Creating a Pattern Sheet: Practice Drawing Patterns in Procreate

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Mar 15

Creating a Pattern Sheet: Practice Drawing Patterns in Procreate I by Larissa Yeung Fung

I got sick recently and had to spend a few days in bed. I started to realize, I had been working nonstop since late December last year. Being sick is a sign for me to slow down. After I got better, I was trying to take it easy while still being creative. And it just came to me: why not just draw patterns? It’s pretty easy, doesn’t take long to plan, just draw whatever comes into my mind.

And that’s how I came up with this tutorial: create a pattern sheet in Procreate and draw lots of different patterns. I really enjoyed the process when I was filming it. Very therapeutic. What’s also good about this practice is that the pattern sheet can inform my future work. Whenever I need to draw patterns, I can just pull out the sheet and see which ones would go well with my work.

Creating a Pattern Sheet: Practice Drawing Patterns in Procreate Tutorial | the Challenge

Finding Inspiration

I have put together the following inspiration board on Pinterest where you will find lots of pattern drawing examples. They inspired me to draw my own patterns. Hopefully they can do the same for you.

See Pinterest Board

Making a Sketch

The sketch is really just to outline different sections on the canvas. Have a look at the Pinterest board above and you will find artists outlining the sections in different ways. The goal here is for you to draw lots of patterns on a single page. Plan the sections in whatever way you like.

My canvas size is 3000 px by 4000 px, by the way. You can make it any size you want.

Creating a Pattern Sheet: Practice Drawing Patterns in Procreate Tutorial | Sketch

Drawing Color Blocks

After making the sketch, I decided to fill in the sections with a color. I like having a background color for my patterns.

When doing this step, you will see in the tutorial that I broke away from my sketch at some point. I never follow my sketches strictly. I always trust my intuition and just draw or paint what feels right to me at the time.

Drawing Patterns

Now I can totally set my mind free and draw different patterns using lines, shapes, and colors.

I created a clipping mask for the color blocks when drawing the patterns. In this way, I can make sure the patterns stay within the area. And since the color blocks and the patterns are on separate layers, it’s easy for me to make changes individually.