pros of procreate
It was the spring of 2018, a college student working my retail job at the mall when I felt I wanted a change in the trajectory of my life. Here I was pursuing a business management degree, but at this point in my life, I knew my real passion was interior design. I was working at a furniture and home decor chain and worked with designers frequently, who’d complimented my natural eye and talent. Being a lifelong artist and fashion enthusiast, it was no surprise that interior design would also be something that sparked my interest. So as I ate my mall sushi on my lunch break, I began researching interior design schools that I could attend and what were the requirements to apply. Maybe too ambitious but my eye was set on The New York School of Interior Design. Problem 1, I was in Florida. What can I say, I love setting these ambitious goals, I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.The realistic part of me knew it was out of reach, another part felt like I wouldn’t even be accepted anyway but that hopeful part of me said, “I said at the worst, I’d lose out on an application fee.” One of the requirements was an art portfolio of about 10-15 projects, they didn’t have to be interior design related, just something to display artistic ability. Problem 2, I didn’t have a portfolio and now I was aiming to enroll for the fall so I had a deadline. Because I was starting my portfolio from scratch, I decided I wanted it to be interior design related and I had the benefit of being at a job where I was surrounded by furniture so I began sketching during the slow hours. To me these sketches were not enough but then I remembered a digital drawing program for the iPad Pro called, “Procreate.” Long story short I would find inspo pictures through magazines and blogs and recreate them in the form of a digital drawing.
My first digital drawing.
Through trial and error, every drawing I did, I made progress to my digital drawing skills and by the end of it, my portfolio and I were accepted into the school. I would love to take all credit for this achievement but the Procreate program is in my opinion, is an underrated tool used in interior design, it is very user friendly and as you will view the progression in my drawings, very efficient and quick to master. Although now I use it less for digital drawing, to this very day it is the same program I use to create concept boards. If you’re familiar with Adobe Photoshop, Procreate has a similar “layer” system where you can create layers for each stroke of pen, when new adding photos, etc. and arrange the layers accordingly. For example, say I wanted to add a lamp on top of a side table, I can just arrange the layer with the lamp on top of the table and skew it to look like it is sitting on top naturally. Because it is a drawing tool, you can create a new layer and make notes and when not needed, you can hide the layer. Because it is a program exclusively for the iPad, being able to use it on the go or in front of clients makes it an efficient game changer for those quick mockups.
More attention to detail.
Experimenting with textures and reflection.
Perspectives and detail.
My favorite, a two point perspective.
Simple, a focus on texture.
A retail interior.
