The painting workflow at a glance
Almost every finished painting moves through the same five stages: canvas setup → thumbnail and value block-in → flat color → rendering and blending → texture and final adjustments. Beginners usually struggle not because they lack skill, but because they jump straight to detail before the big shapes are right. Lock the order in and your work improves immediately.
If you are brand new to the iPad, read how to start drawing on iPad first, then come back here for the painting-specific steps.
1. Set up a canvas that won't slow you down
Create a canvas at 2480 × 3508 px (A4 at 300 DPI) for print, or 3000 × 2000 px for screen. Larger canvases give fewer layers, so don't go bigger than you need. Turn on a textured paper background if you want a traditional feel. Keep your layers organized from the start: sketch, flats, shading, and effects each on their own group.
2. Thumbnail and block in values
Before any color, paint a small grayscale version of your idea. Squint at it: if the composition reads in three values (dark, mid, light), it will read in color. Use a large soft brush to lay down the big light-and-shadow shapes. This value pass is the single biggest predictor of whether a painting will look finished.
3. Lay down flat color
Pick your local colors — the base color of each object ignoring light. Paint them on a layer below your shading with a hard, opaque brush so edges stay clean. A clipping mask or alpha lock keeps every stroke inside the shape. For matte, illustration-style flats, gouache-style painting is the cleanest approach; for luminous washes, try a watercolor workflow.
4. Render: light, shadow, and edges
This is where the painting comes alive. Set a layer to Multiply for shadows and add a Normal or Add layer for light. Think in terms of edges: hard edges where forms turn sharply or sit in focus, soft edges in shadow and out-of-focus areas. Blending is a tool for controlling those edges — not for smearing everything into mush. For thick, tactile brushwork, study the oil painting effect; for believable skin, see painting realistic skin.
5. Texture and final adjustments
A flat digital painting reads as flat. Add grain, canvas tooth, or hand-made marks with texture brushes on an overlay layer at low opacity. Finish with a Curves or Color Balance adjustment to unify the palette, and add a subtle vignette to focus the eye.
Brushes do half the work
The right brush makes a technique feel natural instead of forced. Build a small kit you trust: one hard round for flats, one soft round for blending, one bristle brush for painterly marks, and a couple of texture stamps. Browse the painting and blenders categories, or start with the medium you love — watercolor, oil, or gouache. Every set on the site is a one-tap .brushset you can download free.
Where to go next
Pick the medium that excites you and dive into its dedicated guide above. The fundamentals — value, color, edges, texture — carry across all of them, so anything you learn painting watercolor will make your oil and gouache work stronger too.