These are the best drawing/art apps for painting & drawing on android phones and tablets
While it’s great to work with pencil and paper or canvas and paints, using an app makes it possible to enjoy painting and drawing on your Android tablet or smartphone. It’s convenient, doesn’t require a ton of equipment, and brings a whole new meaning to the word ‘creativity,’ with new digital ways of doing things.
What are the best android drawing app and painting apps?
Creating art on mobile devices is gaining popularity, and many established artists are using them as their primary medium. Here are the best Android apps for artists to draw and paint.
ARTFLOW
ArtFlow is one of the best Sketchbook app available on android to draw and paint. It is best suited for professional artists that aim to replace a physical sketchpad with a universal art studio type app. The app uses a high-performance fluid paint engine that makes painting and drawing an enjoyable, intuitive experience. It packs many features such as support for pressure-sensitive pens (e.g., the Samsung S Pen) and includes over 80 paintbrushes and tools. ArtFlow also features color adjustment (such as brightness, HSV, and saturation), hi-resolution canvases, up to 16 to 32 layers (depending on available memory and device), infinite undo and redo, and separate flow and opacity brush control.
Results can be exported to PNG, JPEG, or PDS, so you can resume working on Photoshop for desktop. The app also enables users to import images directly from a camera or a gallery. Do note that the app is free to download, but some of the more advanced features require a pro-license, available through an in-app purchase. In the free version, you’ll only get 20 tools and up to two layers. Also, note that some features such as pressure simulation and palm rejection are only available for compatible devices.
SKETCHBOOK
Autodesk’s SketchBook comes with support for numerous languages and is aimed at everybody who wants to have a go, no matter what their age. The user interface is clean and easy to navigate, and the basic free app features a full-screen workspace, over 10 preset brushes (pencils, pens, and markers), 2,500% zoom, Layer Editor with up to 13 layers, and 16 blending modes, and more.
SketchBook is the best professional drawing app that includes more than 100 pencils, pens, markers, brushes, a full Copic Color Library, additional layers, gradient fills tools, and advanced selection tools, including a magic wand, marquee, and lasso. Work can be saved and stored on Dropbox, and the Gallery on the app features multiple view options and albums. Users are also able to export files for AutoCAD 360 to design things. An elegant touch with this powerful app is time-lapse recording enabling an in-app video of your work in progress that you can share.
PicsArt Color
PicsArt is a popular photo editing app for android, and now they have a new color app for Painting, Drawing & Sketch. The app comes with an array of tools to create digital illustrations easily. You get an unlimited number of layers, and customizable paint brushes with textures, a color wheel, many blending modes, a text tool, and more. There is even a symmetric drawing feature that works surprisingly well, like much professional software. In short, PicsArt Color is a nifty paint app for both learners and pro artists.
PAINTASTIC
Paintastic is an excellent paint app to produce artwork such as paintings, logos, greetings cards, and designs or elaborate on other photos and pictures. Suitable for all ages, it features plenty of paintbrushes to choose from, hundreds of predefined shapes, a useful color picker, image filters, and effects, and a selection tool for copying, pasting, cropping, rotating, resizing, and more. You can add pictures and photos to create cards and collages and add captions and quotes to your creations. The app makes it easy to share your cards or drawings with the ones you love via social networks such as Facebook, Whatsapp, and Twitter.
PaperColor
PaperColor is another popular drawing and painting app for beginners. The app lets the user create a base map by tracing a photo. Just import an image and set in a translucent mode to draw over it. You can also use a ruler and eraser to fix the drawing. After that, you can start painting the art using the brushes and color in the library.
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR DRAW
Adobe is the most known name in graphic works, and the mobile version of the Illustrator drawing app is aimed at professional artists, illustrators, and graphic designers. The app won the PlayStore Editor’s Choice Award and the Tabby Award for Creation, Design, and Editing, and it enables work to be sent from the app to Adobe Illustrator CC, Photoshop CC, Capture CC, or Photoshop Sketch. Features include a choice of five pen tips varying in adjustable size, color, and opacity, and up to 64x zoom for working on areas with fine detail.
Multiple images and layers can be worked on at the same time. Each layer can be renamed, duplicated, merged, or adjusted, and the app also supports Creative Cloud services such as Adobe Stock and Powered by CreativeSync. Basically, it’s a light version of Adobe Illustrator for tablets and smartphones.
Infinite Painter
Infinite Painter is a great photoshop alternative for android as it does a lot of things you can do on a full photoshop app on a computer. Infinite Painter is a user-friendly drawing app with great workflows for easy navigating and a less cluttered workspace. It has some powerful tools like 3D rendering and over 160 brushes, along with the ability to create your own brushes. Besides, it comes with more advanced features, including a transform tool, pattern tool, liquifies tool, gradient/fill, and more.
MEDIBANG PAINT
MediBang Paint is a hugely popular app for comic creation and creating artwork. It’s a good choice for digital artists that includes many features of other good art apps. However, one of this app’s best bits is cross-platform support for Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac OS X, meaning you can transfer work between all of these platforms thanks to a cloud saving feature.
The app has a plethora of tools available such as Airbrush, Watercolor, Acrylic, Drawing Pen, Soft Pastel, Mapping Pen, and more, and a huge mass of free resources to take advantage of, comprising comic book fonts, and tones, textures, and premade backgrounds. Work can be uploaded to the MediBang art community or shared across social networks. For a totally free app, this one has plenty to recommend it.
Sketch a Day
Sketch a Day is an exciting android drawing app that challenges you to complete one sketch every day. The app gives a daily inspiration to work with a new subject for its users to draw. You can use other digital art apps to draw and paint. Once you do your sketch or drawing, you should take a photo and upload it back for others to see and give feedback.
The app also provides a learn section with tutorials ranging from different drawing, painting, and color techniques and crafting ideas from talented artists. It’s one of the best drawing apps for android to get in the habit of drawing.
Tayasui Sketches
Tayasui Sketches is available for all computing platforms and a good sketch app for artists. It’s one of the newer drawing apps that we love. The UI is simple, spacious, and easier to work with. For the workflow, you have color blending and gradient tools, along with patterns and realistic brushes, and more. Tayasui Sketches is a top choice for those who want to create watercolor paints.
ART DRAWING IDEAS
So sometimes you sit down, and you’re ready to start drawing but can’t think of what to draw! That’s where this app is useful as it provides a multitude of ideas that will inspire, motivate you, and teach you to develop your skills. It includes basic drawing skills and works from famous drawing artists, with some fantastic images to encourage you to get creative using a choice of media such as pen and ink, graphic pencils, charcoals, chalks, silverpoint, and more. Users can also set their arts as the wallpaper.
IBIS PAINT X
The ibisPaint X illustration app will appeal to a wide spectrum of artists, and the fact that it has been downloaded more than 9 million times is a testament to its popularity. This art and design app is built on the idea of social drawing and features GPU accelerated realistic brushes with 142 types of brushes available.
IbisPaint also has an official YouTube channel with useful videos, and you can upload videos of your artistic endeavors as the app features the ability to record yourself working. It includes a Frame Divider Tool, area selection functions with 256 grades of selection for every pixel, a color palette with up to 30 colors saved, a ruler tool, and much more.
SKETCH MASTER
Sketch Master is a simple drawing app yet compelling to create drawings, painting, or adding text on photos. It offers some useful functions like zooming up to 3000 percent, unlimited layers, various brushes, color swatches, color picker tool, and more. You can share your creations with different social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or save them in your device’s gallery.
HOW TO DRAW
How to Draw is also a handy drawing app for armature artists. It will teach you the basics of drawing with easy to follow lessons. The app includes drawings of famous people that you can recreate by following steps and suggested techniques. Overall, it’s a decent app for beginner artists, starting with sketches and simple lines ending with a full-color image.
WACOM BAMBOO PAPER
Wacom is known for the drawing tablets that professional artists use to draw with computer applications for greater workflow. Wacom Bamboo Paper will turn your android tablet into a paper notebook for taking notes, sketching, and drawing. It is a kind of notebook but has a great virtue for drawing. It does not have all the expected features of a drawing tool but has all the basic tools to make great pictures with a little creativity. The natural touch of the drawing with your fingers’ touch will become one of the best experiences on a tablet. If you want to make some quick sketches, it is the perfect app for you.
Whether you’ve always wondered if you have any artistic talent, or are already an accomplished artist, at least one or two of these apps will have something to offer you. Painting and drawing is an activity that’s enjoyed by millions of people across the world, and now that creating art can be enjoyed on an Android smartphone or tablet, it’s even more accessible. If you have a favorite among our selection of the best painting and drawing apps for artists on Android, let us know which one you prefer.