Procreate Watercolor Brushes and What to Paint with Them

Watercolor is a wonderful and versatile medium that can be used to achieve a variety of effects, from delicate washes to bold, vibrant brushstrokes. Sure, sometimes it can be difficult to work with, but the results are often well worth the effort!

It also encourages experimentation and creativity. Experimenting with different brushstrokes, differing amounts of water in your paints, and layering different colors to achieve a variety of effects can result in satisfaction and enjoyment for artists of all levels.

Plus, watercolor paints are lightweight and portable, making them easy to transport wherever you go! And with the digital era, making watercolor paintings has never been easier thanks to Procreate! This means you can paint anywhere you are, whether at home, on vacation, or in nature.

Procreate watercolor brushes

It's jam-packed with features and tools that make creating professional-quality digital artwork on your iPad or iPhone a breeze. Procreate's wide range of watercolor brushes is one of its standout features, allowing you to create beautiful watercolor paintings with just a few taps.

While Procreate's brushes work well, they are not the best on the market. This is why we provide this fantastic Watercolor Brush Set! These brushes accurately simulate traditional watercolor brush effects, putting this set miles ahead of the defaults. This pack includes 144 brushes as well as a bunch of bonus content. If you’d like to make watercolor paintings, this is where to start! As a plus, up your watercolor game with these Watercolor Paper textures, which include 50 different paper textures that will work perfectly with your new Procreate Watercolor brushes.

Want to try just how awesome this pack is? Here’s a free Watercolor sample set for you to try out!

How Freya actually uses these brushes

These aren't guesses. This is how Freya demonstrates the sets inside her Watercolor Brush Set lessons, brush by brush, on a real canvas.

Wet on Wet: soft washes that spread

The Freya Wet On Wet brushes simulate painting on wet paper with a brush full of water and color, so the pigment spreads and stays soft. If you've painted traditional watercolor, it's the same feeling as wetting the paper first and letting the color bloom into it.

Freya reaches for these when she paints a big area like the sky, or anywhere she wants the color to look soft and seeping rather than crisp.

Wet on Dry: the pressure trick

The Wet On Dry brushes feel slightly viscous, with a darker edge where the "water" pools, and they blend into neighboring colors when you paint over them lightly. The trick is Apple Pencil pressure. In the lesson, Freya explains why the color behaves backwards from what you'd expect:

"Because it's watercolor, the nature of watercolor is that when we press the paintbrush, the color is faded. You can play with how much weight you use."
(Freya, in the Wet On Dry lesson of the Watercolor Brush Set course)

Press to fade the color out, lift slightly to bring it back. Freya uses exactly this move to paint a leaf or a petal in one stroke: draw the shape outline, press without lifting your hand, and the fade does the shading for you. She also points out Freya Wet On Dry 18, a two-color brush she built herself: pick two colors (say beige and purple) and light pressure gives you one, firm pressure the other, mixing on the way.

Water Tank: instant blots

The Water Tank brushes copy those refillable water brush pens where pressing the handle floods the tip. Touch the screen and water blooms out, leaving a realistic blot. Freya uses them for fast backgrounds and loose watercolor abstracts, or just leaves a wet stroke to dry into a blot on its own.

Blender Wash: rewetting dry color

The Blender Wash set works through the Smudge tool, not the paint tool. Dab or drag it over a dry-looking stroke and the color turns watery again, like touching a wet brush to dried paint. The set has variants that behave differently on purpose: some pull pigment outside the shape, some soften only the edges, and a small one handles tight areas.

One habit worth stealing from Freya's Bird of Paradise walkthrough: she deliberately does not smudge everything smooth. She leaves streaks and color stains visible, because that's what makes people ask whether the finished piece is real watercolor or digital.

A quick layer recipe from the course

When Freya paints a full piece with these brushes (the Bird of Paradise lesson runs 38 minutes), her layer stack looks like this:

• Sketch layer on top, blend mode Multiply, opacity lowered.
• Base layer: trace the closed outline with the Freya Shaping Pen Rough, fill with white. Everything above it gets a Clipping Mask so color never escapes the shape.
• A paper texture layer painted lightly in light gray with the Freya Paper Textures brush, blend mode Linear Burn.
• Color layers: lightest color first with Wet On Wet, then a second pass of darker shades with Wet On Dry, smudged here and there with Blender Wash.
• Finish with a few sharp lines from the Freya Colored Pencil brush and small dabbed white highlights, kept thin and uneven.

Two color layers plus highlights is all it takes. The realism comes from the brush behavior, not from hours of rendering.

What to paint with Procreate Watercolor brushes

Now that you have your new brushes, here are 5 superb watercolor painting tutorials to follow!

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1. Deer and Rose

This gorgeous combination of flora and fauna is sure to liven up your love of nature. This Deer and Rose Watercolor tutorial might look complicated at first but with an expert guiding you along the way, this is easy peasy so jump straight in and paint this beaut!

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2. Fox and Scenery

The beauty of orange foxes lies in their striking appearance, graceful movements, and adaptability to their natural habitat. They are a fascinating and unique species that are a joy to behold in the wild.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to paint these lovely creatures in a vibrant setting that gives off a fantastical vibe.

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3. Owl

Owls are remarkable birds of prey noted for their peculiar look and characteristics. This watercolor owl tutorial will guide you through painting this bird midflight amidst a forest of branches and leaves, a wonderful masterpiece, indeed!

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4. Humpback Whale

From the lands to the skies, now onto the deep blue sea! Because of their size, beauty, and behavior, Humpback Whales are widely regarded as one of the most beautiful and majestic of all whale species. This tutorial will take you through painting a Humpback Whale, a breathtaking creature and an impressive addition to your pieces.

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5. Matcha Cake

Matcha cakes are often praised for their beauty and aesthetic appeal, as the vibrant green color of the matcha adds a visually striking element to the baked goods. This guide will lead you through the steps of making this scrumptious dessert, which, albeit digital, is undeniably delicious!

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All of these tutorials use our extensive Watercolor brush pack, made just for you! This includes over 100+ diverse and unique watercolor brushes carefully designed to mimic traditional watercolor effects from a professional artist herself. Make sure to grab yours and start painting your beautiful illustrations!

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What will you paint with your watercolor brushes? Let us know!

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