The best iPad art apps are here to help you unleash your creative side, albeit virtually. While artists may appreciate the list, considering it gives them a chance to create their artwork in the digital sphere, others can try their hand at becoming virtual artists if real life brushes make too much of a mess. So if you’ve always dreamed of painting or sketching, the following applications will help you get there.
1 – ArtStudio for iPad:
A professional drawing application optimized for iPad, ArtStudio employs mathematical techniques to render a high level of quality. It offers drawing lessons to beginners, complete with step-by-step instructions for different kinds of images.
Multiple canvas sizes, brushes and tools assist you with creating your masterpieces. Moreover, this layer-based software comes with a lot of other options like layer masks and blending modes that can be used easily, thanks to its intuitive interface.
Price: $2.99
2 – SketchBook Pro for iPad:
This application on our iPad art apps roster, takes a leaf out of the desktop version of SketchBook and successfully turns the Apple slate into a blank canvas for you. Apt for occasional doodlers and professional illustrators alike, it lets you have as many as 18 layers for a single sketch on the new iPad and recognizes multi-touch gestures like three-finger taps, swipe and two-finger zoom amongst others.
This software lets you customize the interface as well. And needless to say, it is complete with brushes, colors and all the tools you might require while painting on the slab.
Price: $1.99
3 – Drawing Pad:
Drawing Pad promises to make creating art a fun-filled experience with its user-friendly interface and photo-realistic markers, brushes, pencils, crayons and more. Its built-in album saves all your drawings and lets you continue working on them as and when you wish.
Besides using your illustrations as the device’s wallpaper, you can even share them with friends via emails or through social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter.
Price: $1.99
4 – LiveSketch HD:
The app in question claims to be the perfect way to express yourself through sketches, just like you would with paper and pencil. It comes with an eraser tool to rectify mistakes and hides or shows the toolbar on a single tap. LiveSketch HD is exclusively meant for the iPad while an iPhone version is also available in the App Store.
Price: $1.99
5 – iDraw:
Here’s a vector drawing app on our queue of iPad art apps that’s the most feature-packed of them all, according to its developers. Be it technical illustrations or artwork, iDraw pretty much covers everything and lets you insert layers, text, gradients and a lot of other effects.
It even tags along shape libraries and lets you save your drawings to Dropbox directly from the app.
Price: $8.99
6 – Inspire Pro:
The developers of this app clearly mention that Inspire is not a Photoshop clone and the software itself is devoid of a large number of brushes. But the blending options, effects, dry brushes and wet oil paint make it stand out from the crowd.
Add to it laser-sharp graphics as well as realistic paint brushes of different sizes that produce natural brush strokes and you’re good to go. You can import your images to this app from the gallery and upload your drawings directly to social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter.
Price: $7.99
7 – Procreate:
Apparently the only studio-grade sketchbook app for the iPad, Procreate can be used for multiple tasks that include storyboarding, illustrations or casual drawings. With as many as 45 professional and abstract brushes as well as sketching pencils, you may not have to look anywhere else to create virtual masterpieces.
This software makes use of the Silica painting engine, fueled by the iPad’s GPU, to achieve the quality it promises to deliver.
Price: $4.99
8 – ArtRage for iPad:
If you are on the lookout for a feature-rich assistant complete with natural and intuitive tools that let you experiment with colors, effects and textures, you have landed up in the right place.
This application on our lineup of iPad art apps should allow you get creative and explore your capabilities on your beloved touch gadget. You can try out pencils, crayons, watercolors, oil colors and more to find out exactly where your expertise lies.
Price: $2.99
9 – Tracing Paper:
A simple yet elegant application meant for all iOS devices, Tracing Paper assists you with improving your sketching skills. It comes with a translucent canvas featuring a grid and allows users to import a picture under the canvas and trace over it. Apart from recognizing gestures, it offers options like undo, redo, eraser and pencils in multiple sizes for different effects. You can save these sketches to the photo library or even print them from the app itself.
Price: $2.99
10 – ASKetch:
ASKetch, another application that lets you simply learn to draw without having to worry about brushes and palettes, also features on our list of the best drawing apps for iPad. You can zoom into images without pixelation and even rotate them with a pinching gesture. Bringing in an experience akin to charcoal drawing, the software boasts of three pencil types and permits you to switch between hard and soft drawing modes with a swipe gesture.
Price: $1.99
Conclusion:
You need not be an artist to use any of the best iPad art apps we’ve listed out above, since they include drawing lessons and tutorials which lend a helping hand. We can see the artist in you screaming to be let out. Which one would you pick? Let us know through a well thought-out, politely-worded comment.