While many paid drawing apps are available on the App Store, most users are unaware of the fact that there are plenty of free apps available too, that do the job equally well.
These apps help you draw, sketch, and design with ease and that too without spending a penny.
I’ll talk about some of the best free drawing apps for iPad in this post.
But before diving into the list, it’s worth noting that the latest iPads support the Apple Pencil, a wireless stylus pen that enhances the drawing experience.
Even if you have an older iPad that doesn’t support the Apple Pencil, you are still in luck. You can use these apps without any trouble to make beautiful creations.
The apps listed below either offer a free version or are entirely free, making them perfect for artists, designers, and hobbyists alike.
Let’s get started.
Best Free Drawing Apps for iPad That Are Just as Good as Paid Ones
1. Adobe Fresco – Best Free Drawing App For Beginners & Compatible with Apple Pencil
Among the free drawing apps for iPad, Adobe Fresco stands out as the best drawing app, especially for beginners.
This drawing app is compatible with the Apple Pencil and works with iPad Mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro. You’ll need iOS 14 or later to use Adobe Fresco, as it’s a powerhouse, full of amazing features, that requires powerful technology.
With a massive collection of raster and vector brushes, Adobe Fresco is designed for digital artists and illustrators who require a virtual workspace to create their art.
You can paint with watercolors and create a 3D effect by building up paint thickness, working in full-screen mode to give yourself more space and minimize distractions.
Adobe Fresco is definitely the app for you if you already work with other Adobe products and tools, such as Photoshop. That’s because Fresco integrates with Creative Cloud, meaning you can use your favorite brushes and fonts, as well as upload media from Adobe Stock.
Adobe Fresco works particularly well with Photoshop. Whether you are using a touchscreen or stylus device, you can use Photoshop together with Fresco to work on layers, merge images, and retouch your art.
Not only can you work with layers, but you can do so with non destructive editing, adding an unlimited number of adjustment layers to add special effects without hindering your ability to undo your edits.
You can even animate your drawings by guiding them along a motion path or using frame-by-frame animation. The drawing aids help you get your shapes perfectly right.
Adobe Fresco comes with a 30-day free trial, allowing you to try it out before signing up for a subscription.
2. Sketchbook – Best Free Drawing App That Can Be Used without Apple Pencil
SketchBook is a popular free drawing app for the iPad that can be used without an Apple Pencil.
While the Apple Pencil provides a high level of precision and sensitivity, it is not the only option for drawing on the iPad. The iPad has a touch-sensitive display, which means you can use your fingers or any other stylus to draw on it.
SketchBook is known for its professional-grade tools. Many artists and illustrators favor it for its customizable tools, elegant interface, and natural drawing feel.
The app includes a variety of brush types like pencils, markers, and airbrushes. These brushes mimic the feel of real-life tools.
The app also excels in precision. It offers guides, rulers, and stroke tools. For flexibility, it includes layers and a variety of blend modes. Users commend its wide selection of brushes and professional tools, which are easy to use on a tablet.
The interface is also a highlight, known for its attractiveness and lifelike drawing experience.
It has abundance of design tools, which are not hidden behind paywalls.
Related: 15 Affordable Apple Pencil Alternatives for iPad: Save Money Now
3. Charcoal
Charcoal is a cool little sketching and drawing app for iPads.
While there are many tools and beautiful color palettes available for you to use when creating your designs, the actual app is easy to use and navigate, even if you don’t have a lot of experience.
I recommend Charcoal if you are looking for something simpler and easier to use. It doesn’t have confusing layers or features, and you can get started right away, just create a sketch and get to work.
There are various brush and pencil types you can use, as well as many different colors. You can make your idea come to life while enjoying features like the dark mode.
You can also work on multiple windows and sketches at once. Charcoal has excellent reviews on the app store.
4. Linea Sketch
Linea Sketch is an excellent iPad drawing app for kids and adults alike. It is free to download and use, although you can buy an in-app subscription to remove ads and the like.
Linea Sketch is incredibly easy to use, with minimal clutter and an easy-to-follow user design. It has easy-to-use color palettes, but in addition to the ready-made color options, you can customize and create your own colors and shades.
There are two banks of colors in the app, and you will see them on the screen. Various shades and hues are available, and in addition to creating your custom shades, you can also import colors from other apps.
A bunch of brushes and pencils are available. For example, you can use the technical pencil for hard and thin lines or the classic pencil for soft and thick lines.
You can use the wide tip marker for fat lines or the felt tip pen for pen-like lines.
It is easy to create straight lines and other shapes, and you can add various layers to your designs. There are numerous backgrounds and textures available to work with, such as paper grain.
I like how Linea automatically syncs your work on iCloud so that you can get it back later and sync your work across multiple devices.
If you don’t like a piece you’ve made, you can use the built-in eraser tool, which allows you to erase using your finger.
Once you have created your design, you can export it in a few ways. For example, you can export it as a PNG file or as a PSD file for use in Photoshop.
5. Penbook
Penbook is a free iPad app that allows you to sketch and draw on your own digital notebook.
There are many beautiful colors and stationery that you can use to create your digital “notebook,” and once you have it, you can start writing and drawing in it, whether you want to write down ideas or create sketches or doodles.
There are over 100 types of notebook and stationery styles available, so you won’t be limited to personal notebooks or diaries.
There are notebook styles for scientific and academic notebooks as well, for example, so you can create a notebook for scientific sketches.
Here are some other types of stationery available:
- Weekly and monthly planners so you can set goals and to-dos and track your progress
- Blank stationery
- Graph papers
- Engineering papers
- Tablature papers with vocal and chord charts
- Polar graph paper
- And many others
As mentioned, there are also many beautiful covers, but you can create your own cover as well.
One cool feature is that when you create a shape, the app will automatically recognize the shape and make it perfect, even if you did not sketch it perfectly. Also, you can use the search tool to search through text that you sketched with your finger.
Penbook does support Apple Pencil, but if you don’t have an Apple Pencil, you can still use it with your finger instead.
As I mentioned, Penbook is free to use, but Penbook Premium gives you added features that prove handy for pros and experts.
6. Bamboo Paper
Bamboo Paper is an app created by Wacom which is known for its digital pen stylus products.
Indeed, Bamboo Paper works with a Bamboo Stylus and other Wacom stylus products, so if you own one of those instead of an Apple Pencil, this might be a good app to try out.
A cool part about Bamboo Paper is that you can use it together with Bamboo Folio and Bamboo Slate. Bamboo Folio and Slate allow you to digitize your handwritten work.
In other words, it allows you to first start off with a real pen and paper, creating sketches and notes there. Then, using Bamboo Folio, you can digitize that and continue working on it in Bamboo Paper.
If you have a Wacom account (which is free to get), you can start syncing your work in the cloud so you can work on it on multiple devices.
There are awesome colors you can use in Bamboo Paper, and you can also create your own custom colors.
Although Bamboo Paper is free to use, various upgrades and premium tools are available for purchase as well.
7. QuickNotes X
QuickNotes X is another awesome app if you want to create quick designs and draw simple sketches. It is also a good app for jotting down notes using your hand or a stylus.
QuickNotes X aims to simplify note-taking. There are many colors to choose from – use the color pie to find the exact color you want, and then fine-tune the width and the opacity.
There are various covers and paper templates available that allow you to organize your notes into notebooks. Then, you can organize those notebooks into different folders.
You can quickly rearrange notes inside a notebook.
When you create a drawing or note, you can export it as a PDF or PNG image. You can export multiple notes at once as well.
In addition to being able to export drawings as PDFs, you can also import PDFs and edit them using the QuickNotes X app. Once you have finished your edits, you can share and export the PDF again.
QuickNotes X supports many different stylus tools, like Apple Pencil, but also others like Adonit Jot. That can make drawing and sketching even easier.
Although QuickNotes X is free, there are various premium tools and in-app purchases you can buy.
8. DrawingApp
DrawingApp is an aptly named app for drawing on iPads. Using DrawingApp, you can create simple sketches or more complex designs for free.
There are over 40 brush tools to choose from, so you can create complex drawings. There are also millions of color options, so you will never run out of unique colors and shades to use.
Other features include an easy-to-use eraser, a ruler to help you create straighter lines and better shapes, and the ability to insert images.
Although DrawingApp is free to use, premium in-app purchases are available.
DrawingApp works with Apple Pencil (only on iPads that support Apple Pencil). The app is lightweight and doesn’t take much space on your device.
9. Doodle Art
Doodle Art is perhaps a simpler app, for simpler drawings, but it is still very good. After all, it is meant for doodles, not complex sketches, but it does a pretty good job of what it was intended to do.
However, you can also create more complex masterpieces with this app. It all depends on your skills and how well you can use the many features and tools of the app.
There are many colors to choose from, and you can always customize colors to create your own. You can import an image and start drawing and doodling on it.
Also, there are 200 free stickers you can use in your sketches, doodles, and drawings. More stickers are available to be unlocked for a small fee, but the free stickers should be enough for most people.
You can add many shapes to your drawings and use the ruler to make the lines of the shape straight. All in all, Doodle Art is a great app for doodling and drawing on your iPad.
10. Drawing Desk
Drawing Desk is an excellent free drawing app that will allow you to create beautiful sketches and drawings.
It has many colors and shapes you can choose from. There are also many free stickers that you can add when you are drawing or sketching.
When you create a drawing, it will save itself to your photo gallery so you don’t lose it.
11. Linearity Curve
Linearity Curve is a powerful vector graphic design app for iPad, iPhone and Mac.
It lets you create illustrations, logos, posters, branding assets, UI graphics, and more with intuitive tools like Bézier pen, shape builder, advanced typography, and Apple Pencil support.
The app blends professional-grade precision with an easy-to-learn interface, plus features like auto trace, AI background removal, millions of free assets, and cloud sync across devices.
Linearity Curve lets you design for free on your iPad, but for professional output and unlimited access, you would require a paid tier subscription.
12. FlipaClip: Create 2D Animation
FlipaClip is a bit different, as it allows you to create cartoon animations from your drawings.
Most of the apps on this list let you draw, but they don’t let you turn those drawings and sketches into animations, but that’s where FlipaClip comes into the picture.
FlipaClip is one of the best iPad apps that you can use for drawing and animating cartoons for free. Whether you want to create video animations or GIFs, you can use FlipaClip to do it.
FlipaClip allows you to start from scratch, even if you don’t have any animation experience, and create frame-by-frame animations for YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, or your own website.
You can even make animations just for fun or to share with friends – the choice is yours. In addition, you can add images to your animations and add audio clips and voiceovers. There’s a lot you can do with the app.
There are many drawing tools you can make use of, like brushes, erasers, rulers, and more. It supports Apple Pencil, so you won’t have to draw with your fingers, and you can create custom canvases and use up to three layers for free.
The premium version will give you access to additional features, like more layers.
Remember, FlipaClip is primarily a 2D animation tool.
13. Paper By WeTransfer
Paper By WeTransfer is an excellent app with a free version for sketching and drawing on iPads. Whether you want to create art or educational sketches, you can do so with the Paper app.
You can organize your sketches into journals and add beautiful colors to your journals. You can also add and edit photos and create collages.
There’s a lot you can do with the free Paper By WeTransfer app, but you can always upgrade to premium if you feel like you need more advanced tools.
The choice is yours, however most users find the free version sufficient for their needs.
14. MediBang Paint
MediBang Paint is a free digital painting and comic-creation app that runs on iPad (and other platforms) with plenty of tools for sketching, inking, coloring, and panel layout.
It offers brushes (customizable and plenty to choose from), layers, comic panel guides, free fonts, and tons of pre-made tones/backgrounds — ideal for manga, comics, or illustration work.
You can sync projects via cloud storage and even collaborate with others on group projects.
While the core app is free to use, there are ads and some premium features (like extra brushes, filters, local fonts, export options, and ad removal) behind optional MediBang Premium subscriptions or in-app purchases.
15. Tayasui Sketches
Tayasui Sketches works beautifully on iPad (also iPhone and iPadOS devices) and gives you a natural sketching experience with tools that feel like pencil, watercolor, acrylic, airbrush and more.
It’s known for its clean, minimal interface and realistic brush behavior that responds to pressure and tilt when you use Apple Pencil.
You can use the free version to draw and paint with a good selection of basic brushes and tools, import photos, organise folders, and enjoy a smooth digital drawing workflow right on your iPad.
Full support for layers, advanced brush editor, cloud sync, and extra brushes or tool packs require in-app purchases or subscription upgrades to unlock the complete feature set.
Wrapping It Up: What Is The Best Free Drawing App For iPads?
Though there are many great apps for drawing, but Adobe Fresco is the best for iPads, by far.
One of the advantages of using Fresco is that it seamlessly integrates with other Adobe tools, including Photoshop.
In addition, you don’t need to be an existing Adobe user or have exceptional design skills to use Fresco. It’s pretty intuitive.
Check out these Adobe tutorials to make the most of your Fresco experience.
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