to bring an iPad and an Apple pencil. See the list below for compatible iPads.
• Students need to download the Procreate app (the approximate price of app-only is $14.99 AUD available from the App Store).
• Please make sure all devices are fully charged and also bring a charger to class.
• A pen and notepad for taking notes.

Additional information

Please note the following:

You can use Apple Pencil (2nd generation) with these iPad models: 

• iPad mini (6th generation)
• iPad Air (4th generation and later)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later)

Apple Pencil (1st generation)

You can use Apple Pencil (1st generation) with these iPad models:

• iPad mini (5th generation)
• iPad (6th generation and later)
• iPad Air (3rd generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (1st and 2nd generation)
• iPad Pro 10.5-inch
• iPad Pro 9.7-inch