Procreate doesn't support multiple canvases or artboards inside one document, so you add them in one of three ways. Create separate canvases in the Gallery and group them into a Stack, build one oversized canvas and divide it into panels yourself, or use Page Assist to treat a single file as several pages. Which one fits depends on whether you need separate files, one shared view, or a multi-page sketchbook.

What "multiple canvases" means in Procreate

If you come from After Effects, Illustrator, or Figma, you probably expect artboards: several frames of different sizes in one document that you can pan between and export together. Procreate doesn't have that. Each artwork is one canvas with one fixed size, and each canvas has its own layer limit. That limit depends on the canvas dimensions, which is why subdividing one file is a trade-off.

Artists have asked for in-document artboards on Procreate's community forum, including children's book illustrators and people presenting several ideas to a client. Until that changes, you work around it.

Method 1: Create additional canvases from the Gallery

This is the simplest approach and the one most people mean by "adding a canvas."

1. Open the Gallery, the grid view of all your artworks.
2. Tap the + icon in the corner.
3. Pick a preset size, or tap the custom canvas icon to set your own width, height, and DPI.
4. Tap Create.

Repeat for each canvas. Set the DPI deliberately. Canvas size determines how many layers you get, and it's hard to correct later without resampling.

For a board with several frames, create every canvas at the same dimensions, such as 3840×2160 for UHD. They'll then line up when you bring them into a compositing or editing timeline later.

Method 2: Group canvases into a Stack

Once you have several canvases for one project, Stacks keep them together. A Stack is a folder in the Gallery.

1. In the Gallery, tap Select.
2. Tap each canvas you want to group.
3. Tap Stack.
4. Open the Stack and tap its title to rename it.

To add a canvas later, press and hold it in the Gallery and drag it onto the Stack. To remove one, open the Stack, choose Select, and drag the canvas out. Inside a Stack you can long-press and drag to reorder canvases, which is useful for sequential work like storyboards.

One user reported that Procreate merged some of their stacks once they had created a lot of them. That's anecdotal and I can't confirm it, but it's a reason to keep your structure shallow. One Stack per project, named clearly, is safer than many nested categories.

Method 3: Build one wide canvas and split it into panels

If you need to see everything at once, make one large canvas and divide it yourself. This is the closest you get to artboards, and it works well for reference setups, model sheets, and side-by-side comparisons.

A common version of this is a reference-and-painting layout:

1. Create a canvas wide enough for two panels, for example 5000×3500 px at 300 DPI.
2. Open the Actions menu (wrench icon), choose Add, then Insert a photo, and select your reference.
3. With Uniform selected and Snapping on, drag a corner to scale the reference to about half the canvas width.
4. In the Layers panel, swipe left on the image and tap Duplicate.
5. On the duplicate, turn on Alpha Lock, then use the Transform tool to drag it into the other half. The snapping guide shows when it's aligned with the first image.
6. Fill the duplicate with a flat background color using a large soft brush. That's your blank painting panel.

Both halves are now exactly the same size and sit side by side, which makes it easier to judge proportion and negative space while you work.

You can extend the idea to a four-panel grid for a storyboard or a thumbnail sheet. Put each panel's artwork in its own layer group so you can hide and show them independently.

The cost is the layer budget. A large canvas has fewer available layers, and splitting it between panels means each panel has fewer to work with. If a panel needs a lot of layers, give it its own canvas.

Method 4: Use Page Assist for multi-page work

Page Assist lets you treat one Procreate file as a set of pages.

It suits sketching and thumbnailing, where you want a sequence of rough pages in one file. It has a known weakness: layer opacity and blend modes can behave differently with Page Assist enabled, so the artwork may look different from the same artwork on a normal canvas. One user recommends using it for the sketch phase, then moving finished pages to their own canvases once you start rendering. That's a sound rule if the final look matters.

Moving layers between canvases

Once you have more than one canvas, you'll want to move work between them. You don't need to export and re-import.

1. Open the source canvas and the Layers panel.
2. Select one or more layers.
3. Press and hold a selected layer until it lifts. A counter appears if you've selected several.
4. While still holding, drag to the Gallery link in the top-left corner.
5. Still holding, tap the destination canvas in the Gallery to open it.
6. Open the Layers panel and drop the layers there.

Transform and clipping masks work as normal afterward. This is a good way to reuse a background, texture, or character across several frames.

Exporting multiple canvases and layers

Canvases export through Actions → Share, where you choose your format and destination.

There's also a shortcut for layers. Open Procreate and Photos or Files in split view, then drag layers from the Layers panel into the destination. They export as PNG, and hidden layers can be exported too. The alternative is to hide every other layer and use Share each time, which gets tedious with a long list.

Two practical notes:

• Name layers and canvases before you export. Files named "Untitled Artwork 14" are painful to sort in a timeline.
• Match canvas dimensions to the destination. A canvas created at your comp resolution avoids resampling in After Effects or Premiere Pro.

Using multiple canvases as keyframes in a motion pipeline

For motion designers, multiple canvases usually mean several styleframes, key poses, or storyboard beats. Each becomes a keyframe in a video or animation workflow.

Procreate gets the frames drawn, but it doesn't take them into motion. Styleframe is an AI video tool you could use for that step.

A practical sequence:

1. Create canvases at your target resolution and aspect ratio.
2. Draw each key moment on its own canvas, grouped in a Stack.
3. Export each as PNG with clear names.
4. Use them as keyframes or style references in your motion tool.
5. Bring the result into After Effects or Nuke for compositing and finishing.

Which method should you choose?

Common problems

Running out of layers. Layer count is tied to canvas size. If you subdivide one big canvas, plan on fewer layers per panel, or move heavy panels to their own canvases.

Mismatched sizes. Canvases of different dimensions are awkward to combine later. Decide on a standard size before you create a batch.

Different look under Page Assist. If blend modes and opacity look off, turn Page Assist off and check the artwork on a normal canvas.

Lost organization. Name Stacks and canvases early, and don't create more Stack levels than you need.

Summary

Procreate has no true multi-canvas or artboard feature, but you can get the same result with Gallery canvases, Stacks, a wide canvas split into panels, or Page Assist for sketching. Match canvas sizes, name everything, and export in formats your downstream tools expect. If the end goal is motion, treat each canvas as a deliberate keyframe and carry it into a pipeline where you keep control over every step.

Procreate doesn't support multiple canvases or artboards inside one document, so you add them in one of three ways. Create separate canvases in the Gallery and group them into a Stack, build one oversized canvas and divide it into panels yourself, or use Page Assist to treat a single file as several pages. Which one fits depends on whether you need separate files, one shared view, or a multi-page sketchbook.

What "multiple canvases" means in Procreate

If you come from After Effects, Illustrator, or Figma, you probably expect artboards: several frames of different sizes in one document that you can pan between and export together. Procreate doesn't have that. Each artwork is one canvas with one fixed size, and each canvas has its own layer limit. That limit depends on the canvas dimensions, which is why subdividing one file is a trade-off.

Artists have asked for in-document artboards on Procreate's community forum, including children's book illustrators and people presenting several ideas to a client. Until that changes, you work around it.

Method 1: Create additional canvases from the Gallery

This is the simplest approach and the one most people mean by "adding a canvas."

1. Open the Gallery, the grid view of all your artworks.
2. Tap the + icon in the corner.
3. Pick a preset size, or tap the custom canvas icon to set your own width, height, and DPI.
4. Tap Create.

Repeat for each canvas. Set the DPI deliberately. Canvas size determines how many layers you get, and it's hard to correct later without resampling.

For a board with several frames, create every canvas at the same dimensions, such as 3840×2160 for UHD. They'll then line up when you bring them into a compositing or editing timeline later.

Method 2: Group canvases into a Stack

Once you have several canvases for one project, Stacks keep them together. A Stack is a folder in the Gallery.

1. In the Gallery, tap Select.
2. Tap each canvas you want to group.
3. Tap Stack.
4. Open the Stack and tap its title to rename it.

To add a canvas later, press and hold it in the Gallery and drag it onto the Stack. To remove one, open the Stack, choose Select, and drag the canvas out. Inside a Stack you can long-press and drag to reorder canvases, which is useful for sequential work like storyboards.

One user reported that Procreate merged some of their stacks once they had created a lot of them. That's anecdotal and I can't confirm it, but it's a reason to keep your structure shallow. One Stack per project, named clearly, is safer than many nested categories.

Method 3: Build one wide canvas and split it into panels

If you need to see everything at once, make one large canvas and divide it yourself. This is the closest you get to artboards, and it works well for reference setups, model sheets, and side-by-side comparisons.

A common version of this is a reference-and-painting layout:

1. Create a canvas wide enough for two panels, for example 5000×3500 px at 300 DPI.
2. Open the Actions menu (wrench icon), choose Add, then Insert a photo, and select your reference.
3. With Uniform selected and Snapping on, drag a corner to scale the reference to about half the canvas width.
4. In the Layers panel, swipe left on the image and tap Duplicate.
5. On the duplicate, turn on Alpha Lock, then use the Transform tool to drag it into the other half. The snapping guide shows when it's aligned with the first image.
6. Fill the duplicate with a flat background color using a large soft brush. That's your blank painting panel.

Both halves are now exactly the same size and sit side by side, which makes it easier to judge proportion and negative space while you work.

You can extend the idea to a four-panel grid for a storyboard or a thumbnail sheet. Put each panel's artwork in its own layer group so you can hide and show them independently.

The cost is the layer budget. A large canvas has fewer available layers, and splitting it between panels means each panel has fewer to work with. If a panel needs a lot of layers, give it its own canvas.

Method 4: Use Page Assist for multi-page work

Page Assist lets you treat one Procreate file as a set of pages.

It suits sketching and thumbnailing, where you want a sequence of rough pages in one file. It has a known weakness: layer opacity and blend modes can behave differently with Page Assist enabled, so the artwork may look different from the same artwork on a normal canvas. One user recommends using it for the sketch phase, then moving finished pages to their own canvases once you start rendering. That's a sound rule if the final look matters.

Moving layers between canvases

Once you have more than one canvas, you'll want to move work between them. You don't need to export and re-import.

1. Open the source canvas and the Layers panel.
2. Select one or more layers.
3. Press and hold a selected layer until it lifts. A counter appears if you've selected several.
4. While still holding, drag to the Gallery link in the top-left corner.
5. Still holding, tap the destination canvas in the Gallery to open it.
6. Open the Layers panel and drop the layers there.

Transform and clipping masks work as normal afterward. This is a good way to reuse a background, texture, or character across several frames.

Exporting multiple canvases and layers

Canvases export through Actions → Share, where you choose your format and destination.

There's also a shortcut for layers. Open Procreate and Photos or Files in split view, then drag layers from the Layers panel into the destination. They export as PNG, and hidden layers can be exported too. The alternative is to hide every other layer and use Share each time, which gets tedious with a long list.

Two practical notes:

• Name layers and canvases before you export. Files named "Untitled Artwork 14" are painful to sort in a timeline.
• Match canvas dimensions to the destination. A canvas created at your comp resolution avoids resampling in After Effects or Premiere Pro.

Using multiple canvases as keyframes in a motion pipeline

For motion designers, multiple canvases usually mean several styleframes, key poses, or storyboard beats. Each becomes a keyframe in a video or animation workflow.

Procreate gets the frames drawn, but it doesn't take them into motion. Styleframe is an AI video tool you could use for that step.

A practical sequence:

1. Create canvases at your target resolution and aspect ratio.
2. Draw each key moment on its own canvas, grouped in a Stack.
3. Export each as PNG with clear names.
4. Use them as keyframes or style references in your motion tool.
5. Bring the result into After Effects or Nuke for compositing and finishing.

Which method should you choose?

Common problems

Running out of layers. Layer count is tied to canvas size. If you subdivide one big canvas, plan on fewer layers per panel, or move heavy panels to their own canvases.

Mismatched sizes. Canvases of different dimensions are awkward to combine later. Decide on a standard size before you create a batch.

Different look under Page Assist. If blend modes and opacity look off, turn Page Assist off and check the artwork on a normal canvas.

Lost organization. Name Stacks and canvases early, and don't create more Stack levels than you need.

Summary

Procreate has no true multi-canvas or artboard feature, but you can get the same result with Gallery canvases, Stacks, a wide canvas split into panels, or Page Assist for sketching. Match canvas sizes, name everything, and export in formats your downstream tools expect. If the end goal is motion, treat each canvas as a deliberate keyframe and carry it into a pipeline where you keep control over every step.