Paint With Me: Food Illustration For Instagram on iPad Pro and Procreate

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Alessia, and I'm here today to take you with me through the process of designing a digital illustration using an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil. This is going to be with Instagram sharing in mind. We're going to learn how to crop, resize, and share it immediately with our audience. Today's class is for everyone and it's a way to add some work to your portfolio or just to your social media feed. We're going to break this in three simple stages, from the simple sketch to the final details. When it comes to digital painting, I personally never felt much pressure because it's such a non-permanent way of making that you can always edit, crop, or delete completely what you made and there is no mess around you or on your table. For the illustration is something started to do when I didn't know what to draw or paint exactly and it felt natural to me to just grab something around the house or on the fridge and make a still life out of some food items. I guess they're using food photography as a reference was a way to make food illustration more exciting with all these colors and details, especially when you look at picture in really high definition. If you enjoy digital painting and you're always short of ideas to share with your following or you want to try something different. This is the class for you. 2. Your Class Project: For your class project, I would love to see your illustrations. You can share it down below with the community on Skillshare and if you want some immediate feedback, you can tag me on Instagram with the hashtag alessiasketchbook and I will show you stories and give you feedback and what I think about your artwork. 3. Before We Start: Whether you are familiar with procreate or you're new to it, you can follow along and enjoy the process. If you're a complete beginner, it could seem a little daunting, at the beginning it could be a little more challenging, but please don't be discouraged during the class anyway because I believe in expanding our range of skills by trying new things all the time. All you need is an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil. You don't need any special brushes or special Images, you can find that on Internet. I usually use Unsplash. It's a free database of royalty-free images. It's very easy to use. When it comes through brushes and tools that you can use in procreate, you can absolutely use whatever you want because it is your own style and everyone has their own preferences. Yeah, you can use what I use or you can choose your own and make it your own style. Let's set up the Canvas and let's get started. 4. Setting Up The Canvas: Let's start by setting up the Canvas. As I'm working with a reference image next to my workspace, I choose a 8,000 by 4,000 pixel resolution, which is a good number of layers. Then I insert the image I've downloaded from Unsplash and I position it where I want it on the screen. The next step is to erase the rest of the image because I'm going to draw on the right-hand side. I set up the background color, select a pink drawing brush, and I'm now ready to sketch the first layer of the painting. 5. Preparatory Sketch: I'm going to draw some lines to determine the proportions of the subject. The doughnut's, in this case. It doesn't have to be precisely this stage, this is going to be a guideline for future drawings. I suggest to open a new layer before starting to draw, and I forgot to do this. I can fix it at a later stage, but it's easier to keep the reference image on a different level. On a new layer, I'll go over the lines with a darker tone or applying more pressure on the screen. This is going to be a more precise version of the drawing, as the aim for this painting is to be realistic. So I'm not obstructing too much from the original image. Once I'm happy with it, I can go to the next stage, adding the first touches of color. 6. Matching Colours: At this point, you might want to explore and try out different brushes because it's going to have an impact on your final result. I like to lay a first block color to use as my base, and from that, I can work on the different shades of the same color. Matching the colors with the reference image is not always straightforward. I usually try and lay different ones until I'm happy with it. If you feel stuck, try the eyedropper function to pick the exact color. You can do that by holding the square in-between the controls on the left-hand side and the color you want to pick on the image at the very same time. It's a good way to learn what specific shade that, that color is made of. As you can see, I'm trying to get the volumes right by having darker shades where the light is not directly hitting the doughnut. Even though we can't see the light source, it's likely to be on the top left, hitting the doughnut surface and leaving the inside of the circle darker. H on mishears. Ere, I'm creating a bottom layer in a very light pink, almost a white. You don't have to do that, but I find that it makes the colors on top more vibrant. Now, I can start adding the base for the next phase of this painting, which is adding the details, getting one step closer to the final image. 7. Adding details: For this painting, I want to get most of the shapes and colors right, but I still want to look like an artwork and not a photo of a donut. When filling up the details, I don't worry too much about the perfect volumes of the sprinkles, or the exact texture of the cake inside. As I mentioned before, I forgot to create a separate layer for the reference image, so I'm inserting a new image on a new layer so that I can delete the first sketch if I really want to, or just hide it if I don't need it anymore. Then I carry on with more details and swapping the order of the layers to achieve the right transparencies. I'm using the blender tool a lot because the surface of the donut look very smooth, and I want to replicate that in my painting. You don't have to. Remember, we chose the brush at the beginning knowing that it would make the final painting look in a certain way. Therefore, if you choose another brush, you're going to have a very different view. You're going to have a fresher painterly look rather than this illustration-like artwork. 8. Finishing Touches: This is starting to look like a doughnut now. I still want to add some finishing touches such as the darker tones right where the doughnut touches the surface, creating some shadows. To do that, I tend to use a darker shade of the same color that I'm using, or very transparent whites and blacks. Sometimes the right tones come from a combination of all these layering rather than the precise shade of color that you chose. I finish up this last details, and I'll see you in the next section where we're going to crop and export our final image. 9. Crop and Export: Before saving the file, let's crop out the reference image and cut it to a square because we've designed this work to share it on Instagram. That's Instagram format, that's a square. I center the doughnut and crop it to the nearest size with equal sides. In this case, I chose 3,600 by 3,600 pixel because I like how it looks, how it's framed. Once cropped, your work is ready to be shared. Open the Actions tab, select, "Share," and then select "JPEG," and export in your favorite way. I usually go for an AirDrop to my iPhone, which is where I use Instagram. You're now ready to share your work with your following. 10. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for watching and follow along in this class. I hope you enjoyed what you've seen and I hope you enjoy the process as well. Giving you some simple strategies on how to create something for your following in very easy steps that you can put to work every time you want to put some of your work out there. I would love to hear your feedback and to see your work either on the community down below and on Instagram with hashtag alessiasketchbook. Please feel free to share it at any stage because I love to see work in progress. I love to see sketches with bits of paint and splashes you're in there. Thank you again, and I'll see you in the next class. Bye.