Supply Saturday-IPad Pro and Apple Pencil

This is the first in my Supply Saturday posts. I will be sharing with you some of my favorite supplies. From time to time I may also share the ones I didn’t particularly care for and why. For this first installment I was inspired by a comment on my June 24th blog A Little About My Process where Donna asked How do you get all the different thickness lines only having an iPad pen. In your second book the words have a patterns in them. How do you do that?

The Apple Pencil is an amazing tool that works in tandem with the Procreate App. Here are a few pictures showing the lettering she was asking about.

The lettering in in both pictures from my latest book Coloring Through the Seasons with God utilizes pattern brushes that I created by drawing the seamless tile patterns and using them as a grain source for the brush. The Apple Pencil is unique in that it offers pressure sensitivity, which allows me to vary the thickness of the lines in the words I create based on how hard or light I press while drawing each word.

Below are a couple of videos of me using the Procreate app with custom brushes I created. You can purchase  them in my Etsy shop.

Now I am sure you are wondering “Do I need the expensive IPad Pro to utilize the Apple Pencil?” Well until a few months ago that answer would have been yes. That is no longer the case. Apple introduced the 2018 9.7inch  IPad that supports the Apple Pencil. This is great for the budget conscious user. I personally chose the 12.9 inch IPad Pro with 256gb of storage. I chose this size because it is very close to the watercolor paper I use for lettering pieces. I had wanted the one with 512gb of space because I know me and I have tons of apps and Procreate files are rather large at times. When I was ready to purchase in November the 12.9 gold iPad with 512gb was sold out everywhere that had the best price and warranty.  As it was the one I purchased was sold out until almost the middle of December. I ended up getting mine from Tiger Direct with an extended warranty. My iPad was delivered on 12/16/2017 and I have used it daily since then. It really has changed my creative process. I never thought I would ever love an Apple product but I really do love it.