Paint an exotic market scene

Nikolai Lockertsen pushes the possibilities of iPad art using Procreate’s beefed-up colour options and high-def detail

painting on the commute to work is something I enjoy. A few years ago, I painted with watercolour on the one-hour morning bus ride. I managed to balance a small booklamp, a cup of water, paint and a book in one hand, and painted with the other. The urge to have some digital device that could match what I did in Photoshop was strong.

Then I bought an iPad. Previously, I had tried painting on my iPhone with the Brushes app, and although it wasn’t a hopeless cause, it was just too small. In contrast, the iPad was a perfect size and I could paint for 10 hours per charge. I got hooked! In the first couple of years I painted with the Brushes app. I liked it a lot and you could extract high-resolution images and video of the painting process. But the app had its limitations.

Then Procreate was mentioned in an online art thread, and when I tried it I was surprised at how good the brush engine was. It felt like Photoshop and I fell for it right away. Initially, Procreate also had some limitations: it lacked highresolution canvases, Selection and Transform tools and a lot of the adjustments options available today, but it was still the best painting app for iPad on the market. I’ve been a 100 per cent Procreate man ever since. And now the tool is, in many respects, better than even Photoshop. I have a 24-inch Wacom Cintique screen at the studio where I work, but I only use it for reference. I actually paint on the iPad in Procreate. This combination is so good now that I would say the only limiting factor lies with the artist’s skill level, rather than these superb digital tools.