How to make an Ogee template in Procreate

A fun and simple way to use a timeless shape to create beautiful patterns!

Desinging a repeating pattern within a template is a simple way to achieve a balanced repeat and can take a lot of the stress out of composition and placement.

An ogee shape is a classic shape that has been used in many genres of art over centuries and can produce a wonderful flow in repeating patterns.

I often use an ogee template as a basis for a pattern. Sometimes the finished result shows the ogee shape in an obvious way and sometimes the result is much more subtle - the template simply provides a guide for composition.

It's very simple to create your own ogee template in Procreate so you can try using this shape as a basis for your next repeat!

How to create an ogee template shape

Create a new square canvas in Procreate. I usually create patterns at 12x12 inches at 300dpi.

Turn on Drawing Guide (under the spanner icon) and go to Edit Drawing Guide. On the bottom menu you need to slide the grid size up to Max so the drawing guides segment your canvas into quadrants.

Now select a monoline brush (the monoline in the caligraphy section of the Procreate brush library would be perfect!) and draw a circle.

If you hold down your pen when the circle is complete it will make it totally smooth and then if you hold down a finger on your other hand it will snap into a perfect circle!

Now select the circle and turn Snapping and Magnetics on. Move the circle to the bottom left hand corner and resize it so it fits exactly inside the quadrant. Orange lines should appear when it is snapped into the right place as you can see below.

Now move the circle to the centre of the canvas. Again, it should snap into place easily.

Next we need to go up to the selection tool on the top left menu (the wiggly line) and on the bottom menu select rectangle.

What we need to do is slice the circle in half, so with the rectangle selection tool, and using the drawing guides to help you, draw a rectangle around half of the circle.

In order to separate it from the other half, swipe downwards with three fingers which will enable this 'copy and paste' menu to pop up. Tap 'cut and paste' which will put the selected half of the circle in a new layer.

Now we need to cut one of the halves into two quarters. So, in the same way as we just did, select a quarter by drawing a rectangle round it with the selection tool and cut and paste it into a new layer.

Now move the lower quarter circle directly upwards so it snaps when it reaches the top of the canvas, and move the higher quarter circle directly downwards to the bottom of the canvas. It should look like the image below.

You can see that the lines should connect to create a curve. Bear in mind they won't connect exactly, there will be a slight break where they meet, but this doesn't matter as it is only a template.

Next, merge the three layers together and move them to one side of the canvas so it snaps into place. Duplicate the whole layer and on the bottom menu tap 'Flip horizontal' and then move it to the other side of the canvas so it snaps into place.

Congratulations, your ogee template is finished!

This is now a fully tessellating shape and you can create your pattern inside the template as you would with any other template.

If you need help with the process of creating a pattern inside a template you can download my free guide and three additional templates to try!

As always, if you need some more clarification on the steps or if you have a comment or a question, just drop it below in the comments section - I love hearing how you get on with these mini Procreate tutorials!