Jenny Quince - Drawing with Symmetry in Procreate part 2

Hi everyone! Here’s your September bonus — a little step-by-step guide to creating a seamless pattern in Procreate!

We’ll start with a symmetrical floral illustration and turn it into a repeating pattern, step by step.

Grab your iPad and let’s make a pattern together!

1. Prepare your sketch

Open the sketch in Procreate. You can download the sketch file at the bottom of this post. Lower the opacity of the sketch layer to around 20%.

2. Create a drawing layerCreate a new layer underneath the sketch layer. This is where we’ll paint our illustration.

3. Turn on the Drawing GuideGo to Actions → Canvas → Drawing Guide, turn it on, then tap Edit Drawing Guide.

4. Set up SymmetryIn the Drawing Guides panel:

Thickness → Max

Then open Options and select:

Vertical ✓Assisted Drawing → ON

Now you only need to paint on one side of the canvas — Procreate will automatically mirror your strokes on the other side.

For this illustration, I used my Toffee & Terracotta color palette. You can find this palette in the first September tutorial.

I painted the illustration with my Textured Watercolor Brushes:

Main shapes — Morning WashDetails — Blur Line Brush

If you don’t have this brush set, you can also use the brushes from our first September tutorial:

Main shapes — Soft WashDetails — Dry Line

Once your illustration is finished, we need to remove the background and turn it into a transparent element.

I show you exactly how to do this in this short video:

Now let’s turn our finished illustration into a repeating pattern.

First, copy your finished composition.

Create a new Procreate canvas:

1500 × 1500 px300 DPI

5. Paste your compositionPaste the copied illustration into your new canvas.

6. Turn on SnappingSelect the Transform tool (arrow) and open Snapping.

Turn on:

Magnetics → ONSnapping → ONDistance → MaxVelocity → Max

This will help us position each copy precisely.

7. Duplicate the compositionIn the Layers panel, swipe left on your composition layer and tap Duplicate.

Repeat this until you have 5 identical layers.

8. Check your layersYou should now have 5 copies of the same composition.

Keep one copy in the center — we’ll move the other four toward the corners.

9. Move the first copySelect one of the duplicated layers and use the Transform tool to move it up and to the left.

Keep moving it until you see the orange snapping guides intersect.

10. Move the second copySelect another copy and move it up and to the right until the orange snapping guides intersect.

11. Move the third copyMove the next copy down and to the left, again using the orange snapping guides to position it precisely.

12. Move the fourth copyMove the final copy down and to the right until the orange guides intersect.

You should now see your composition repeating around all four edges of the canvas.

13. Merge the patternSelect all five layers and merge them into one layer.

Your seamless pattern tile is ready!

To make sure the repeat works correctly, duplicate your finished pattern layer 3 times, so you have 4 identical copies in total.

Using the Transform tool, scale each copy down to 50% and position them in the four quarters of the canvas.

Use the orange snapping guides to make sure every tile aligns perfectly.

If everything connects without visible gaps or seams — your seamless pattern works!