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Did you know you can do Scratch Art in Procreate?

Nostalgia ALERT! Today we’re going to be creating beautiful scratch art in Procreate. I remember doing this for hours when I was a kid - using markers to make a background, covering it with black crayon, then scratching off my designs with toothpicks, chopsticks, or even a fork! It was SO much fun!!




In this video, we’re going to walk through a couple of designs and I’ll give you my tips and tricks along the way. You can do all of this with built-in Procreate brushes, so let’s dive in!


If you'd prefer the text instructions, those are below.


Step 1: Lay down the background color:

  • use a textured brush

    • Painting Set (most will work): Old Brush, Wet Acrylic, Tamar, Oil Paint

    • Sketching Set: Oil Pastel, Soft Pastel, Artist Crayon

    • Artistic Set (most will work): Wild Light, Aurora (one of my favs because it's multi-color)

  • Rainbow, Monochrome, and Analogous color palettes look good for this!

*Pro-TIP: try to spread out and mix the colors, so you don’t have too much of one color in an area (not too large an area)


Step 2: Blend the color (see the video for more details on this!)

  • Smudge tool (tap & hold for same brush) OR

  • Liquify OR

  • Gaussian blur gradient method


Step 3: New layer + mask

  • Add a new layer at the top

  • Color drop black/a dark fill color OR paint/blend a fill color layer with dark, contrast colors

  • Tap the fill color layer and choose “Mask” (this adds a Layer Mask - don’t choose Clipping Mask, that’s different!)

*Pro-TIP: swipe R on the fill color layer to de-select it, so you’re only working on the mask layer when you scratch.


Step 4: Scratch!

  • You could just erase on the fill layer itself to “scratch”, but that would be “destructive” editing.

  • We’re using the Mask so that we can do “non-destructive” editing and make changes any time.

  • On the Mask layer - use Brush with Black to scratch and White to “erase”

    • Drawing Set (most will work): Styx, Eaglehawk, Little Pine

    • Inking Set (most will work): Thylacine, Syrup, Ink Bleed, Technical Pen

  • To move elements in scratch drawing, Select > Freehand, then Transform (make sure you’re on the Mask layer or this won’t work)

  • You can duplicate the color background and try different effects by hiding layers.

  • Doodles are great to relax/meditate

    • Mandalas, vines, leaves, swirls, basic shapes/patterns

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