If you enjoy drawing animals or nature, you’ve probably noticed that the main subject is usually the easy part. For me (Mira), it’s almost always the background that takes the longest. I can happily spend hours drawing a fox, a bird or a mushroom, but once it’s time to fill the empty space around it, my motivation starts fading a little.

It wasn’t that drawing backgrounds was difficult. They just took forever, and my attention span is super short. 😅

Trees, grass, bushes and little plants all seem quick on their own, but once you start putting everything together, the background can easily take longer than the subject itself. Before long I was cropping my illustrations tighter or leaving backgrounds almost empty because I couldn’t face drawing another hundred leaves.

That’s one of the reasons we started making our own brushes.

Not to replace drawing by hand, but to make the process more enjoyable. If a brush can save me from repeating the same thing over and over again, I’d much rather spend that time making the illustration itself better.

The first brush I almost always reach for is…

1. Main Background Brush

Every illustration starts with a rough sketch and the first blocks of colour.

This is usually the first brush I pick when I start building a background. I love how softly it paints and how easy it is to block in the bigger shapes before worrying about the details.

At this stage I’m not thinking about individual trees or blades of grass. I just want to figure out where the forest ends, where the sky begins and where the light is coming from. Once those bigger shapes are there, it’s much easier to start adding texture and details with other brushes.

2. Soft Cloud Brush

Whenever I’m painting forest landscapes, I often use soft cloud brushes to blend the trees into the sky and add a bit of atmosphere.

I also use them for distant forests because those shapes don’t need much detail. Soft edges usually look much more natural than trying to draw every single tree on the horizon, and they help create that misty feeling I love in nature illustrations.

3. Foliage Brushes

This is probably the brush category that changed the way I build backgrounds.

For years I drew trees one leaf at a time because I thought that was just how they were supposed to be done. It worked, but it was painfully slow, and somewhere around the fiftieth bush I’d usually start wondering why I’d chosen such a complicated composition.😄

These days I don’t think about individual leaves anymore.

When you look at a tree from a distance, you don’t actually see every leaf. You see larger shapes, light, shadows and different values, while most of the small details naturally stay in the foreground where your eye is drawn first.

Now I block in the bigger shapes with foliage brushes and only draw the details by hand with texture brushes where they really matter.

It takes a fraction of the time, and I honestly prefer the result because the whole illustration feels calmer instead of every corner competing for attention.

4. Nature Stamps

Nature stamps have become one of those tools I use far more than I ever expected.

I probably use the forest and grass stamps the most because they’re such an easy way to make landscapes feel fuller without drawing every little plant by hand.

They’ve been especially useful when I’m working on bigger illustrations that take several days to finish because that’s usually when my attention starts drifting. I still love drawing, but after hours of filling backgrounds with grass, branches and little plants, it’s easy to lose the excitement I had when I started the piece.

They’re also brilliant when I’m sketching ideas or working on concept art. Instead of spending ages building one background, I can try several different compositions quite quickly and decide which direction feels the most interesting.

Even if you’re not drawing concept art, they’re simply fun to use. They take care of some of the repetitive work, leaving more time for the parts that actually make the illustration yours.

5. Texture Brushes

The last thing we usually add is texture.

Sometimes it’s a little paper grain. Other times it’s a rough background brush or a texture brush over the whole illustration.

Some days I want everything to feel soft and smooth. Other days I lean into rough textures. It really depends on the mood I’m trying to create.

It doesn’t need to be obvious.

Most people won’t look at a finished illustration and think, “That’s a nice paper texture.” They’ll just notice that the artwork feels a little warmer and less digital without really knowing why.

For me, that’s usually the final step before calling a piece finished.

Why I Love Nature Brushes

Living in the Finnish countryside probably shapes my work more than I even notice.

I spend a lot of time outside, and little things seem to find their way into my illustrations without me even planning it. The texture of old tree bark, wild grasses growing along a gravel road, moss covering a rock, or the way branches overlap in the forest all end up becoming part of a brush collection sooner or later.

That’s why our Nature Brush Collection looks the way it does.

It’s simply inspired by the places I love the most.

If you enjoy drawing nature

we’d probably recommend starting with our Nature Brush Collection:



👉 Explore the Nature Brush Collection

✨ Also available on Etsy

It’s our biggest collection with

123 handcrafted brushes and stamps, including foliage brushes, clouds, trees, grasses, natural textures and plenty of stamps that make building backgrounds much faster while still keeping that handmade feel.

We’re already working on a few new nature-inspired brush packs, so if this is your kind of thing, stay tuned. 🌿

Whether you’re sketching quick ideas, creating concept art or spending days on a finished illustration, this is the collection I keep coming back to.

Thanks for spending a little time with us today.

We hope these ideas make your next illustration a little more enjoyable and remind you that backgrounds don’t have to be the part you dread the most. Sometimes a few good tools are enough to get you past the repetitive parts so you can spend more time drawing the things you actually opened Procreate for.

Happy creating,

Mira & Essi

Ink Wild Brushes🌿

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