City Street in the Morning
Today we’re doing a fun little “photo-to-art” shortcut (and no, it’s not cheating). I shot this street photo myself in Ghent super early in the morning and it just had that magical color vibe, so we’re turning it into a playful, expressive painting in Procreate. We keep it simple: sketch only what you actually need, block in flat shapes on separate layers, then build up texture with a small brush set and a limited palette so it feels bold and painterly. The final “wow” comes from pushing contrast and light—Screen and Multiply masks like you’d do in photo editing—plus some lantern glow to sell that fairy-tale mood.
Brushes used:
- Basic Sketcher
- Pipeline
- Sierra
- Molesworth
- Forrester
- On the Flo
- Florentine
Canvas Size:
- 2300 x 3000 pixels
Key Skills Learned:
- Use a photo as a guide without getting stuck to it: You duplicate the photo, lower opacity, and sketch only the important structure so the result stays simplified and artistic, not stiff.
- Block in clean flats fast: You use the Selection tool (Freehand + Color Fill) to carve big building shapes on separate layers, working front-to-back so everything stays organized.
- Texture first, detail later: You lay down big charcoal strokes for color variety, then slowly tighten things up with smaller brushes and saved window selections for crisp edges where it matters.
- Control detail with distance :You keep the foreground richer and the background quieter (less texture, fewer marks), so the perspective reads without you doing a million tiny things.
- Push contrast with masks: You copy/paste a merged version, use Screen + a black mask to paint in extra light, Multiply + a black mask to deepen shadows, then finish with Curves (Gamma) and a gentle saturation bump.
Cozy Mugs
I’ve got a super cozy project for you that’s just perfect for Valentine’s Day, or honestly, any rainy afternoon. We’re drawing two adorable mugs sharing a warm moment indoors while it’s raining outside. From sketch to final lighting touches, I’ll walk you through the full process, layering in cozy details like heart-shaped leaves, a glowing candle, and even a love letter on the table. Don’t worry, we’ll keep things playful and light, with lots of room for your own little creative touches.
Brushes used:
- Basic Sketcher
- Studio Pen
- Soft Brush
Canvas Size:
- 2300 x 3000 pixels
Key Skills Learned:
- Building cozy compositions with simple shapes
Start with basic ovals and lines to lay out your scene, then gently build in cozy elements like curtains, windows, and table legs. - Layering your sketch for easy line art
Lower the sketch opacity and add clean lines on top, making decisions early keeps the line art phase fun and relaxing. - Adding dreamy lighting with Bloom and Blur
Create glowing hearts in the sky, cozy steam swirls, and a flickering candle using Bloom, Gaussian Blur, and a touch of color layering. - Using Alpha Lock for shading and texture
Add soft gradients and shadows with the soft brush to create a gentle, lo-fi vibe across your curtains, mugs, and cozy corners. - Finishing with raindrops and texture for atmosphere
Top it all off with stylized raindrops, bloom effects, and a final overlay of noise for that perfect soft, rainy-day feel.
Realistic Pear
In this cozy realism tutorial, we’re painting a simple but beautiful still life: a juicy pear sitting on an upside-down cup. It’s all about taking your time, not stressing perfection, and just enjoying the process. We start with a loose sketch, work through clean shapes and color blocking, and then build up soft lighting, shadow, and texture with loads of helpful techniques along the way. Don’t worry if your pear isn’t identical to the reference, this is your artwork, and it’s totally fine to make it your own. Let’s keep it relaxed, fun, and full of color.
Brushes used:
- Basic Sketcher
- Studio Pen
- Standard Blender
- Base Painter
- Basic Flo Brush
- Lighten Line Brush
- Darken Line Brush
- Dark Shader
- Overlay Brush
- Light Shader
- Forrester Brush
Canvas Size:
- 2300 x 3000 pixels
Key Skills Learned:
- Starting with a loose sketch – Get the shapes down quickly by measuring roughly and looking at negative space. No need to get it perfect!
- Using symmetry for clean shapes – Great for structured objects like cups, the symmetry guide helps keep everything neat and centered.
- Building your painting in layers – Alpha lock and clipping masks make it easy to add shadows and highlights without going outside the lines.
- Adding light, shadow, and texture – Learn how to create soft, realistic lighting and some fun pear skin texture with just a few brush tweaks.
- Refining with smudge and detail brushes – Blend where needed, but keep those crisp edges where it counts. It’s all about balance!
Girl with a Cat
In this tutorial, we’re drawing a cozy little scene: a girl with her white cat, sitting among simple flowers. We start with a basic sketch, block in flat colors, and then bring it all to life with texture and tiny details. It’s chill, nothing too tricky, just a relaxed drawing session with soft shapes and lots of layering. Let’s get into it!
Brushes used:
- Basic Sketcher
- Studio Pen
- Nutgrove
- Florentine
Canvas Size:
- 2300 x 3000 pixels
Key Skills Learned:
- Sketching a basic composition
Start with simple lines to block out the girl, her cat, and a few gentle curves for posture and placement, no pressure to be perfect! - Building color with thoughtful layer organization
Use separate layers for each part, like the sweater, cat, and flowers. So you can tweak things easily as you go. - Adding soft textures with charcoal brushes
Bring everything to life using Nutgrove and Florentine brushes to gently shade clothing, hair, plants, and more with that lovely grainy feel. - Creating natural flow with varied leaf and hair shapes
Have fun playing with rounded and pointy leaves, and draw loose strands of hair to add movement and softness to the scene. - Finishing with delicate details and little starry extras
Top it all off with sweet star shapes and tiny touches that make your piece sparkle without overcomplicating anything.
Kawaii Fruit
Okay, so it’s winter and I really miss those sunny summer vibes, so in today’s tutorial, we’re drawing a super cheerful bunch of fruity friends! It’s a fun, laid-back project where you can play around, move things, reshape them, no pressure to be perfect. We start with a loose sketch, build up our cute fruit characters with faces, blush, and all that fun stuff, then add color, texture, and even some sweet little background flowers to pull it all together. It’s really all about enjoying the process, experimenting as you go, and ending up with something that just makes you smile.
Brushes used:
- Basic Sketcher
- Studio Pen
- Underwood
- Round Chalk Pencil
Canvas Size:
- 3500 x 3500 pixels
Key Skills Learned:
- Using layers to stay organized
We separate each fruit into its own group so it’s easy to tweak, color, or move anything around without messing things up. - Alpha lock for easy shading
With alpha lock on, we can add texture and shadow right inside our shapes, super handy and fun with those chalky brushes! - Adding personality with cute faces
Happy eyes, tiny smiles, and rosy cheeks make your fruits come alive. Each one ends up with its own little vibe. - Mixing brushes for texture
We play with smooth and rough textures to make everything feel a bit more lively, from glossy apples to fuzzy coconuts. - Balancing your composition with details
Little flowers in the background help fill up the space and keep the whole piece feeling cheerful and fun.
Cute Yeti
Ready for something cozy and fun? In this wintery Procreate tutorial, we’re creating the cutest little yeti. He’s jumping in the air, full of joy, and surrounded by a dreamy snowy landscape. I’ll walk you through everything, from sketching that simple “tada!” pose, to layering in those fuzzy textures and soft snowy hills. We’ll build him up piece by piece, add those rosy cheeks, glowing light effects, and finish off with a cozy scene full of pine trees, soft shadows, and a glowing sun. Trust the process, have fun, and make it your own!
Brushes used:
- Basic Sketcher
- Studio Pen
- Forester Brush
- Monoline Brush
- Soft Brush
- Darken Line Brush
- Lighten Line Brush
- Flo Darka Brush
- Flo Lighta Brush
- Standard Blender
- Pine Tree
- Pine Tree Broad
- Basic Flo Brush
Canvas Size:
- 3500 x 3500 pixels
Key Skills Learned:
- Sketch simple, playful shapes for characters
Start with ovals and curves to sketch your yeti’s head, body, and sausage-like arms and legs in a fun jumping pose. - Use flat colors and build in layers
Keep everything tidy by separating head, body, limbs, and facial features on their own layers, super helpful when refining. - Add shading and furry textures
Use soft brushes and textured strokes to add fur, shadows, and subtle color changes that bring the yeti to life. - Detail the face with charm and clarity
Layer in big round eyes, soft teeth, a blushing nose, and rosy cheeks to give your yeti a warm, friendly expression. - Create a soft snowy background with light
Draw rolling snow hills, glowing sun rays, and pine trees using radial symmetry, blur effects, and soft color blends.
Mountain Cabin
In this tutorial, we’re diving into another relaxing painting session, this time, a cozy little cabin nestled in a mountain landscape. It’s not about copying the reference exactly; instead, I’ll show you how I loosely interpret it and build something a bit more painterly, more stylized, and very us. We’ll play around with composition, texture, lighting and of course, take full advantage of creative freedom. This is one of those projects that lets you focus on shapes and mood without getting lost in the details. So grab your stylus, let’s go!
Brushes used:
- Basic Sketcher
- Flotastic Brush
- Flotastic Sketcher
- Flotastic Hair
- Flotastic Inker
- Flat Painter
- Lighten Line
- Darken Line
- Smear it Around
- Soft Brush
- Dabby
- Flowers 2
- Wild Grass
- Flower Field
Canvas Size:
- 3000 x 2000 pixels
Key Skills Learned:
- Working loosely with clipping masks and alpha lock
You’ll see how I use them to build depth, play with lighting, and add detail without messing up the base layers, super handy! - Creating painterly shapes with expressive brushes
We’re not going for photo-real here. I’ll show you how to use brush shapes and textures to get that loose, impressionistic vibe, especially for the mountain and grass. - Using blur to push depth and softness
Perspective blur adds a nice dreamy effect in the foreground, I’ll guide you through a few smudging tricks too to blend skies and soften shapes. - Layering textures to build detail
We experiment with different brushes (yes, including some “flower” brushes that totally work as grass) to create texture in the rocks, field, and cabin. - Finishing touches that add atmosphere
Little things like a vignette, lighting layers, and a bit of noise go a long way in making the whole piece feel more polished and moody.
Stylized Outer Space Scene
Let’s create a super dreamy outer space scene together in Procreate! This one is easy, really satisfying, and perfect if you just want to relax and have fun while making something beautiful. We’ll layer soft, puffy clouds, add glowing lights, sprinkle in lots of stars, and even create some cute little planets. I’ll walk you through everything step by step, and as always, feel free to make it your own! Let’s jump in and get creative.
Brushes used:
- Tidewalker
- Studio Pen
- Light Pen
- Ragged Lane
- Ringaroona
- Jagger
- Winkly
- Sheer Water
Canvas Size:
- 2000 x 3000 pixels
Key Skills Learned:
- Creating soft watercolor backgrounds
We use the Tidewalker brush to build up a smooth gradient sky with subtle zigzags and some light smudging for texture. - Drawing layered puffy clouds
With the Studio Pen, we stack clouds in all sorts of sizes, keeping the bottoms a bit flat for that classic stylized look. - Adding dreamy glow effects
Using a layer set to Add and the Light Pen, we make the clouds shimmer, then tone things down with a layer mask for balance. - Sprinkling in colorful stars
We use a mix of brushes and colors to create a sky full of fun, varied stars, from soft dots to bright little sparkles. - Painting simple textured planets
With the Jagger and Winkly brushes, we add two cute planets, then finish with a few loose rings and glowy details to make them pop.
Kawaii Christmas Tree
In this tutorial, we’re going to create the cutest kawaii-style Christmas tree ever, chunky, cheerful, and full of festive charm. We’ll keep things playful and relaxed while using some of Procreate’s lovely new brushes from the latest update. Whether you’re drawing to unwind or just in the mood for something joyful, this is going to be such a fun one to follow along with!
Brushes used:
- Velleia
- Night Heron
- Wapping
- Goshawk
- Shearwater
- Philosopher Falls
Canvas Size:
- 3500 x 3500 pixels
Key Skills Learned:
- How to use symmetry for quick and balanced shapes
We’ll turn on vertical symmetry right at the start to make shaping the tree super easy. One side draws the other, such a satisfying shortcut! - How to add soft texture with alpha lock
You’ll use alpha lock with textured brushes to paint light and shadow, giving your tree that lovely chunky depth without messing up the shape. - How to make your lights glow with Bloom and blur
We’ll layer on string lights and sparkles, then use Bloom and Gaussian Blur to make them pop with a soft magical glow. - How to build up simple details for a rich look
From mossy ground to leafy shapes, you’ll layer in fun little elements that bring charm to the scene without overwhelming your tree.