Draw and Paint a Watercolor Crystal Cluster in Procreate

1. Introduction: Hi, there, creative. I'm Shannon, a hand letterer and artist, and I love using a lot of different tools to create my artwork. In this class, I'm going to be focusing on procreate and showing you how to draw and paint a watercolor crystal cluster. First, we'll break this cluster down into basic shapes to create our sketch, and then we'll briefly look at how light interacts with crystals so that we can capture them realistically. After that, we'll dive right into painting and blending, so that by the end of this class, you'll have created your very own version of this vibrant crystal cluster that you can share in the project gallery. The tools you'll need are an iPad and is compatible Apple pencil along with the Procreate app. As for the brushes to sketch out your design, you'll be using the six B pencil from the Procreate sketching Brestt and for the painting and the blending, You're going to be using a custom rough textured brush. We'll also be using a custom watercolor canvas that I've created, and you can download it from the projects and resources section of this class. So if you're ready to start painting, grab your supplies and I'll see you in the first lesson. 2. Let's Sketch Out the Crystals: It's really easy to draw crystals because they're geometric and made up of straight lines. We're going to start by using the six B pencil to sketch some overlapping rectangle shapes. Each of these will represent a crystal that makes up the cluster that we're painting, so you can sketch as many as you'd like in a few different directions. I'm going to be painting six, but you can start out with about three if you feel like six is too many, and I'm doing this sketching on a new layer above the paper texture. Once you've finished with a sketch, you can resize it by using the move tool and then head to the layers panel to lower the opacity of this layer. Then create a new layer on top and we're going to refine this sketch and create our crystal. Simply draw a lane and hold your pencil on the screen to make it completely straight. To create the top of the crystals, and just join two diagonal lines that meet at a point similar to how you would form the letter A. So just continue joining these lines all around that sketch that you laid until you have drawn in all your crystals. Feel free to change things up as you go if you feel like the original layer that you did isn't working. Then you can move on to creating the base of the Once you're finished, you can then delete that initial pencil sketch that you did because we're going to be using this refined sketch moving forward. The base of my cluster ended up looking a bit too crooked. So I added some drying guides to help me even it out a bit. So I didn't create a completely flat base, but I was able to dry with the help of the guides so that it is a lot more even. Now we're going to divide these Okay. For this first one, I started with a smaller diamond towards the top and I'm just going to be connecting the points on that diamond to different points to the size. Okay. Another way you can create these divisions is to just draw two parallel lines from the apex and connect those to the outer edge of the crystal and then draw two lines to connect it to the bottom. You can also look at a reference image to get a better understanding of how you can divide your crystals. These lines, they don't have to be the same length you can make them longer or shorter. You're just connecting them to the size of the crystal as well as to the bottom. 3. Painting the Crystal Cluster: So now we're going to lower the opacity of that, and we're going to start adding our color underneath our paper texture. I'm switching to the jaggy brush and I'm going to be using the lightest purple in the palette first. But before we start, I want to show you call light interactive crystals so you can have a better idea of how to shade them. Generally, you have a light source, which is what I draw num and your light source gives off light which hits the surface and with a regular object, that is where your high lights will be. Typically, that area would be the latest part of whatever your joint. But with crystals, because they're transparent, the light usually passes through that part and settles on the opposite side. So if your light source is in the upper right side, like in this painting that I'm going to do, the bottom and the left side of your crystals should be lighter. Well, the top and the right sides should be darker. So I'm going to start with my light purple first. I can pretty much start anywhere. I am going to start right here on the first crystal and at the bottom side of it. I am not filling in the entire section. I'm going to be creating a gradient. So I'm going to be adding color then blending it to a white or very light color. And in keeping this later color on the side of the crystals that are of B from the light source. So once you're finished adding those colors, I'm going to switch to the smudge brush and I want to use the same brush that I added color with. I'm just going to press on that smudge brush and it's going to automatically switch to the same brush that I used to add color. I'm just going to use that to blend that darker color into the whiter area and you will see that it creates a really nice gradient from light to dark. Okay. Now I'm going to go in and add my lighter blue, and I'm adding that in the same manner that I added my purple color by leaving out some white space. And then I'm just going back in with the smush brush to blend it into the white area. And the key to adding colors to make them pop is to add different colors next to each other. After I've added those three lighter values, I'm going to go in with next value of color starting with purple again. And I'm adding these to the areas where the light source will be hidden and these areas will be the darker areas. So you can just go around the painting and in and out to kind of see how things look together. So you can continue adding in your colors by alternating where you place them, so none of the same colors are next to each other. But overall, you can just have fun with the process. So as I got to my last face right here, you see I ended up with purple next to a crystal that had purple and run and zoom out. The two colors are kind of feeding into each other. There's no direct separation. So I had to erase that and I was able to swap those two colors and have the blue color on the outer face, and then the purple on the inner face. So that is a good example of why you shouldn't put two colors next to each other and just how you can fix it. So once you're done adding your color to the crystals, it's going to move on to painting the base. So I'm just going to be adding the colors randomly and then I'm going to just blend them together. I also use the brush to lightly blend out the bottom so that it doesn't have a flat edge. Okay. 4. Adding the Shadows: So now we're going to add darker colors on the faces that are going to have the light reflecting on them. And then I'm just going back in with the smush brush to blend in. Once you're finished with that, we're going to add shadows where the crystals overlap, just to add some dimension. So here, the front crystal is overlapping over the purple section of the crystal behind it. So I'm using the darker purple to draw in that shadow. I'm doing it for all the other parts where there is supposed to be a shadow on a purple section. When you're done adding those colors you can handle the harsh edges as well. The one it was done with the overlapping parts of the crystals adjust in and added shadows to the face, as well as white to a few ears, and then I just bended everything together. 5. Adding the Final Details: Final thing we're going to do is to separate the faces of the crystals. So you can hide the sketch there and then use the six pencil or the jaggy brush as the razor to create some white lace to separate each face. Okay. So if you would like your crystals to be a little more vibrant, you can duplicate that layer and change the blend moot to multiply and just adjust the opacity until it is the vibrant that you want. 6. Wrap up: For my lesson today. I hope you enjoyed painting these crystals with me. I look forward to seeing your vibrant painting, so be sure to share it in the project gallery before you go. I also want to encourage you to leave a review, share your thoughts on this class so that others who may be interested in learning about digital watercolor art can know what to expect. If you would like to create even more realistic watercolor projects in Procreate, you can check out some of my other classes over on my skill share profile where I show you how to paint a range of other things like vegetables, summer illustrations, aterin and even landscapes all in Procreate. Thank you so much for joining me, and I'll see you soon. Okay.