Mastering Color in Procreate: Theory, Palettes, & Digital Illustration
In this class, you'll learn how to use and apply color in your digital illustrations to create striking artwork, with a lot of practical exercises, resources, and demonstrations to help you along the way.
We'll cover:
- Colour theory principles to enhance the mood and composition of your illustrations
- Procreate-specific tips and tricks for using color
- Finding colour inspiration and collecting palettes
- Practical tips and tricks for choosing colours
- Experimenting with using different palettes within the same composition
- Creating your own palettes from scratch as well as using pre-made palettes
- Basic lighting techniques
- Tips for adjusting and polishing finished work
Color plays a huge role in establishing the mood and storytelling in our art. It can be used to create a specific atmosphere and help convey emotions, as well as having a big impact on the composition and readability of your image.
We’ll begin the class by going over some handy colour theory principles which will help you understand how to think about colour and what to be aware of in your illustrations, before moving on to our practical exercises and demonstrations, which make up the majority of this class.
I’ll be guiding you through several exercises to get you more comfortable experimenting with and using colour in both a playful and meaningful way, as well as showing you how I go about choosing colours in my own work with a few in-depth demonstrations.
I’ll provide you with several pre-made linework drawings so you can get straight to the coloring part of the process, but you’re more than welcome to use your own drawings if you prefer.
Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced artist, this class will give you the tools and practice you need to understand and apply colour effectively in your work.
I’ll be demonstrating this class using Procreate on the iPad Pro and focusing mainly on using colour in digital art, so you’ll get the most out of this class if you’re also using some form of digital drawing software whether that's Procreate, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fresco, Affinity Designer, Sketchbook, or another app.
My goal is that by the end of this class, you’ll feel more confident at making bold and creative color choices in your work and come away with a deeper understanding of how to communicate moods and stories using colour.
So if that all sounds good then let’s get started!
Lessons
- Intro
- Class Overview
- Contrast & Balance
- RGB vs. CMYK
- Procreate Colour Interface
- Exercise: Word Prompts
- Inspiration & Collecting Palettes
- Project & Resources
- Exercise: Value Thumbnails
- Exercise: Colour Thumbnails
- Demo: Moth & Flowers
- Demo: Lighthouse
- Demo: Kitchen
- Final Piece: Colour Blocking
- Final Piece: Shadows & Highlights
- Final Piece: Textures & Details
- Thank You
Meet Your Teacher
I'm Sarah, an artist and illustrator from Scotland. I create playful, narrative based artwork inspired by nature, imagination, and emotion. I graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design with a BDes (honours) in Animation in 2016, and have been freelancing since 2019.
Empowering other creatives to develop their illustration skills is a big part of my work. As a Top Teacher on Skillshare, I’ve helped over 43,000 students level up their practice by sharing my own techniques and processes.
I hope you enjoy the class! If you have any questions about it, feel free to send me a DM or email hello@sarahhollidayart.com.
Other places to connect:
Subscribe to my newsletter (you'll get my favourite procreate brush as a sign-up gift!)