2024-A2 - Procreate: Intro to Digital Hand Coloring with Dave Rueckert

• The workshop will provide a gentle introduction to the Procreate digital painting app. While Procreate is an intuitive and relatively easy app to use, it has powerful tools and a deep feature set that can be intimidating for new users. The workshop is therefore designed to ease beginners into digital painting while providing experienced users with instruction in specific intermediate techniques.
• The workshop will be of interest to:
  • Experienced traditional artists users who want to learn to add digital color and textures to their existing artworks.
  • Beginners who want to learn Procreate.
• Participants must bring examples of their original, traditional artwork or black and white photographs - see below for details.

See the course cover image for examples of what can be done

• The Still Life - is a black and white woodcut print with digitally painted colors and composited textures
• The Lighthouse - is an ink brush drawing on hot pressed watercolor paper with digitally painted colors. Note: you can make copies and try multiple color versions!
• The Building Street Scene - is a pen and ink drawing on cold pressed watercolor paper with digitally painted colors.

The Instructor

David Rueckert has 20+ years of full-time, college-level teaching experience digital and traditional arts and graphic and media design. He holds an M.F.A. degree in Art & Visual Technology with a specialization in Digital Arts from George Mason University, and an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts (Studio) from the University of Mary Washington. He has taught numerous workshops at the Virginia Beach Art Center.

What Participants Need to Bring

• An iPad with the Procreate app installed and ready to use. See if Procreate is supported on your current iPad or what iPad to purchase - https://procreate.art/faq
• Procreate can be purchased from the Apple App Store for $12.99 as of this writing
• Apple Pencil - Highly recommended, but not required. You can even use your finger or other styluses if they are compatible. But, you will want to use an Apple Pencil - in combination with iPad and Procreate it is amazing! You will need to determine which version of Apple Pencil (Generation 1 or 2) works with your device: https://www.apple.com/apple-pencil/ Purchase at Apple Store, Amazon, etc.
• Note: The instructor has non-pressure sensitive, rubber tip styluses he can lend if you don't have a stylus. It's nothing like an Apple Pencil, but much better than your finger!
• Images of your original, traditional artwork or black and white photographs to enhance with digital color and or textures. These images should be:
  • Black-and-white, grayscale, or monochromatic. The following are great to use:
    • Black pen and ink or brush drawings
    • Prints - done in linocut, woodblock, drypoint, etching, lithography, etc.
    • Pencil or charcoal drawings may also work
    • Black and white photographs that you would like to colorize

• Digitized - Ideally, scan or photograph and crop your image(s) to size before the workshop - approximately 8 x 10 to 9 x 12 inches at 240 to 300 dpi. If you can’t or don’t know how to do this, you can take them to an imaging service to do it. As a last option we can photograph and crop some images in the workshop but probably will not get as professional a result as using a dedicated scanner.

What We Will Cover

• Adding digitally applied hand coloring and composited textures to existing traditional artworks or black and white photographs.
• Procreate Interface - Painting Tools, Editing Tools, and Sidebar
• Mobile Device Gestures for Procreate as needed
• Using Apple Pencil
• Procreate Gallery Basics
• Creating a New Painting or Opening an Existing Image to Use in Procreate - Naming, Dimensions, Color Profile, Time Lapse Settings, Canvas Properties, etc.
• Basics of Working with Colors
• Basics of Working with Brushes
• Basics of Working with Layers
• Compositing Textures
• Managing Files

Why Digital Drawing and Painting in Procreate?

• Procreate is arguably the best overall drawing and painting mobile app available.
• The combination of drawing and painting directly on a mobile device screen with a stylus is the most efficient, economical, capable, and portable way to make digital art.
• Basic Procreate tools are easily accessible for beginners, but it also has incredibly rich features that will meet the digital drawing and painting needs of the most demanding professional artists.
• Procreate is an incredible value. It can be purchased for a one time payment of only $12.99 - an amazing price given the features provided.
• Procreate is made especially for and only works on the Apple iPad. It takes great advantage of mobile device gestures and works amazingly well in conjunction with the Apple Pencil.
• Procreate Pocket is also available and works on Apple iPhones only.

Sorry, Procreate does not work on any other hardware. No Apple computers, Android mobile devices, or Windows computers, etc.

Side Note:

Procreate is a deep application that cannot be covered comprehensively in one limited weekend workshop. Be advised we will focus on coloring and texturing existing artwork. We will not cover all the advanced features of Procreate.