How to Blend in Procreate
When you learn how to apply Procreate tools to your art, you will start to get more comfortable not only using the Procreate app, but the act of digitally drawing. This is how you can build confidence about your work over time. Of course, there are some days where you don’t feel like drawing or feel stuck in a creative rut, and that is ok. The idea is to keep growing and learning so you can get better and, ultimately, create as much art as you can after iterations and experimentation.
Blending in Procreate can feel daunting at first, but I assure you that there are ways and techniques to get started. In this post, I will share two Procreate tools to perform two different blending effects: a background gradient effect and a color blend. If you prefer to learn from a video tutorial, it is provided below. Let’s dive in!
Create a Gradient Background
If you want to learn how to blend, it is important to become familiar with the Gaussian Blur tool, whether you are creating a gradient background or not. Gaussian Blur can help make blending a variety of colors fast. It is not only limited to blurring a background, you can use it to blur a round 3D object and more.
The steps to create a gradient background is provided in the following:
On one layer, create several rows of different colors you want to blend. You can consider transitioning light to dark colors or vice versa. You can stick to one color in different shades or different colors for each row.
Duplicate the original layer and select the duplicated layer for the blend. This is to ensure you have the original colors intact in case you want to go back and adjust. It is generally a good practice to keep an original copy, so you can freely explore and experiment without worrying about affecting the original.
Go to Adjustments and select Gaussian Blur.
Slowly drag the bar from right to left to adjust the blur level. The adjustment shows as a thin blue line. The higher the percentage, the more intense the blur.
Select Adjustments to save and exit your effect.
Blend Manually
Another way to blend an object is to blend manually using the Smudge tool. The Smudge tool can be easily access on the top right corner of your canvas panel. When using the Smudge tool, be sure to have all the colors you want to blend be on a single layer. Consider using a Soft Brush and adjusting the opacity of the brush as needed to create the blended effect you want. It might take a few tries to apply the effect.
If you want to keep the blend within the limits of the object, have Alpha Lock on your layer. Also, you can create different overlays of the blended effects to make the effect more interesting. I encourage you to play and experiment with this yourself, so let your imagination run wild!
If you would like to learn more about Procreate, the blog post titled “Procreate Tutorial for Beginners: A Step By Step Guide for Unleashing Your Creativity” provides an in-depth tutorial of foundational features of Procreate. Let me know if you have any questions about Procreate in the Comments section, I would be happy to help! Good luck!
Happy creating,
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