What Are the Best Drawing Apps for Apple Pencil
22 brilliant drawing apps for iPad
It's no overstatement to say that getting one of the best drawing apps for iPad can take your digital art to new heights. There's loads to love about the 22 drawing apps for iPad that we've listed here. Many are free - the others are inexpensive - and yet they're all really easy to use, many loaded with features to allow you to get creative in new ways.
Their success is because they've been made with the strengths of the iPad in mind. Turning your tablet into a complete portable art studio, they work perfectly with the brilliant capabilities of the Apple Pencil, adding a whole new dimension to your creative process. (Check out our Apple Pencil 2 review.)
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You may think that 22 apps is a lot to wade through, but there are thousands of digital art apps out there, so hopefully we've done you a service by cutting that list down. There are options for total beginners and seasoned pros so whatever your skill level, you're bound to find the perfect app here.
When you've decided, have a look at our how to draw tutorials, too. And you'll discover an even wider range of creative tools in our posts summing up the best iPad Pro apps to use with the Apple Pencil, and the best digital art software.
01. Drawing apps for iPad: Illustrator
- Download Illustrator for iPad US: Free, with in-app purchases
- Download Illustrator for iPad UK: Free, with in-app purchases
Creatives are delighted with Illustrator on the iPad. It brings the core design capabilities of Illustrator but reimagined for the iPad and the Apple Pencil. The demos of the new features like radial, grid and mirror repeat are super-promising, offering brilliant additions for designers.
This app is designed to seamlessly send files back and forward from the main Illustrator software, and though it may feel different from the flagship program at the moment, this is only version one and there will be loads more features coming later (including more brushes and effects, and Sensai features).
You can try it free along with your Creative Cloud Subscription. Don't have one? See here to get the best Adobe deals.
02. Procreate
One of the most popular drawing apps for iPad within the artistic community, Procreate is powerful, fast and intuitive, and enables you to create large, complex works of art on your iPad. It benefits from an unobtrusive UI with easy access sliders, which enable you to quickly adjust the size of your brush/opacity as you work. This saves time and enables you to concentrate on what you're painting, rather than getting distracted by pop-up menus.
Like many of the other iPad art apps here, there's an easy-to-use colour picker with customisable swatches, layer options, a fast and responsive zoom, good smudging/blending options, a great undo functionality and you can add text to your creations. Procreate 5, released in December 2019, brought the app's biggest ever update, and now supports ABR import, has an Animation Assist tool, plus loads more. Procreate has over 130 brushes available by default (see our pick of the best Procreate brushes), and over 50 customisable settings for each brush.
Styluses at the ready!
Want to make the most of these free and affordable apps for iPad? Make sure you've got an Apple Pencil – either first or second generation (take a look at our comparison guide to both models). Here are the best prices on both, wherever you are...
03. Photoshop for iPad
- Download Photoshop for iPad US: Free with in-app purchases
- Download Inspire Pro UK: Free with in-app purchases
Photoshop began life as an image editing program, and that's what it's still best known for (find out how to download Photoshop here). But over the years, its capabilities have expanded enormously, and it's become many artists' go-to software for sketching, drawing and painting. So many in the art community were excited last November, when Adobe announced a full version of Photoshop for iPad would be available, with support for Apple Pencil.
As we pointed out in our review of Photoshop for iPad, this wasn't quite the full version: some features were missing and are being brought in gradually. Curves, for example, which allows you make tone adjustments for all channels, and the Subject Select tool, were both notable omissions that have only been added in recent months.
That said, for most drawing purposes, you'll find everything is pretty similar. And most significantly, it opens the same Photoshop files as those on your desktop, so you can stay in flow across all your devices. In short, if you're used to drawing in Photoshop and fancy doing it on your iPad, it's well worth a try, as it's free to download as part of your Creative Cloud subscription.
04. Inspire Pro
- Download Inspire Pro US: $9.99
- Download Inspire Pro UK: £9.99
Inspire Pro has one of the fastest and most realistic rendering engines on the App Store, delivering a fluid and natural experience that makes it one of our favourite drawing apps for iPad.
It sports 150 brushes including oil paint, airbrushes, spray paint, pencils, crayons, markers, chalk, charcoal, pastels and paint splatters. Inspire Pro also has a wide variety of high-quality and customisable tools for you to choose from.
With Apple Pencil and iPad Pro, the size and opacity of brush strokes react instantly to applied pressure, tilt angle and orientation for unprecedented creative control on a mobile device. Give one of the brushes from the Graphite Pencils set a try with Apple Pencil and iPad Pro, for example, and you'll quickly forget that you're not using an actual pencil and paper.
05. Adobe Fresco
- Download Adobe Fresco UK: Free (in-app purchases)
- Download Adobe Fresco US: Free (in-app purchases)
Another addition to Adobe's lineup of drawing apps for iPad, Fresco aims to digitally recreate traditional analogue drawing materials. It's clearly going after the likes of Procreate (see below) but the major difference is that it's tied to a Creative Cloud subscription or a £10/$9.99 monthly payment.
These possible hurdles aside, Fresco delivers a buttery smooth drawing experience. Aided by the much anticipated Live Brushes, Fresco can blend mediums naturally in a way that outshines competitors. This allows it to adapt to a variety of drawing styles, including comic illustrations, inking, and even chalk and painting. See our full Adobe Fresco review for more info.
Fresco doesn't have text or animation options, so it falls a little short in some areas. But for Creative Cloud subscribers, Fresco is a fun addition that prevents them from having to continuously switch between apps.
- Download Procreate US: $9.99
- Download Procreate UK: £9.99
06. Affinity Designer for iPad
- Download Affinity Designer US: $9.99
- Download Affinity Designer UK: £9.99
Built from the same back end as its award-winning desktop version, Affinity Designer for iPad is a vector drawing program that's fully optimised for iOS, including Touch controls and Apple Pencil support. It can also support huge multi-artboard canvases with as many layers as you could possibly want, and you can zoom to over one million per cent.
Affinity Designer supports both CMYK and RGB, and has a full Pantone library in the colour swatch panel, meaning it's ideal for creating both digital and printed art. You can export to a range of formats, including JPG, PNG, PDF and SVG, and there are over 100 brushes available, in styles including paints, pencils, inks, pastels and gouaches. In short, this is one of the few drawing apps for iPad that's squarely targeted at the professional market.
Read our full review of Affinity Designer for iPad.
07. Linea Sketch
- Download Linea Sketch US: Free with in-app purchases
- Download Linea Sketch UK: Free with in-app purchases
Linea Sketch is an approachable drawing app, which has been highly praised for its updated UI and feature set – making it a real contender in the drawing app space. If you're looking for something simple, you can't go wrong with this app, which has been designed with simplicity in mind – and a particular focus on sketching.
The app comes complete with a blend tool, fill tool and vast array of vibrant colour options, as well as a simplified set of five layers. You can use it with your finger or the Apple Pencil, depending on your preference, and it even allows you to record your drawing process so you can watch it back later.
08. ArtRage
- Download ArtRage US: $2.99
- Download ArtRage UK: £2.99
Artrage is all about allowing artists to create art on the iPad in a hands-on, realistic way. You can paint directly onto the screen or apply a glob of paint with one tool and smear it around with another. There's also a dedicated watercolour brush option, which can produce some striking effects.
As with the PC and Mac versions, the ArtRage drawing app for iPad is overflowing with options. There's a variety of canvas presets and paper options, plus a wide array of brushes, pencils, crayons, rollers, and pastels.
Once you've familiarised yourself with the interface, it's easy to change brush sizes, bring up the colour picker, work with layers and blend/smudge different elements together. Unfortunately, there's some noticeable lag when moving and scaling your artwork. This takes the shine off what is an incredibly flexible painting program for creating iPad art.
09. iPastels
- Download iPastels US: Free (in-app purchases)
- Download iPastels UK: Free (in-app purchases)
No digital application and tablet screen will give you the real feel of working with pastels and charcoal, but drawing apps for iPad are not looking to replace feel – they are designed to mimic the effect, and that is what iPastels does so well. Plus, you don't get messy fingers.
It is impressive how well the app replicates some aspects of pastel drawing, including soft pastels, oil pastels, pastel pencils, and realistic colour blending using your finger on the screen just like you would on paper. One downside is that you have to stop drawing when you want to adjust the size and pressure of your tool, but there are plus sides – including the ability to correct mistakes quickly and simply.
For that reason and more, iPastels is a great app to use if you want to try out compositions before beginning a real painting – or just for a bit of fun. It has Apple Pencil support, and the upgrade to Pro features costs $4.99/£4.99.
10. MediBang Paint for iPad
- Download MediBang US: Free (In-app purchases)
- Download MediBang UK: Free (In-app purchases)
If you're new to digital art and so after a brilliant-but-basic drawing app for your iPad, look no further than MediBang Paint for iPad. An easy-to-use program, MediBang has similar features to Photoshop, including layers, with the ability to add styles and a handy brush editor. In fact, MediBang is full of brilliant drawing and painting tools – so much so that it's hard to believe it's free.
Compatible with iOS 11 and above, if you want to create professional-looking artwork but you are on a budget, this is the iPad drawing app for you.
11. Zen Brush 2
- Download Zen Brush 2 US: $2.99
- Download Zen Brush 2 UK: £2.99
Zen Brush 2 is one of the drawing apps for iPad that emulates the feel of drawing with traditional Japanese calligraphy brushes. With a smooth and fluent drawing engine, it's easy to lose yourself in the process of creating beautiful Zen art on the iPad.
Zen Brush 2 has a gallery feature that enables you to save your work in progress, as well as a lovely ink dispersion effect to give your drawings an added feeling of depth. There's support for pressure-sensitive styluses, including Apple Pencil, and best of all you're no longer restricted to black ink – you can use red ink too.
12. Concepts
- Download Concepts US: Free (in-app purchases)
- Download Concepts UK: Free (in-app purchases)
Created specifically for professionals, Concepts is an advanced sketching and design app. It features infinite canvas and organic brushes, a fluid and responsive vector drawing engine, and intuitive precision tools, all tailored for a natural-feeling drawing experience. Whether you're an architect, product designer, illustrator or visual thinker, you can explore, iterate and share your designs anywhere you go.
Concepts is compatible with iOS 12.4 and later, and supports the iPad Pro (2018) and second-generation Apple Pencil. Double-tap tool switching is supported, plus you can customise how the double-tap manifests itself.
13. Artstudio Pro
- Download Artstudio Pro US: $11.99
- Download Artstudio Pro UK: £11.99
Artstudio Pro for iPad is the successor to ArtStudio – a legacy version of which is still available for $4.99/£4.99. The new version has been optimised for Apple Pencil, and claims to be 5-10 times faster than ArtStudio.
There are new and improved tools, which include 27 blending modes, over 100 built-in brushes and the ability to import all types of formats, including ABL brushes. There are also various different canvas sizes and options that include layers, layer masks, filters and effects. With an active community and plenty of features to play around with, we think this is a great choice for artists.
14. Comic Draw
- Download Comic Draw US: $9.99 (in-app purchases)
- Download Comic Draw UK: £9.99 (in-app purchases)
While some painting and drawing apps cover a broad range of abilities and creative disciplines, Comic Draw is single-minded in its purpose. Comic artists are its target, and in those terms it is a highly effective tool. The app features a tool that enables you to lay out the panels on your page, guides to help you keep a perfect perspective and layers to enable you to build your drawings.
You'll also find a digital sketchpad for experimenting with your concepts, and an inking and colouring interface to help you finish your design with various brushes. Comic Draw provides a lettering suite made up of different typefaces, balloons and design tools to add the all-important words, and you can add as many pages as you want to make everything from a comic strip to a full-length book. There's a free trial available before you buy.
15. Assembly
- Download Assembly US: Free (in-app purchases)
- Download Assembly UK: Free (in-app purchases)
Assembly is a great way to create detailed vector drawings, icons, logos, scenes and characters without all that fiddly mucking about with vectors and Bézier curves. Rather than painstakingly drawing everything out yourself, you can choose from an enormous selection of ready-made shapes and stick them together to create your vector masterpiece.
You can layer, stack and position shapes however you want with this entry on our drawing apps for iPad list, and even create your own building blocks by cutting out, combining and intersecting existing shapes. If you need to prototype in a hurry, it's an ideal tool for getting professional results fast.
16. Photoshop Sketch
- Download Photoshop Sketch US: Free (in-app purchases)
- Download Photoshop Sketch UK: Free (in-app purchases)
A lightweight and free version of the full Photoshop, Photoshop Sketch nevertheless features some decent tools including a graphite pencil, ink pen and watercolour brushes, with adjustable size, colour, opacity and blending settings.
You can layer and rearrange your images, use perspective and graph grids to help align your creations, and there's support for pretty much any stylus you care to think of. Plus, you can export your work to Illustrator or Photoshop if you have a Creative Cloud account (subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud here). However, if you're planning on using Photoshop Sketch as a stand-alone app then you'll only need the basic free version.
17. Clip Studio Paint Ex
- Download Clip Studio Paint EX US: $8.99/month
- Download Clip Studio Paint EX UK: £6.99/month
Another full-featured desktop paint app that's now on the iPad, Clip Studio Paint Ex is great for drawing comics and manga, and it can also be used to create any kind of digital art. It's also one of the few drawing apps for iPad that brings the feel of traditional drawing to the digital space, making this the perfect app for creating your illustrations and sketches while on the go.
This app comes packed with drawing tools such as pencils, markers, calligraphy pens and air brushes. And because the drawing engine works so well with the Apple Pencil, you'll have a full range of pressure-sensitive dynamics to get your linework perfect. Another bonus is when you sign up for Clip Studio Paint EX subscription, you get three months free.
18. Graphic
- Download Graphic US: $8.99
- Download Graphic UK: £8.99
Offering a desktop-class standard of vector drawing, Graphic boasts variable-width brush strokes and pressure-sensitive support for the Apple Pencil. This easy-to-use addition to our drawing apps for iPad guide is compatible with both the Mac and iPhone versions via iCloud and Dropbox, enabling you to save your masterpieces on the go for straightforward editing across devices later down the line.
19. Autodesk Sketchbook
- Download SketchBook US: Free
- Download SketchBook UK: Free
SketchBook by Autodesk is one of the most popular drawing apps for iPad among digital artists. As you'd expect from Autodesk, SketchBook has all the swagger of a pro-grade painting program, but with an experience designed for those looking to create art on the iPad.
There's a wide range of digital pencils, pens, markers, and airbrushes to choose from, all accessed via a simple but intuitive UI that enables you to pin your favourite toolbars to the screen. It's flexible and fast, too, enabling you to work with layers, transparency options, annotations and advanced blend modes. With Dropbox integration plus the ability to import and export Photoshop-friendly files, it's an ideal iPad art app for working on the move.
20. Art Set 4
- Download Art Set 4 US: Free
- Download Art Set 4 UK: Free
Art Set 4 has an easy to use interface and hyper-real tools for drawing and painting, so for example you can actually see your watercolour paint flow and run as you use it. Oil paint, watercolours, oil pastel, pencil, biro pen, marker, wax crayon and a few others are included for free, while an in-app purchase unlocks more than 150 brushes and further features.
21. Brushes Redux
- Download Brushes Redux US: Free
- Download Brushes Redux UK: Free
Legendary artist David Hockney has been spotted using the Brushes app when creating art on the iPad. It's an oldie but a goodie, designed specifically for Apple's tablet and now with the 'Redux' suffix – and it's free and open-source.
Using a basic toolbar at the bottom of the screen, you can bring up a colour wheel/picker, work with layers and switch between various brushes. Best of all, perhaps, Brushes is fast and responsive to the touch so it's easy to work quickly. A useful feature is the ability to record each brush stroke, enabling you to play back exactly how you created each piece of iPad art via the Brushes viewer.
22. SketchClub
- Download Sketch Club US: $2.99
- Download Sketch Club UK: £2.99
Sketch Club has a great set of tools for creating beautiful digital art, which is why it's a valuable addition to our drawing apps for iPad list. The app has a unique set of flexible digital brushes (and more can be made), pens, vector tools, old school pixel art, and fun procedural tools.
Sketch Club has an uncluttered user interface, with lots of settings to customise the app to your own unique preferences. A particularly great feature of this app is the integrated online community. Here you can upload your sketches to let others rate and comment on your work, as well as enter daily challenges and fun weekly competitions.
Related articles:
- Apple Pencil vs Apple Pencil 2: Which should you buy?
- Best iPad Pro apps: Make your Apple Pencil shine
- Apple Pencil alternatives: The best styluses from a range of top companies
Rosie Hilder is the deputy editor of Creative Bloq. Before joining the CB team in 2018, she worked on a range of print titles, including Time Out Buenos Aires, Computer Arts, 3D World, Paint & Draw and Mac|Life. Her interests lie in branding and illustration, tech and sexism, and plenty more in-between.
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What Are the Best Drawing Apps for Apple Pencil
Source: https://www.creativebloq.com/digital-art/art-on-the-ipad-1232669
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