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How to Color Inside the Lines with Procreate

In preschool, I remember being so happy about successfully coloring inside the lines. Today, I’m still stoked to color inside the lines. Luckily, with technology, coloring inside the lines has never been easier. Here’s how to color inside the lines with Procreate.

To color inside the lines with Procreate, you can use the Automatic Selection tool. You can also use ColorDrop to fill your shape with white. Then, turn on Alpha Lock or create a Clipping Mask, which will stop you from coloring outside of the lines of that shape.

Important note: this post is about drawing within shapes, NOT about filling your shapes with a solid color. For example, you have a shape and you want to draw a design in it or something like that. NOT if you want to use ColorDrop to fill it with one color.

If you want to want to fill your shapes with solid colors, check out my post about Procreate reference layers that dives into the ColorDrop feature.

You can also check out my post on changing the color of a layer in Procreate for more info on filling shapes with solid colors.

If you want the ever-prestigious preschool award for being the best at coloring within the lines, keep reading. It’s actually fairly simple to do with Procreate, though getting there isn’t always intuitive. So, keep reading to learn two ways to color within the lines with Procreate.

Important note: the methods we’re going to discuss require coloring one layer at a time. If all of the elements you want to color aren’t on the same layer, just switch between whichever layers you need.

Color in the Lines with Procreate’s Selection Tool

Tap on the Selection tool in Procreate’s top toolbar and choose the Automatic option. Tap inside of the element you want to color and increase your selection threshold to fill the entire shape. Select your paintbrush, and start coloring.

If you don’t want to fill your elements with ColorDrop beforehand (which is required with the other two methods), want to preserve your outline, and don’t care about drawing directly on your shape, this is the way to color in the lines.

Important note: it’s VERY important to realize that this Selection method will require you to color directly on your shape. It’s NOT on a separate layer. This makes your changes more permanent. Be careful with that! If you DON’T want to color directly on your shape, look at the clipping mask method.

Here’s how to do it, step-by-step.

1. Make sure the layer that contains the elements you want to color is selected.

Make sure that the layer you want to color on is highlighted in your Layers panel.

procreate single layer triangle selected

2. Tap the Selection tool in the top toolbar and choose Automatic .

The Selection tool is the one that has the S icon in your top toolbar. Once you tap on it, choose the Automatic option.

procreate triangle selection automatic

3. Tap inside of the element you want to color and slide your stylus to the right to increase the selection threshold.

With the Automatic Selection tool enabled, tapping inside of your shape and sliding your stylus to the right will select the inside of your shape and increase your selection threshold. Increase your selection threshold as much as you can without it flipping over to the background.

procreate triangle automatic selection enabled

4. Tap the paintbrush and start coloring in your elements.

Once you’r selection’ve finished your selection, it’s time to start coloring your shape. Do NOT disable your selection. Keep it enabled as you color. Simply tap on the paintbrush and start coloring.

procreate automatic selection color in triangle

5. When you’re done, click the Selection tool again to deselect it.

Simply repeat this process for any elements that you need to color. Even though it’s a multistep process for each element you want to color, it’s pretty quick once you get the hang of it.

Color in the Lines with Procreate’s Clipping Masks

Procreate’s Clipping Masks allow you to color inside the lines of your shapes without permanently making changes to your shape. Instead, your coloring stays on a new and separate layer. This makes it easier to change the coloring you’ve applied to your shapes.

The Clipping Mask feature is my personal favorite way to color within the lines if I don’t want to draw on my shape directly. There’s an important caveat though, so Iet’s dig into that a little deeper.

With Clipping Masks, you can ONLY color over pre-existing brush strokes. This means that if your element is simply an outline that isn’t filled in, you will not be able to color inside of it. You could recolor the outline, but nothing that isn’t already painted. 

You’re probably thinking that this negates the whole benefit of a Clipping Mask, but it doesn’t. It just adds another step that you’ll have to keep in mind. Here’s how to color in the lines with a Clipping Mask, step-by-step:

1. Draw your elements.

Get your drawing ready. Draw anything that you’ll want to color inside the lines of.

procreate blue triangle shape

2. Optional, if you want to preserve your outline. If you want to preserve your outline, make a copy of your shape.

This method is about coloring in the lines, including the lines. If you want the outline to be preserved, go ahead and create a copy of your outline by duplicating the layer.

procreate triangle outline duplicate layer

You can uncheck and turn off your duplicated outline for now. We’ll turn it back on at the end when we want to restore our outline.

procreate triangle duplicated

3. Use ColorDrop to fill in your element with paint. Choose whichever color makes sense for your piece of art.

Remember that you can’t use Clipping Masks with anything that doesn’t already have paint in it, so you need to fill your shape with paint in order for this method to work.

What if you don’t want to have a color inside of your shape though? Well, my solution is to ColorDrop the my background color into my shape so that its less apparent.

If you’re planning on changing your background color, now’s a good time to do that and decide on what you’ll want your final background color to be.

In this example, that’s white.

procreate triangle filling with background white

Simply drag and drop your color into your shape.

Take a look at the example below. As you can see in the Layers panel, my triangle is now filled with white pigment.

procreate triangle shape filled with white pigment

4. Open the Layers panel and create a new layer. Make sure this layer is right above the layer that contains the elements you want to color.

procreate add layer above filled triangle layers panel

5. Tap on the new layer to open its settings tap on Clipping Mask.

Within the layer settings, choose the Clipping Mask option. This will turn your layer into a Clipping Mask that’s applied to the layer below it, the layer you want to color on.

procreate clipping mask above filled triangle

6. Apply all of your coloring on this new Clipping Mask layer.

When the Clipping Mask is applied correctly, you should be able to scribble, scribble, scribble all over your shape without it going outside the lines of your shape. Pretty cool!

procreate clipping mask color inside triangle

7. Add back your outline layer, if needed.

If you had created a duplicate copy of your outline, reinstate the checkmark again so that it’s visible. Make sure the outline layer is on top of your other shape layers so that your outline sits on top of the shape you just colored on.

procreate add outline back on top of clipping mask

Clipping Masks are great tools to use because they give you a lot of freedom. Everything is on a separate layer, which makes your life a LOT easier if you want to make any changes.

That said, there is another, more permanent, way to color inside the lines. Let’s talk about it!

And if you’re looking for a deep dive into procreate masks, check out my full guide on procreate Clipping Masks and Layer Masks.

Color in the Lines with Procreate’s Alpha Lock

Procreate’s Alpha Lock feature makes it so that you can only color on the elements on that given layer. Alpha Lock will only allow you to color on pre-existing brush strokes, so it’s important to use ColorDrop to apply a colored base to your elements ahead of time.

Similar to the Clipping Mask, Procreate’s Alpha Lock tool only allows you to color over pre-existing brush strokes. So, we still need to make sure that a base color has already been applied to our shapes. If no color is there, fill it with white, or the same color as your background.

Important note: it’s VERY important to realize that this Alpha Lock method will require you to color directly on your shape. It’s NOT on a separate layer. This makes your changes more permanent. Be careful with that! If you DON’T want to color directly on your shape, look at the clipping mask method. This is something that differentiates it from Clipping Masks.

Let’s look at this step-by-step:

1. Draw your elements.

procreate blue triangle shape

2. Optional, if you want to preserve your outline. If you want to preserve your outline, make a copy of your shape.

Similar to the Clipping Mask method, this Alpha Lock method is about coloring in the lines, including the lines. If you want the outline to be preserved, go ahead and create a copy of your outline by duplicating the layer.

procreate triangle outline duplicate layer

You can uncheck and turn off your duplicated outline for now. We’ll turn it back on at the end when we want to restore our outline.

procreate triangle duplicated

3. Use ColorDrop to fill in your element with paint. Choose whichever color makes sense for your piece of art.

Similar to Clipping Masks, Alpha Lock won’t work on a blank canvas. It can only be applied to pigment that has already been laid down. This is important. If you don’t do this, it will seem like Alpha Lock isn’t working once you turn it on.

What if you don’t want to have a color inside of your shape though? Well, my solution is to ColorDrop the my background color into my shape so that its less apparent.

If you’re planning on changing your background color, now’s a good time to do that and decide on what you’ll want your final background color to be.

In this example, that’s white.

procreate triangle filling with background white

4. In the Layers panel, open the layer settings for the layer you want to color. Choose Alpha Lock.

procreate filled in triangle alpha lock

5. Leave Alpha Lock on for the entirety of your coloring.

Remember that you’re coloring on the layer itself. Unlike the Clipping Mask method, you’re not drawing on a separate layer with this Alpha Lock method.

When Alpha Lock is applied correctly, you should be able to scribble, scribble, scribble all over your shape without it going outside the lines of your shape. Pretty cool!

procreate alpha lock filling in triangle shape

6. Add back your outline layer, if needed.

If you had created a duplicate copy of your outline, reinstate the checkmark again so that it’s visible. Make sure the outline layer is on top of your other shape layers so that your outline sits on top of the shape you just colored on.

procreate layer on top of triangle outline

Simply turn Alpha Lock off when you need to color outside of the lines, and turn it back on when you do. Repeat this process for whichever layers you need.

Alright, let’s talk about one more method. A method that ditches the ColorDrop step! 

Alright, so now that we’ve reviewed these 3 options for coloring in your shapes, it might seem like the Selection method and the Alpha Lock method are really similar. Why would you use one over the other?

The Alpha Lock coloring option will let you color over your outline. The Selection coloring option won’t. Choose your method based on whether you want to color over your outline or not. 

There are other reasons why you’d want to use one or the other, so here’s a summary:

Alpha Lock Option

-You want to color over your outlines.

-You already have your elements filled with color, or you don’t mind filling them.

-You have a number of different, separate elements you need to color and you want to color them all at once without selecting and deselecting them over and over again.

Select Tool Option

-You don’t want to color over your outlines.

-Your elements aren’t filled with color yet, and you don’t want to fill them.

-You have a small number of elements that you need to color.

Depending on what you’re creating, it’s possible that you’ll use both coloring methods within the same art piece. As you can see, one is more efficient than the other depending on the circumstances and what you’re planning to color.

Given technology these days, we don’t need to worry about coloring inside of the lines anymore. Simply click a few buttons, and Procreate has it covered for you. Have fun experimenting with these coloring techniques and how they can make your art cleaner, crisper, and more efficient.

Whatever you do, make sure to have fun with Procreate!

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