Free Online Tools for Drawing, Sketching, Painting

photo editing, diagramming, etc

zeagle
4 min readJan 13, 2014
Pen by Chuan² <https://dribbble.com/woodmouse>, <https://dribbble.com/shots/1180471-Pen>

There are a few professional paid apps available for designers and digital illustrators. But there are also other options available, like these free online tools listed below, for drawing, sketching, painting, photo editing, etc. These tools may be not as professional, but it might come in handy next time..

(side note: if you found another resources of online tools, you can give comment containing the links so it can be added here)

DRAW, SKETCH, PAINT

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Draw.to (super simple)

Draw something and share it!℠

http://draw.to/new

Sketch swap (super simple)

Draw something and trade it with a stranger

You draw something on the screen, and when you’re finished, you hit “Submit drawing” to receive a random drawing from someone else. (needs Flash 8+ and JavaScript enabled)

http://www.sketchswap.com

Noughts (super simple)

(needs Flash Player 8 and JavaScript enabled)

http://noughts.jp/draw/

ArtPad (simple)

digital canvas

http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/

Wiiplayable (simple)

draw with markers using your wiimote

http://www.wiiplayable.com/playgame.php?gameid=230

InspirARTion (pretty complex)

Sketch & Draw

Try symmetry modes to create interesting effects.

http://intelloware.com/art/

Draw Island (pretty complex)

an online drawing tool where you can create nice draws and animate images too.

http://drawisland.com

Sketchpad (complex)

Online Paint/Drawing app

http://mudcu.be/sketchpad/

DeviantART muro (complex)

a browser based html 5 drawing app

It has a bunch of features such as 20 brushes (some free, others require payment), layers, and different filters. You can use the dA Muro with a WACOM tablet.

(Note that in order to use Muro, you must be a member of deviantArt but joining is free.)

http://muro.deviantart.com

Slimber (complex)

Drawing and Painting Online

It allows users to draw online, replay and save their drawings. Users can rate, comment and share drawings. The Most Rated drawings are rewarded by being featured on the home page.

http://www.slimber.com/painter/

Queeky (complex)

free online drawing and painting tools

http://www.queeky.com/app

Fat Paint (complex)

Graphic Design Software, Logo Maker, Photo Editor, Page Creator, Paint and Draw Program. Create Pictures and Illustrations.

http://www.fatpaint.com/en/graphicdesignpictureeditor

http://www.fatpaint.com

Sumo Paint (complex)

graphics editor for your web browser

http://www.sumopaint.com/app/

FANCY STUFF

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Sketch Toy

An Online 3D Sketch Tool that uses HTML Canvas to create 3D drawing.

To rotate the canvas in 3D, hold down SPACE and then DRAG horizontally with your cursor.

http://sketchtoy.com

Sketchy Structures

velocity sketch tool

An HTML5 canvas drawing tool

http://jayweeks.com/sketchy-structures-html5-canvas/

Scribbler

a generative illustration toy by ZEFRANK.COM.

The Scribbler takes simple vector based input (your drawing) and creates its own drawing on top of it based on a number of simple rules.

http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/

Viscosity

the modern art generator

http://windowseat.ca/viscosity/create.php

PHOTO EDITOR

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BeFunky

Online Photo Editing and Collage Maker

http://www.befunky.com

FOR WEB DESIGNERS

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Sprite Box

Spritebox is a tool to help web designers quickly and easily create CSS classes and IDs from a single sprite image.

It is based on the principle of using the bacground position property to align areas of a sprite image into block elements of a web page.

http://www.spritebox.net

Font Dragr

Drag and drop font testing

Test custom fonts in the browser. No coding, no uploading, just drag and drop.

All you need to do is drag and drop a font file from your computer into font dragr in a browser.

You also can test on any website. The bookmarklet allows you to test any font from your file system or any of the fonts found in the gallery, on any website.

http://fontdragr.com

Patternizer

pattern generator tool

http://patternizer.com

XRay

A bookmarklet that allows you to quickly view details of any element on any webpage.

It also can handle HTML5 elements such as canvas and provide you with the design information you need.

http://westciv.com/xray/

SVG to HTML5 Canvas Converter

This tool converts SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) into an HTML5 Canvas JavaScript function.

http://www.professorcloud.com/svg-to-canvas/

DIAGRAMMING

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Draw.io

A free online diagram drawing application for workflow, BPM, org charts, UML, ER, network diagrams.

https://www.draw.io

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