How to start to draw and paint on the iPad

Calli the polar bear, watercolor and pen, Tayasui Sketches

I’m writing this in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many of us have to stay at home and practice social distancing. I’ve put together a quick guide on how to learn to draw on the iPad as it may be helpful to some people. The idea is not to try to help you to optimize time spent at home, or anything like that. It’s just to help people who are looking for something creative and enjoyable that you can do at home.

Advantages of making digital artwork

Maybe you’ve never seriously made drawings or paintings. If that’s the case, starting to draw or paint on the iPad offers several advantages.

First, there is the option to undo. Making mistakes is very common, and electronic drawing allows you to go back and undo the mistake, which is trickier with non-electronic drawings.

Second, layers allow a great deal of flexibility for your artwork, for example, you can make a quick sketch in pencil, then you paint or ink and remove the sketch. This is possible with non-digital art, but it’s not as easy.

Third, provided you already have a tablet, you don’t need to buy all sorts of expensive art supplies. The only things you really need, beside an iPad, are drawing software and a stylus (it is worth investing in a pressure-sensitive one). I recommend the Apple pencil. Both the first and second generation work well. Check out which one is compatible with your model of iPad (note, old models like the iPad 2 do not work with Pencil, in which case you need to resort to a more traditional stylus).

Two Apple Styluses, first generation (top), and second generation (bottom). Which one to use depends on which iPad you have.

Fourth, you can easily and quickly share electronic artwork on social media, such as Instagram, Tumblr, … and some software has dedicated communities where members share their art, such as Tayasui.

For these reasons, I think people who start to draw, especially adults, may just as well start digitally.

My background: I am not a professional artist, I’ve made drawings for fun for a long time, both digitally and non-digitally.

Which software do I use?

If you have an iPad and stylus, you can look for a suitable app. There are lots of options. I’m just listing three popular apps, the easiest and most straightforward first.

1. Paper by WeTransfer

This is undoubtedly the simplest, but also most limited digital art app. Conceived as a quick sketchbook, it has no layers (you can cheat by taking a screenshot of a drawing, then entering that into a next painting to create an extra layer, but that’s it). The tools are very limited. There’s a pen, a marker, two fixed-width pens, a filler tool, a cut and paste tool, that’s it. The free version only has one width setting per tool. Even the subscription version offers only three width settings per tool. You cannot change the opacity, this is set by default for each tool (e.g., the pen has 100% opacity, the marker has lower opacity).

However, you can change the width of the tool by changing pressure on your stylus (if pressure sensitive) or by adjusting the speed of drawing (for a dummy stylus). The pencil is particularly good. Leaning the pencil on its side gives a nice blending effect. Mixing colors is very intuitive, almost like using an actual palette.

In spite of these clear limitations, I enjoy this software and it is very intuitive to use. I have made lots of drawings with it. Examples below:

Baby coot (I think?) in Wolvercote Lakes, Oxford, England, filler tool, pencil, and watercolor, Paper by WeTransfer

Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream, marker, filler tool and pen, Paper by WeTransfer

Advantages

1. Intuitive interface, with few tools that are well-chosen (though the watercolor tool is not convincing, the markers and the pencils work best).
2. Intuitive color mixing.

Disadvantages

1. The free version is limited, the paid version is (alas) a subscription model; for that you get cloud storage of your work (fwiw). Given that there are good alternatives that offer one-off payment option, I am not sure if the subscription model is worth it for new users. You could try the free version and see if it’s working for you.
2. The number of tools and settings is very limited. No layers, no toggling opacity, only three width settings per tool.

2. Tayasui Sketches

I would recommend this app for the beginning digital artist. You can try a free version and if you like it buy the “Pro” version (a one-off payment when I bought it).

Tayasui has more flexibility than Paper, but it is still simple and intuitive to use. The tools span a good range of pens, pencils, blend, watercolor, airbrush. I find mixing colors slightly less intuitive than in Paper, but still fairly straightforward. Creating layers and switching between them is easy.

The watercolor function is the best one I’ve seen in any app, superior to Procreate. You can do sophisticated wet-in-wet techniques, create blotches, and so on. Best of all, you can press the “dry” button so your paint dries instantly, or you can keep it wet and blend, as you choose.

You can choose different widths and opacities per tool, but typically each tool only offers you a limited number of options. Still, for most purposes this will be sufficient.

Girl in a tree, watercolors and pen, Tayasui Sketches

Advantages:

1. Intuitive interface, very flexible and good all-rounder.
2. Good balance of flexibility and options and easy of use (several opacity and width settings per tools.
3. Excellent watercolor emulator. Probably the best one out there.

Disadvantages:

The number of tools is still quite limited.

3. Procreate

Procreate has been, and continues to be, the gold standard in digital art apps. Its range of brushes is almost bewildering. For each brush, you can completely customize the size and opacity. It is the most comprehensive digital art software out there. Layers are flexible and easy to use and switch between. Mixing colors is not as intuitive as for the other software, but you can create your own palette and then use those colors for each artwork. Procreate is easy to use in spite of the huge library of different tools. It is also inexpensive. At $9.99 (one-off price), it’s excellent value for the price.

Still, I am a bit hesitant to recommend Procreate as the first drawing app for people new to digital art (or to drawing in general). The learning curve is a bit steeper than of many other apps because there are so many options. I am only starting to learn to work with it, and it is still not my favorite app though its functionality is superior to the other apps I have (listed above). In general, you should expect to need some time to adjust, but it can’t become a chore.

Niagara Falls, wet acrylics, Procreate

Advantages

1. Intuitive interface.
2. Enormous range of tools and total control of opacity and width for each tool.
3. For what it can do, the price is excellent.

Disadvantages:

1. Steep learning curve because so many options and settings.
2. Cumbersome color mixing.

This just goes to show that functionality is only one consideration. More options is not always necessarily better. You just need an app with tools that feel right to you.

Getting started

If you are new to drawing, how do you start? There are lots of different guides on how to draw and that can make the whole process daunting as it seems to suggest there is a right way to draw and lots of rules.

I’d recommend just looking at the pictures you took on your phone (or with your camera) and using those as inspiration for your artworks. Choose a picture you took that gives you joy or brings up fond memories. Alternatively, you can draw something that does not move (much) like a sleeping cat or a bunch of fruit, or a flower in your back yard.

In general, plants are more forgiving to draw than animals, which are more forgiving to draw than buildings and humans. You could put on a Bob Ross youtube movie and paint along with him (wet acrylics in Procreate would emulate his wet-in-wet technique, I think).

Don’t worry that it does not look exactly like the picture! You are just using it as an inspiration, and you’re doing it for fun. For example, the picture above is based on a photo I took of my son who is watching a polar bear in the Saint Louis Zoo. I simplified the boy in the picture, and I used watercolors to render the bear. A polar bear is a forgiving and simple form that you don’t need to replicate exactly.

That’s it! Happy painting, and stay well and safe.