Step by Step Botanicals in Watercolor, Ink, and Procreate

What it covers

Anna Sokolova's class splits neatly into two halves: a traditional rose painted in acrylic ink and watercolor, then a digital iris built in Procreate. The traditional half opens with a walk through a Berlin rose garden and a look at reference books, including engravings by Pierre-Joseph Redoute, before settling into materials (permanent inks, tube watercolors, cotton paper) and a pre-drawn rose sketch provided as a class resource. From there the technique is consistent: ink in the petal shadows and patterns while leaving the paper's white untouched, let the ink dry fast, then glaze thinned watercolor over it in the same hue family to build a three-dimensional feel without heavy outlining.

The digital half swaps mediums but keeps the same shadow-first logic. After a short Procreate settings walkthrough, freehand shapes are alpha-locked so color, then a watercolor-textured brush and ink brush build pattern on the edges, all blended with the smudge tool. Leaves, background texture, a sharpen adjustment, and a photographed texture layered in Multiply mode round out the finishing touches.

Strengths and limits

The core lesson, shading first and leaving whites alone, is genuinely transferable between the two mediums, and watching it repeat from ink to watercolor to digital brush reinforces it well. The pacing is real: petals and leaves come together in minutes, not hours, which matches the course's premise of quick, satisfying results over labored realism.

That said, the class is thin on foundational teaching. Color mixing is mostly demonstrated by eye rather than explained, brush choices are described more by feel than by specific size or technique, and there is no real discussion of composition, proportion, or botanical anatomy beyond "the petals point to the center." Viewers who need the theory behind the practice, not just a demonstration to mimic, will find gaps.

The digital section in particular assumes comfort with Procreate's interface. Alpha Lock and the smudge tool are shown but not explained in depth, and someone new to the app may need to pause frequently to locate menus that are named quickly and moved past.

Verdict

At 86 minutes across 18 short lessons, this is a compact, mood-driven class best suited to artists who already have some watercolor or digital painting mileage and want a new stylistic trick rather than a ground-up course. It delivers one clear, reusable idea well: shadow-and-glaze layering that leaves the white of the surface doing most of the visual work. It does not deliver a rigorous grounding in botanical illustration, color theory, or Procreate fundamentals, so viewers should treat it as a technique demo to fold into existing skills rather than a first course in painting flowers.

What you will learn

• ·How to combine permanent acrylic inks with watercolors of matching hue to build depth in just a few layers
• ·A petal-shading method that paints only the pattern and shadow, leaving the paper's white as the highlight
• ·How to mix custom greens from yellow and ultramarine instead of using tube green
• ·Procreate setup for traditional-style digital painting, including disabling Simplified Undos and Assisted Drawing
• ·A shape-based digital painting workflow using Alpha Lock, a watercolor-gouache brush, and the smudge tool to sculpt petals
• ·How to finish a piece with sharpening, brush textures, and a photographed real-world texture layered in Multiply mode