Dreamy Digital Landscapes in Procreate - Beginner Friendly + Free Brushes Included!

1. Introduction: Do you want to create stunning digital landscapes like these while learning the basics of procreate. Then this class is for you. Hi, I'm Julie Ermentrout. I'm an artist and surface designer from Vancouver, Canada. I loved the outdoors and being in nature, camping and exploring while photographing my adventures. These photos and experiences have inspired many of my artwork. In this class, I'm going to take you step-by-step creating these beautiful digital landscapes while teaching you some of the basics of the Procreate app. This class is great for beginners, but also a fun and easy project for more seasoned procreate users. So feel free to join me no matter your level. I've also created a free color palette and some brushes for you to use in this class. If you've already got your iPad, then you're pretty much ready for this class. So without further ado, let's get started. 2. Supplies and Project: In this class, I'll be showing you how to make these for nature-inspired digital painting. The supplies you're going to need for this class is an Apple iPad and Apple Pencil. And the Procreate app, which you can easily download from the App Store. I've also got some free brushes and a color palette that I've created just for this class. You can find these in the projects and resources section. Just download these files to your iPad. Navigate to them in your file out, and click on them to upload to appropriate. Your project for this class is to offload one or more of your finished paintings to the project section of the class. In the next lesson, we will jump right into our first painting. So I'll see you there. 3. Crescent Moon Demo: So to get started with our first painting, we're going to click on this plus sign and then the black plus sign. And we're going to create a canvas that's 3,000, 5,000 pixels in size. On the left you can see I have pixels selected. And I've also got it at 300 DPI and the number of layers, I've got 112 layers. Don't worry if you don't have that many layers, we won't need nearly that many for this project. So starting with that color palette I created for this class, I'm going to select that lighter blue color and the marker brush and just make it as large as possible. And starting from the bottom of the canvas, I'm just filling it in with that color. And it doesn't have to be precise here. We're going to blend this out. So now we're going to select that darker blue color starting from the top. We're going to fill the background. We're just going to meet in the middle and kind of overlap a little bit. So now we're going to click on the little magic wand tool for under adjustments. Click on Guassian blur. Now you can see I'm dragging my pen to the right to make it more blurry or to the left to make it less blurry. I kinda like it about there. And now I'm hitting the plus sign under layers to add a new layer. Now back to my color palette, I'm selecting this very dark blue color. It almost looks black, but it's definitely dark blue. And using the same marker brush. Let's looking a little big. So I'm going to tap with two fingers to undo and just drag the size a little bit down. And now you can see I'm creating a little mountain shape and then filling it in, just dragging from that color and dragging it over. Now we've got these mountain shapes. I'm going to go back into my brush library and pick one of these trees that I created. You can select any one of these four tree shapes. And we're just going to adjust the size a little bit, make it a little bit bigger, and just start tapping away. Now they will change sizes a little bit depending on the pressure. I did set it up that way in the brush settings. So just be aware. I've done a couple of those. I went back and just selected a different tree brush. And now I'm just tapping again. Again, going back to another of my tree brushes, I'm going to use all four just to create some variety. And just tapping away until it's solid and you no longer see the line of that mountain, though, does keep on adding those trees until it looks pretty filled in. Okay, I think that's looking pretty good. Now I'm going to go back up to layers and hit the little plus sign. Add another layer to our artwork. Now I'm going to click hold and drag that below the tree layer. So now I'm gonna go back to my brushes and select these stars to brush. We're just going to select the white color from our palette. Now I adjusted the size, just a touch, and now I'm just tapping around the canvas to add some little stars in the background. Now I'm going to select my other stars brush and you can see these are a bit darker and bigger. So I'm going to adjust the size of it there and just keep changing and tapping to give it some variety. And I'm hitting the plus side under layers to add a new layer. Now I'm selecting this really light yellow color and going back to brushes and selecting my marker brush again. Now I'm going to draw a really not very good circle shape and hold it down. And then tap with one finger to create a perfect circle shape and fill it in. Now back in my layers, I'm going to swipe left to duplicate that moon layer, and I just filled it in with a random color. It doesn't matter what color. Now with that arrow slash Move Tool selected, I'm just moving that second circle to kind of like cut out the moon shapes. So kind of adjust that second circle until you got the yellow part looking how you want your moon shape look like. Next I click on the Selection tool and I've got automatic and add turned on, just tap on that purple circle shape. Now without touching anything else, go back into your layer and select the bottom layer. And now you're going to swipe down with three fingers and this little cut and paste dialog box comes up and then you're going to click on cuts. Now you can go back into the layers and swipe left on that purple circle and delete it. And now we've got our crescent moon shape. Now with our moon shape layer selected, I'm going to click on the arrow tool and go down to the snapping and turn snapping on. Now I'm just going to move it until it snaps to the middle of that vertical line. Next I'm going to click on adjustments and select bloom. And then drag my pan across to increase the bloom. You can see what's happening here. There's some other adjustments that you can make. I'm just going to play around until I like the way it looks. It kinda gives it like a glow. So now I'm pretty happy with that. So now our first painting is complete. And that was pretty easy, wasn't. So in the next lesson we're going to do another painting like this. So we will see you there. 4. Mountain Sunset Demo: So to get started with this next painting, we're once again going to use a 3,000 by 3,000 pixel canvas. We shouldn't be saved in your list from the last painting under colors, under the same color palette, we're going to use this dark blue color on the far right. Once again, using our marker brush, we're going to start creating some more of those mountains shapes. I'm dragging from the corner to fill it in. Now we're going to add a new layer. And then from the color palette, select the second darkest blue color. And I almost forgot, you gotta go back to layers and drag that second layer underneath the first one. Now we're going to draw another mountain shape that's a little bit taller than the first one. Make sure you draw all the way to the edge so you can fill that one in, add another layer and drag it underneath. Now using the third darkest blue color, draw yet another mountain behind the first two and fill it in. Now, add one more layer and drag it below the first three. Now we're going to select that lightest blue color and draw one last really tall mountain behind all the others. And once again, make sure to go all the way to the I just see you can just drag and fill it in. So now go back to your layer one and just click on it to select that layer. And here I'm just pressing my finger on that dark blue to select the color roster, go back into your brushes palette and select one of those tree brushes. Now I'm just tapping along the edge of that dark blue layer to add a tree line. So just like the last one, I'm going to use all four of my tree brushes to create some variety. Just keep tapping along the edge of that blue layer. And I'm just going to keep going with this until it's pretty filled in and you can no longer see that straight line. So just continuing to tap and adjust the size of the trees and just creating a really nice full tree line. So now I'm going back to my layers, hitting the plus sign and dragging that new layer behind all the others under colors, I'm going to select this yellow color underneath the blue one. I'm gonna go back to this marker brush again. Now I'm going to start to fill in the background with this yellow color and just kinda draw up toward the top and back under colors. I'm going to select this orange color and just keep on adding color. Now I'm going, I'm selecting this blue color. Then once again, I'm going to go back to this purplish color and fill it in until the background filled with color. Now just like we did before, I'm gonna go under the magic wand and select Gaussian Blur and then drag my pen to the right to make a nice blurred effect. So now I'm adding yet another layer, but keeping it above that background layer. Now with that really bright yellow color and the marker brush, I'm gonna draw a circle. And once again, I'm going to hold it down and then tap with one finger to create a perfect circle. And also just move it around with my move tool. So it's kind of in that little valley in between the mountains. Again, like we did in the last one, I'm gonna go to the wand tool and click on bloom, and then drag my pen just a little bit, just to add a little bit of a glow to that sunset. So now we're going to add some texture to these mountains. I'm going to click on the actual color part of that layer. Then under the selections that come up, I'm going to select Alpha Lock, pressing down with one finger to select that darker blue color. I'm going to use that stars brush to just add a little bit of texture to the mountain range. I'm using the color both below and above that mountain range to add both dark and light colors. And now I'm doing the same with the other mountain ranges, but I'm leaving the one with the trees in the front alone. So just clicking on the layer and turning on alpha lock, and then just tapping lightly with my brush to add a little bit of texture. So now I'm adding a new layer just above that sun layer. Once again, selecting that really light yellow color. Now in my brush library, I'm going to scroll down to the one that says elements. And then click on the clouds brush. This brush comes with your procreate app. I'm going to adjust the size a little bit and then just start adding a few clouds in the background to add a little bit of texture and visual interests. So now this painting is complete and I think it looks really beautiful. In the next lesson, we'll move on to our next landscape painting. So I'll meet you there. 5. Ocean Sunset Demo: So we're going to start this painting with another 3,000 by 3,000 pixel canvas. We're gonna go into our colors and select the aqua blue color here. Under brushes, we're going to scroll back up to our custom brush set and use our familiar a marker brush and adjust the brush size so the highest it'll go. Now I'm going to draw a line straight across the canvas and hold it down and then tap with one finger to make it a perfectly straight line. Now, let it go and drag that same color over to fill it in. We're going to add another layer by hitting the plus sign and dragging it underneath that first one. Now we're gonna go into our color palette and select this dark orange in the bottom-right corner. With the same brush, we're going to just start filling in the rest of our canvas. Now we're gonna go back to colors and select this pink color. And continue filling in our Canvas. We're gonna go back to colors and choose the darker purple. I'm fill it in the rest of the way. So now we'll go into our adjustments and click on the Gaussian Blur. Drag your pen to the right to create this really pretty gradient effect. Now we're going to select this bright white color and add a new layer in-between those two we've already created, continuing to use this marker brush. I'm gonna draw a circle and hold it down and touch the screen with one finger to make it a circle. And now I'm just going to drag and drop to fill it in. Now I'm using the Move tool and clicking on snapping and turning snapping on. Now I'm just going to snap my son here to the middle of the canvas and just drag it down. So about half of it is hidden. I'm just making it a little bit bigger here because I thought it looked a bit small. So non-white back to adjustments and selecting the bloom adjustment. I'm just dragging it a little bit to give it that glow. Now back in my layers, I'm selecting that blue layer, clicking on the color, selecting Alpha Lock. Now going back to my brushes, I'm going to use this ocean waves brush, which you can actually find in the elements that I showed you before going in with this light blue color. Now I'm making it a little bit smaller. Starting from the top of that blue section, just going to lightly drag my pencil back and forth across that blue layer. Now I'm adjusting the size just a little to make it a little bit bigger. I'm bringing it further down the canvas. Now I'm going to just keep making the brush bigger until it reaches the bottom of the canvas. Now I'm just going back over a few sections to increase the brightness in those areas. So making it smaller again, I'm just going to go back and color and a little bit more right in front of the sun to sort of give it a reflection in the water. And just keep adding more waves here and there to give it some depth. Just brightening up those waves a little bit more, especially right in front of the sun. So now under layers we're going to add one more layer on top of everything and select the black color from our palette, not the dark blue, black. And I'm going to select the marker brush again and just make it a bit smaller. Now I'm just going to add a few very simple birds by just creating these little V-shape in the sky so we can get even smaller. I'm actually just going to zoom in by pinching and draw some little V-shaped birds in the sky. So adding another little V-shaped bird above the sun here. And one more over on the left to give it some balance. So one more quick tip here. When you're zooming out. If you pinch really quickly like that, you can actually make it expand to your full screen. So now our ocean painting is all done. And we're going to move on to our last painting in the next lesson. We'll see you there. 6. Northern Lights Demo: Alright, so we're gonna start with another 3,000.3 thousand pixel canvas. Under colors, we're going to use this bright blue color with our marker brush. I'm going to drag the size all the way up and start filling in the background from the bottom towards the top. The background of this one is gonna be pretty similar to the first painting we did. Using this color until it's a little bit over halfway. And then going back and selecting this dark blue color and just filling up the canvas all the way to the top. So now I'm gonna go to adjustments and select the Guassian blur and dragging my pen to the right to create a gradient. Now I'm going back to my layers and adding a new layer on top. Now I'm going back to that really dark blue color. Under brushes. I'm going to select one of my tree brushes. Now I'm bumping up the size all the way and starting at the very bottom, I'm just going to tap a few trees. Now I'm selecting another one of my tree brushes and just doing the same. The worst sort of trying to create a solid mass of trees at the very bottom of the canvas. So we'll do the same thing with all four of these tree brushes. So just tapping and tapping and filling it in until it's really pretty dark at the bottom and basically almost solid the very bottom of the canvas. So make sure you have a variety of sizes of the trees here. So now I'm going to add a new layer just above that gradient to the background. And I'm going to select this white color. Now I'm going back to my brushes and using the stars to brush, bringing up the size and just tapping on that background to add stars. Now I'm going back with my stars brush and doing the same, just varying the pressure and size each time. I tried to overlap them a little bit to make it look more natural. Now I'm going back and adding another layer above the star layer. And in colors I'm selecting this really bright green color. Now going back to my marker brush, I'm going to turn down the opacity just a little bit. Now I'm going to start just drawing some wavy lines back and forth across the sky. I'll adjust the size a little bit to add some variety. I'm going to click on adjustments and then go down to the Liquify tool. With the push option selected. I'm gonna just start swirling my brush around and making those lines look all abstract and wavy. Now I'm going to twist them and just kinda play around with these different liquefy tools until it looks how I want it to. You might have to do this a few times to get it how you want. It takes a little bit of practice. Now, when you're ready, you can go back into the adjustments and select Motion Blur. Now the blur will go in the direction that you drag your pen. So I actually want to do an up and down motion blur. So the more I dragged my pen down, the stronger that motion blur is going to be. For this effect. I want it more in the middle. You still want to see the lines. And like I said, this might take a little bit of practice. So I'm actually just going to delete this and do it again using that same green color. I'm just going to redraw those wavy lines. And again, I'll go to adjustments, liquefy and just play around with these Liquify tools until it kinda looks how I want it to. One tip is to actually not go too overboard with the Liquify tool. You don't want it to look like, to swirly and crazy. At least if you want a more realistic look. Though, background or adjustments, I'm gonna go to the motion blur and then dragging my pen down to give it that motion blur effects. And finding that sweet spot. And I think I got it this time. So now this painting is all done. So join me in the next lesson where we'll wrap up this class. See you there. 7. Conclusion: In this class, we created these four amazing digital landscape paintings that you can share wherever you like to post your art. If you share your work on Instagram, make sure to tag me at Juilliard and signs so I can see it and share it to my Instagram stories. Don't forget to post your project here on Skillshare and leave me a review if you have a moment, it really helps me prepare my future classes. You can also follow me here on Skillshare to get notified about my new classes. To learn more about me and my artwork. You can visit my website, Julie Aaron designs.com. Thank you so much for taking this class with me today. We'll see you in the next one. Shares.