Drawing Free app review: a fun sketch pad

Introduction

Drawing Free is an iPad and iPhone app that allows people to use their device like a sketch pad. There are a selection of colors, pencil tip size variations, eraser, and stickers. You can also change the background among eight paper styles.

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Draw Beautiful Art

Drawing Free is a fun drawing app, but it does have limitations. I attempted to draw a simple scene of two people with their cat. It didn’t turn out too badly, but there isn’t a brown, white, or black pencil to use. This meant that I had to use orange for the hair rather than brown. I also couldn’t find a good Caucasian skin color. Without the brown tones other skin tones are limited as well. I simply chose green to get away from this. If you or your child does not mind using a more imaginative color scheme, then this isn’t really a problem.

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The controls are not too bad, as you simply tap the tool or pencil you’d like to use and then draw. What I did find though is that when I was trying to draw eyes or dots, the app doesn’t respond. You have to move your finger at least a tiny bit to get the coloring to initiate.

Fun For Younger Kids

Drawing Free is a fun sketchpad app for younger kids. They love bright lines and don’t mind if the details don’t mesh quite as well as an adult or teen would. For example, I was attempting to shade the hair of my first subject, a girl, and rather than provide a textured look, I just painted right over top of the previous lines. This was annoying to me, but younger kids just looking to scribble won’t care.

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I let my six-year-old draw on this app and she loved it. Any excuse to make art makes her happy. What she didn’t like was that she couldn’t resize the stickers. Some are pretty small and some are huge. The ability to change the size would be really beneficial.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Free with ad support
• Pencil crayons are appealing to younger kids who have moved past crayons
• Lots of colors
• Stickers

Cons

• No black, white, or brown for skin tones or other sections
• Difficult to shade as the colors go right over each other

Final Thoughts

Drawing Free is an iPad and iPhone app that allows your younger child to use your device as a sketch pad. If you have a budding artist who loves to draw anytime, anywhere, then your four- to seven-year-old will love this app. Any older and they will begin to become frustrated with the limitations, however, this app is great for younger kids. The fact that it’s free is definitely great too, because it means that if you love it you can then choose to buy the ad free version.