Setting Up Your Procreate Canvas

First things first: you need a canvas to work on. Upon opening the Procreate app, you’ll see the gallery view. This is where you can view all of the existing artwork you’ve made. Click the plus sign in the top right corner of the screen. Tapping on the first option, “Screen Size” will take you right into the canvas.

Once in canvas, you’ll see tools organized in three sections: the top right of the screen, top left of the screen, and along the left side. There are a lot of tools to digest, so we’re only going to focus on the main ones you need to get started:
Actions

Clicking on the wrench icon in the top left toolbar gets you to Procreate’s settings. This is where you can make adjustments to your canvas and tools. Play around with the settings to find what works best for you. We recommend turning on the light interface and brush cursor.

Quick Menu

After you’ve exited out of the Actions menu, tap and hold anywhere on the canvas screen to bring up Quick Menu. You can customize this menu to contain actions you frequently use, like rotating your canvas. It’s a great shortcut to save time as you create artwork.

Procreate Brushes

Tap the brush icon in your canvas toolbar to choose which brush you’d like to draw with. The brush menu is organized by two core elements that are endlessly customizable: shape and grain. To begin, we suggest selecting one of the default pencils, found in the section titled “Sketching”. The app comes with over 100 pre-installed brushes but if you need more options, it’s easy to to download brushes created by other artists.

Smudge Tool

Right next to the brush icon, you’ll see the smudge icon. Smudge offers the same brushes as the ones listed under the brush icon. This tool is great for blending, mixing colors and softening brush strokes.

Erase Tool

The eraser, to the right of the smudge icon, also has the same set of brush options. You can use this tool to undo mistakes and remove pigment. The eraser can also be used to blend.
Layers

Layers, to the right of the eraser icon, allows you to isolate elements of your drawing for manipulation and effects. You can designate a primary layer and create as many secondary layers as you need, continually moving, grouping, adjusting, merging, blending, or otherwise manipulating your layers to build your artwork.

Color

Tap on the color dot, next to layers, to bring up your color menu. Simply drag down your pencil to choose your color. You can save colors to create your own custom color palette here as well.
Brush Size and Opacity

The left side bar contains sliders where you can adjust brush size and opacity. You can use the opacity slider to control how strong your brush stroke and smudge are. You can also use this slider to control how much pigment your eraser removes.

Undo and Redo

You’ll see buttons to undo and redo your work in the left sidebar. You can also simply tap your screen with two fingers to undo, and tap with three fingers to redo.

Alright, you’re ready to start drawing! Create whatever you like for your first artwork — a person, an object, an abstract. In this tutorial, illustrator and Skillshare teacher Jarom Vogel is going to show you how to draw a character.