Playful Fruit Illustration in Procreate: Abstract Blueberries for Beginners

1. Welcome: Welcome to another beautiful Procreate Illustration class where you will learn how to make this wonderful blueberry artwork. This class is specifically designed for beginners. It will guide you through step by step with encouragement while learning all the tools of Procreate. Hi, my name is George, and I've been a professional artist for over 11 years. Five years ago, I've fallen in love with teaching, both online and in person classes. With over 20,000 wonderful students all around the world, I've developed this interesting way of teaching that focuses on the project and on having fun while learning in the process. Don't worry. If you have never illustrated before, this class is for you. It will teach you about shapes, about color harmony, about abstraction, and, of course, about Procreate. All you need for this class is the Apple Pencil, the iPad, the Procreate app, and, of course, let's jump into it. 2. Color palette and brush: Before you start this class, you need a canvas and you need to go on the plus over here and the plus below it. The Canvas should be 6,000 by 4,000 pixels and a DPI of 250. This will give you about 18 layers, depending on the iPad you have. You don't need more than ten layers to just finish this illustration. Let's create it. Once you have created it, you need to go onto the resources page of this class and download first. The brush, it's going to be called silky, and you are going to find it on the resources and projects page of this class. Download it once you do, go on to brushes. Click on plus, Import and navigate to where you download it on your iPad. Click on it. Once you click on it, click Done. I will click Cancel because I don't want to create a new brush, and you will also need the blueberry color palette. To inport the color palette, you can navigate over here on the plus New from file, go to wherever you downloaded the beautiful color palette and click on it. And after that, it will look something like this. That's all you need to make this illustration. 3. Background color and texture: For the first step, let's zoom out a bit just so you can see the whole canvas, go onto the background and select this color over here. Once you've selected that color, navigate to the first layer, you should already be on the first layer. This is where you find the layers. Go onto the brush, artistic, find the leather with brush. Make it quite big. You make it quite big by going over here, make it to about 40%. Let's actually make it 56, and the opacity should be at around 9%. Go on to discolor over here, the next one to it, and start adding some textures in the background just so you can make it more interesting and textured. Notice how every time you just raise your pen and do it once again, it creates more textures and more layers on top of each other, okay? That's more obvious. Once you select the third color over here, it does not really matter what kind of abstract shapes you make and textures in the background, just a few. Keep in mind to just go into the middle over here and add a bit more texture in this area. That will make especially with this color over here, since it's the lightest color. That will make the middle of the illustration a bit more to the forefront. Notice how it's a bit bumpy now. That's all you need for this step. 4. Main leaves: The next beautiful step, you will need to create another layer on top of this one. Go on to the brush. Namely the silky brush and the color over here, the green from over here. And let's start creating a leaf. You can create a leaf by going like this and making it pointy, so curved and pointy. And then the opposite, you can just connect it like this. Make sure you have all the ends connected. Notice how it's connected over here and over there, there are some lines over here that I should erase. Also, the tip should be a bit more pointy. Notice how you can erase some of the imperfections. Once you do that, you can drag this color from here onto the shape, and now you have a leaf. Okay. Now, in order to make more leaves because just one, it's not enough. Let's go onto the layers, swipe to the left, duplicate it. Okay. And now here comes the trick. You go over here onto the movement tool. That's how it's called. If you don't have it on uniform, click on Uniform. And now let's move it. Click on Warp, and let's warp this leaf just a bit more so that it's more different. Notice how much more different it is. Click on Uniform, once again, make it a bit smaller, rotate it, and move it right over here. Notice how easy it was to just duplicate and make another leaf. Okay. Once you do that, you can go back to the layer with the first leaf. Do the process once again, go onto the movement on uniform. Let's move it somewhere so you can see what's going on. Let's rotate it. Let's warp it. Quite a bit and make it thinner this time. Let's just make it very, very thin and a bit smaller. I think that's quite enough. Okay, we can also go on distort just so you know what the stort does. It just warps the perspective a little bit, and it makes it a bit more interesting. It's easier to work with than warp. Okay. And once we have the right shape, we can add it right over here. Notice how it's looking more like a bird than a leaf. So what we can do is click on the eraser, make sure it has some kind of an inking brush. The silky one is good enough. You need to make it a bit smaller to about 12% and go over here and erase some of this bird looking shape. Okay. Now, let's connect everything. Perfect. By pinching down the layers, you merge all of them, so now you can go onto the brush. And with the silky brush selected, you can drag and create a beautiful stem going from this one, maybe we are going to create it a bit more to the right and then connect it like this. That looks perfect. And that's all you need for this step. 5. Alphalock and color variety: This next beautiful step, you need to go onto the layers, click on the layers with the foliage, with the leaves, click on it, and click on Alpha lock. The alpha lock basically locks in the colors so you can only draw over something that has the color that you've added to the layer. And let's go onto the artistic Leatherwood brush so you can get a sense of what that means. Go artistic leatherwood, then onto the colors, pick this beautiful vibrant color. Remember that this is at 33% and opacity at around let's put it at 14 or 15% is good enough. Now notice what's going on. You add texture and vibrancy to these petals without going on the outside. If you were to undo the lflock you would paint everywhere. Okay? So this makes it so that you only paint in the outlines of the leaves. Okay? Let's go and pick the color that we've started with and add over this complicating a bit more and adding a bit more texture to the leaves. Okay. Once you do that, you can go onto discolor over here and add some of this color on top. Notice how it's making it a bit darker. Perfect. And, of course, let's add just a little bit of discolor over here. The second one onto the beautiful ends of the leaves. Notice how they are becoming so much more vibrant and beautiful. Can also add it to the underside, just on the edge. Perfect. And that's all you need for this step. 6. Multiply the leaves: You've learned about how to duplicate each individual leaf, but now you are going to learn how to duplicate and change things a bit more than just individual leaves, and you're going to do that by duplicating the layer. Now we're going to move it with the movement tool. Let's flip it horizontal. And we're going to try to warp it so that it looks super, super nice. Let's warp it a bit. Don't worry too much about the shapes. Just make it visible. Just try to make it nice and visible. Notice how we can drag these things around until they are super nice and they look somewhat believable and different than the ones that you've painted underneath. Okay. Once you've done that, you can also go onto the eraser and erase a bit of these shapes. Just where they feel like they are too long. Notice how this leaf is competing a bit too much with this one, and this one is way too tall. Okay? Another thing that you might notice is that these beautiful leaves are almost the same. Well, actually the same colors as the ones in the background. So we need to change that. Let's go on to this color over here. Go back to the leatherwood brush, make sure it's at 34%, and about 12 or 10% is good enough. And now you can add a bit more vibrancy to these leaves so that they stand out a bit more. If you are wondering why this layer already has alpha lock is because it has inherited this from the layer below. When you duplicate it, you also duplicate the settings. Some other settings might include this one, which is darken, multiply, normal, screen, all kinds of other useful things. Let's click on normal and once you do, let's go on this beautiful yellow and add some just at the top edge of these leaves. And, of course, let's go and add a bit more of this dark color in the middle, so we make these leaves a bit more interesting. Okay. Let's click on the eraser and erase this stem, just a tiny bit, so it's not so visible. It was just going nowhere. And this one as well over on this side, making it seem like it's from the same stem, okay? Perfect. Once you do that, another thing that you can do is select two layers. You already have this one, which is blue, selected, and you can drag to the right to select another layer, and then you can click on move, and you can distort, warp and change the layer as you wish, the two layers. Notice how it's much more nice now that we've edited the shape a little bit. And of course, we also need to make it a bit bigger. Perfect. Just a tiny bit more. And that's all you need for this step. 7. Small adjustments and tools: Okay, you've added some leaves onto the foreground. Now we need to add some leaves into the background. So let's go onto the layer below, the first layer over here. And let's duplicate it. Once you've duplicate it, click on the one that's below, so you have everything below the two layers above. Notice how it's behind it. Okay. Let's flip it horizontal. Let's warp it and position it better so that we can beautifully create new leaves. Notice how if we are going to rotate it, that's going to be a bit easier. That looks nice. Let's maybe flip it. No horizontal, but vertical. And just positioning this one, let's make it even smaller because things in the background tend to look way, way smaller. Another cool thing that you can do is untick these beautiful layers, go onto the selection tool. This is another beautiful tool that you can use. And this tool lets you, if you go on free hand, lets you draw around a leaf or a shape like this. And once you click on that beautiful circle. You can click on Move. And basically, now you can move this individual leaf and position it wherever you want. Let's do the same to this one over here. This one, let's warp it a bit and also move it. Okay. Once you move it away from the other leaf, you can go over here and add it over. Okay? Notice how this one is quite behind. We can select it and move it somewhere where we can see it like over on this side. Perfect. Maybe a bit more like this. Just hiding behind this beautiful leaf. Okay. This one seems nice. We need to select the other one which is behind this big leaf over here. So let's select it. We've selected a bit of this one. So let's select it once again. Click on the circle, click on the movement tool, move it somewhere. We can see it. Okay. And now let's select it again. Select it again, and let's move it right over on this side. Perfect. Now, we need to go onto this darker color. Remember, it already has the alpha lock. All we need to do is go on the brush and add a few more darker textures. Okay. You can also go on this color over here and add even more dark underlying tones. Okay. If you don't like something, you can go on to the movement tool, which is this one over here and warp it to your heart's content. Okay, I think that looks nice. Perfect. And that's all you need for this step. 8. Background foliage: The next step, we need to add even more leaves in the background. Notice how these areas are empty. All you need to do is click on this one. This is the best layer to duplicate just because it has the leaves just organized like that. Duplicate it. Okay. Click on the one below it. And let's move it around uniform. Rotate. Move it right over here. Notice how it has that stem. You can leave it like that or just change it a little bit. I'm going to erase some of it from over here. Okay. Once you do that, you can duplicate it once again. Move it somewhere else, maybe outside over here. Don't think too much about it. Just duplicate the layers, move them around, can even increase the size, make them come from the outside, duplicate this layer, can even overlap them if you want. Overlap them like this. Something like this would look nice. Now let's do a few more. This is super easy and intuitive. You're just playing and positioning until you feel like they look quite nice. Okay, let's rotate it a bit more. That's perfect. And once you do, I think one more, you can also squish the layers a bit. And duplicate it if you ran out of layers. Okay, let's move this one right over here and warp it just a tiny bit so it looks nicer and then move it a bit more. Let's rotate it just so it looks kind of like this. That's perfect. Now let's merge the layers, all of them that have the leaves that are totally in the background. Remember, it already has the beautiful Oh, no. I've done something bad. I've merged the layers, these ones. I shouldn't have merged this one because this one is part of the leaves in the middle. So I should be a bit more careful with that. Let's duplicate this layer once again and move it over here as we did before and rotate it like this, position it. That looks nice. Now let's remember not to do this layer over here, merge the ones below. And it already has the alpha lock, and we're going to go on to discolor over here and pick up, increase the opacity to about 80% and go and add some textures onto some leaves and then go on to discolor over here, add with that color some textures onto some of them. Then you can move to this one. Well, this one over here, Notice how it's much more visible and interesting. Once you add it to the leaves, they become much nicer. Okay. Let's add a few textures. And of course, we can just add a bit more over here since it doesn't look that appealing. That looks nice. Okay. Do it a few more times until it looks better. Let's go on to the discolor and add a few textures on top. Okay. And that's the beautiful background and how you complicate things a little bit just to make it nicer in the background. Of course, you can complicate it as much as you want. I think that's just about enough. 9. Berry Circle: Okay. Before you start on this step, let's move these leaves by selecting them and make them a bit bigger, just a tiny amount bigger. Okay? Notice how they look a bit nicer this way. If you don't like the lines that you've done on these layers, you can go ahead and click on the eraser and then erase some of them, make sure you are on the correct, beautiful layer. And erase some of the lines that you don't like. I didn't like this one and this one. Okay. Perfect. Once you do that, you can move on to creating another beautiful layer. And for this layer, let's select this color over here, this beautiful blue. Make sure you have the inking brush, the silki that you've downloaded and make a circle. Hold down your pencil, click one finger, and now you have an almost perfect circle. Once you do, drag this color on top of it, and now you have a blueberry ready to be duplicated and ready to make many more beautiful blueberries. Okay? That's all for this step. 10. Duplicating the berries: You did with the beautiful leaves you are now going to do with the blueberries. You guess that we are going to duplicate the layer. Duplicate it. Move it over on this side. Let's actually undo that. Let's move the one below. Okay. Let's warp it just a tiny bit, so it's a more misshapen blueberry. Let's position it over here. Maybe a little bit more to the left or the right. Okay. Let's duplicate it once again. Now, a cool trick that you can do is grab this layer over here, the last one, and hide it underneath the beautiful leaves. Notice how it's hiding behind the leaves. This will create a lot of depth and, of course, a lot of interplay between shapes. It will make the illustration look much, much better. Okay. Now we can duplicate this one. So you have another one behind over here. Notice how much more interesting it looks this time. Duplicate it once again. And move it over on this side this time, making it a bit smaller. Perfect. Okay. All we need is to go over here, duplicate it, move it somewhere around here. I think that's perfect because it's hiding. It's hiding that small tail. And of course, we can go and duplicate one that's below. Move it even lower. So we create even more depth. If you don't have enough layers, you can already merge some of them down by pinching like this. But let's first move this one over on this side, creating a bit more depth this way. Okay, and I think that's enough blueberries. In the next step, you will learn how to texture all of the beautiful blueberries with the alfoc as well as the leatherwood brush. 11. Shading the berries: Step, let's find this big, beautiful blueberry. I think it's this one over here. Perfect. And let's just No, it's over here. Make sure. And let's add a beautiful texture with the leatherwood brush. It needs to be a bit smaller to about 18% opacity to about 9%, and let's add some darkness to it with this color over here. On the right side, oh no, remember to add the alpha lock. They all need alpha locs. So adding alpha lock, notice how it's changing gradually, Okay, because it's low opacity. We can go on this beautiful pink over here and add some of that pink onto its side. And that's all you need for this specific blueberry. Now, let's move to the other one, which is behind it. You can always just do it and undo it like this. Let's go on to discolor the blue. Remember to add the alpha lock. You've already done it. Okay, let's add it. Just as a color. You can also go onto this color over here and add some of that blue over the top. Okay. Let's move back and add some of this blue on top of this blueberry, as well, going back to the pink and adding it on top. Perfect. Now, let's change this one, see how it looks. Perfect. And alpha lock it, of course, gone to the pink, we can add some of the pink. Gone to the blue over here, the dark navy blue. Add some of that. Let's put in some purple. Let's add some purple to it. And of course, some highlight by going onto discolor over here and adding just a tiny bit of highlight like that. Okay? For the ones in the background, it's a bit easier just because you can merge them down, click on them, Alpha lock, go with a bit of a darker tone. Just add some textures on top of them. Just a little bit of textures, go onto a lighter tone, maybe this one over here. And of course, a darker town just to create a bit more depth. And after that, some lighter tones on top, just swirleing it around a few times to create some textures. Okay. And for the last one, just a little bit of touch up. Let's go on to this color over here. Let's add some darkness to it. Let's also add some of this blue from over here. Oh, no. We forgot the Alpha lock. Amazing. Let's alpha lock it first. Okay. And we've added just this blue. All we need to do now is add some of that darker color. Speaking of that blue, let's go on to the first one, which is this one over here and add some of this blue, just a tiny bit. It looks so much nicer and more vibrant. Okay. Adding a little bit. And another thing that you can do is go onto the beautiful smudge tool. You can also go onto the leather wood, make the opacity a bit lower and the size to about, let's say, 14%. And you can smudge these areas just a little bit so that well, let's smudge them a bit more. Not that much, a bit less. Let's smudge them a bit so they don't look so crazy. Okay? We can go back to the brush and add some of that blue, that turquoise, and some of that dark color onto the right. Notice how beautiful this blueberry looks. And in the next step, you will make the beautiful things on the blueberries, the ends, the bits. 12. Small shapes and details: This next step, you can merge down the few layers that you have if you don't have enough layers, and let's add another beautiful layer. Okay. Let's go on this color over here, this purple onto the silky brush. Once you have the silky brush, just go over here and let's create a beautiful star square just going like this and like this, and maybe like this, complicating it a bit more. Perfect. Okay. Go onto the movement tool, the warp, and just move the middles a bit more, so it's a bit more squarish. It's not that much of a star. Okay, let's alpha lock this layer, and you guessed it. Let's go onto the leather wood brush, make it a bit smaller, the opacity a bit higher. Go onto this blue, add a few textures. This blue over here. And of course, we can add some of this dark of the background, just creating some nicer lines. Another cool trait that he can do is use the inking brush, make it a bit smaller and use some saturated dark colors such as these, and add some lines. Don't worry too much if they are too visible. Okay. Let's go on to this color over here. And add it on the sides. Okay, now going back to the leatherwood brush, artistic, leatherwood brush, and we can add some textures on top so that these beautiful lines that you've just created are a bit less saturated. Okay? Perfect. And, of course, let's go onto the blueberry below, and a cool, nice trick that you can do is add a bit of a shadow onto the right side of this shape. And you can do that by grabbing the artistic leather wood brush. It's already quite small to about 6%, but the opacity needs to be about seven. And with this dark blue over here, we can just add a few touch ups onto the right side of this shape. Notice how it's creating a bit of a shadow. To accentuate that even more, you can go on the layer with the star and go onto a lighter color, add a few touches onto this side to create a nicer look. I think that this middle needs to be a bit darker, and it's time to teach you about one tool, this magic one over here, the adjustments, go on to adjustments and then hue saturation, and let's make it darker. Notice how we can create it a bit darker, make it nice and dark. Perfect. That looks so much nicer. Okay? We can also erase some of the shape just to create a nicer looking star square. Okay, that looks gorgeous. 13. Final details Thank you: This next step, you can pick up some of this color, this dark purple from over here. Let's create some beautiful noses on this beautiful blueberry over here. First, we need to undo the alpha lock, and let's select the right brush, which is the silky brush. And let's create a beautiful nose of this blueberry over here. Okay. And for this one, let's make it a bit more triangular, more like a crown. Okay. And we can erase some of the edges over here, making this one a bit more like a crown as well. Okay? If you want to make them bigger, you can select them with the free hand. And let's make them a bit bigger. Just a tiny bit bigger. Can also use the warp just to change the positioning. Okay? I think that's enough. Let's change the other one, which is right over here. Let's select it, move it. And we can warp it just a bit around so it looks much better. Okay? Now let's alpha lock the layer. Okay. Going on to the brush, go to artistic. Grab this beautiful blue over here, and let's add just a few textures just so they don't seem so flat. Okay. Can also grab some of this color and add some of that on top. Okay. Another trick that you can use with the free hand selection tool. Let's say you like this one over here, select it. Click on the round circle, copy and paste, and now you have another crown that you can use as a separate layer, and now you can move it wherever you want. Like, for instance, right over here. Okay. You can also, of course, duplicate it, can merge the two layers below, or you can just leave them like that and change it over here. Let's also warp it just so it looks a bit more different and it's smaller. That's nice. Okay. And the last one over here, let's add. Let's duplicate this one right over here. So let's merge all the layers with the noses, and let's select this one, copy and paste, and then we can already move it by clicking on Uniform and move it maybe over on this side. Perfect. Let's zoom in quite a bit and warp it. Just a tiny bit like this. Perfect. And that's the finished illustration. You've learned so many things. You've learned how to duplicate layers. You've learned how to merge layers. Let's merge them down. And you've also learned about the alpha lock. You've learned that you don't need to make so many things. You can always just duplicate layers around and then move them, rotate them, warp them, distort. You've also learned about the selection tool, the freehand selection tool, about the copy paste. You've learned a little bit about hue saturation and brightness over here. You've learned about layer positioning. You've learned how to make this wonderful background. Notice how much more of a difference it makes. Okay, it would be looking very, very flat, and you've also learned about how to draw leaves and blueberries. Thank you for watching. And if you are gracious enough, please leave a review. It will really help others know that this class is for them as well.