DrawPad
Simple & Fun Drawing for Kids
Free · In-App Purchases · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
Perfect for Young Artists:
- 11 different brushes including pencil, marker, crayon, and watercolor
- Rainbow mode for colorful creations
- Easy-to-use color palette with 24 colors
- Fun stencil shapes (stars, hearts, circles, and more!)
- Sticker collection to decorate drawings
- Layer system for advanced young artists
- Symmetry mode for creating beautiful patterns
- Undo/redo to fix mistakes
**Simple & Safe:**
- No ads
- No in-app purchases
- No data collection
- Kid-friendly interface
- Works offline
Let your children explore their artistic side with this simple, safe, and fun drawing app!
more Version 2.1 — a quick fix, plus more to colour.
FIXED
• Clearing the canvas now removes stickers too. If you'd added a sticker, "Clear" used to leave it behind — and could leave you stuck. Now hold the + button and everything clears for a fresh start. Your loaded colouring page stays put, so you can keep going on the same picture.
MORE TO COLOUR
• Fresh packs have landed — Floral & Cosmic Mandalas, Dot-to-Dot Animals & Vehicles, and Trace the Shapes for early learners. Find them in Library → Packs. If you've already unlocked a category, its new packs are yours automatically.
2.1 13 hr ago
Version 2.0 — A whole library of pictures to colour, plus a calmer, roomier canvas.
NEW
• Content Packs — a growing library of colouring pages and mandalas! Browse themed packs in Library → Packs — Animal Friends, Things That Go, Unicorns & Friends, Flowers & Nature, Super Heroes, and Starter & Ocean Mandalas — unlock the ones you love, then colour them in with every brush, layer and symmetry tool. New packs added regularly.
IMPROVED
• A calmer, kid-friendly top bar — every tool now tucks into a single menu, and the layer & brush labels moved up into the header, leaving the whole canvas clear to draw on.
• Hold the + button to clear the canvas — it now fills a ring as you hold, so the shortcut is easy to discover.
• Lots of little polish throughout.
Thanks for drawing with DrawPad.
2.0 2 days ago
Version 1.7 — A roomier tool sheet, rock-solid symmetry, and a quick way to start over.
NEW — Quick Clear: touch and hold + to clear the canvas (same confirmation as Clear All, still undoable).
IMPROVED — Bigger, full-width tool sheet with a grab handle and dimmed backdrop.
FIXED — Symmetry no longer freezes the app (esp. Radial); symmetric strokes still undo in one step.
1.7 3 days ago
Version 1.6 — Smoother strokes, your palettes, and a reference pin that follows you around.
NEW
• Stroke Stabilizer — a new slider in the Brush controls that smooths shaky lines for steadier strokes. Off by default; turn it up as far as you want.
• Custom Color Palettes — save your favourite colours as named palettes from the new palette menu, and switch between them with a tap. Your recents become the starting point for any new palette.
• Reference Image Pin — pin any photo as a floating, draggable, resizable overlay on top of the canvas to sketch from. Lives outside your layers so it's never part of the export.
• Apple Pencil double-tap — double-tap your Pencil to swap between brush and eraser without leaving the canvas. Respects your iOS Settings preference.
FIXED
• iPhone: when adding or switching layers, the previously-active drawing no longer shrinks and shifts into the corner. Layers now render at the same scale as you drew them, on every device.
• iPhone: the Layers panel's active layer row no longer hides its name and stretches tall — the row, name, and "Visible" indicator now lay out cleanly.
• Timelapse playback no longer flashes through a 5-minute session in a single second. Frames now play back at their recorded pacing (scaled by the speed picker), and exported timelapse videos honour the same timing.
IMPROVED
• The Layers panel's Clipping Mask and Set as Background actions moved into the per-layer settings expansion, freeing up room in the row so layer names are always readable.
• Timelapse exports render at the recorded canvas resolution for sharper output.
Thanks for drawing with DrawPad.
1.6 22 May
What's New in version 1.5
Radial symmetry up to 9-fold
The Radial symmetry picker is no longer stuck at 4. Pick any count from 2 to 9 with the new segmented picker that appears in the Symmetry section when radial mode is active. (For higher counts, DrawPad Pro still has you covered.)
Share DrawPad
The share button at the top of the canvas is now a menu with two options:
- Share Drawing — unchanged; fires up the system share sheet with the composited image.
- Share DrawPad — sends a friend the App Store link plus a short pitch.
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Bug fixes
Radial symmetry guide lines were half a circle off
The dashed guide rays for radial symmetry only covered 180° — they used `π / N` for the angle step while the actual stroke mirroring uses `2π / N`. So at 4-fold radial, strokes landed in all four quadrants but the guide showed only the top half of the canvas. Guides now match where your strokes will actually appear.
Undo would swallow the whole canvas
The gnarliest bug in the set. The `PKCanvasView` delegate kept its own `lastStrokeCount` to decide when to push a new undo snapshot, but that counter was never resynced when the view model restored state (undo, redo, load, clear). After an undo, the counter stayed one-too-high; the next stroke failed the "is this new?" check and was silently skipped; a later undo then jumped past that missing snapshot, appearing to wipe multiple strokes at once. The view model now flags restore operations, and the delegate resyncs on both sides (when the count decreases *or* when a restore is in flight).
Undo skipped over "Clear Canvas"
After clearing the canvas and drawing something new, hitting undo jumped straight from the new strokes back to whatever was on the canvas before the clear — the empty state in between was gone. `clearCanvas` was pushing the *pre*-clear state onto the undo stack and relying on the canvas delegate to capture the cleared state afterwards, but that delegate only pushes snapshots on stroke-count *increases*. The order is now reversed: clear first, then snapshot, so the empty canvas is a real stop on the undo timeline.
Layer opacity / blend mode ignored by undo
Undo snapshots used to cover only the active layer's drawing and raster image. Sliding a layer's opacity, switching a blend mode, toggling visibility, reordering layers, or editing a non-active layer were all invisible to the undo stack. Snapshots now capture the full layer array plus the active index — everything the Layers panel can change is undoable.
1.5 14 Apr
What's New in Version 1.4.0
Feel every stroke. This update is all about polish -- making DrawPad feel more responsive, more intuitive, and more professional.
- Haptic feedback -- Tactile responses across the entire app: tool switching, color picking, undo/redo, and more. Every action now feels intentional.
- Recently used colors -- Your last 6 colors appear in a quick-access row above the palette. No more hunting for that shade you just used.
- Live brush preview -- See exactly what your stroke will look like before you draw. A real-time preview updates as you adjust size and opacity.
- Layer locking -- Lock any layer to protect your finished work from accidental edits. A red indicator keeps you aware when a layer is locked.
- Eraser cursor -- The eraser now shows a size indicator just like the brush so you can see exactly what you're erasing. - Clear canvas confirmation -- No more accidental wipes. A confirmation prompt protects your work before clearing.
- Smarter undo/redo -- Toast messages now show how many steps remain, so you always know where you are in your history. - Smoother animations -- Layer visibility toggles, deletions, and panel transitions are now animated for a fluid experience.
- Improved accessibility -- VoiceOver labels and hints on all toolbar buttons for full screen reader support. - Opacity slider fix -- The brush opacity slider now correctly affects stroke intensity across all pen types.
1.4 13 Apr
Projects gallery
Save as many drawings as you like, with names. Swipe to rename or delete. The old single-slot save dialog is gone — tap the folder icon to open the new gallery.
Autosave
Your canvas is now saved automatically every 30 seconds and whenever you leave the app. If the app is force-quit or iOS reclaims it, your work comes back exactly as you left it on next launch — including all layers, blend modes, opacities, and any imported photos.
Transparent PNG & PDF export
The export menu now offers:
- PNG (transparent) — alpha channel preserved, perfect for overlays and stickers
- PNG (white background) — flat, print-ready
- JPEG — flattened and compressed
- PDF — single-page, vector-wrapped, ready to print or share
- Save to Photos — unchanged
Bug fixes
Pen stops working on layers
Fixed the showstopper where drawing on a layer (especially one stacked above an imported photo) stopped working — and then kept being broken until the app was restarted. The canvas was being rebuilt every time the active layer changed, which corrupted its touch-input state. The canvas now stays put and only its contents swap.
Layer settings ignored
Opacity and blend mode sliders in the Layers panel now actually do something. Layer images are rendered with their configured opacity and blend mode.
Active layer confusion
Several cases where the "active layer" pill would silently point at the wrong layer after deleting or rearranging layers have been fixed:
- Deleting a layer below the active one no longer shifts the pill onto a different layer.
- "Set as Background" now keeps the pill tracking the layer you were actually editing.
- The cycle-through-layers tap now skips image layers, so you always land on something drawable.
- Renaming a layer in the panel immediately updates the pill at the top of the canvas.
Active layer indicator
The top pill is now always visible (even with a single layer), shows a "Layer X / N" position chip, uses a photo icon for image layers, and has a bolder outline so there's no ambiguity about where your next stroke is going. Long-press the pill to open the full Layers panel.
Under the hood
- Undo/redo memory cap — the redo stack no longer grows without bound during long undo/redo cycles.
- Timelapse recording — the frame buffer now decimates itself as sessions get longer instead of growing forever. You can record arbitrarily long timelapses without running out of memory, and the final playback still covers the whole session evenly.
- Save-to-Photos errors surface — if Photos save fails (permission denied, disk full) you'll now see a toast explaining why, instead of the save silently vanishing.
- Deployment target — bumped to iOS 16.0 to match the code that was already assuming it.
1.3 12 Apr
New Tools
- Eyedropper: tap and drag anywhere on your canvas to sample a colour instantly, with a magnifying loupe preview
- Pin to Canvas: pin your colour palette, pen picker, or brush controls as draggable floating widgets for quick access while you draw
5 New Pen Types
- Calligraphy, Gel Pen, Felt Tip, Sketch Pencil, and Dotted — bringing the total to 16
Bug Fixes & Improvements
- Fixed undo sometimes removing all strokes instead of just the last one — each stroke now gets its own undo state
- Fixed the select tool shrinking and displacing selected artwork
- Improved shape snap recognition — circles, triangles, rectangles, lines, and ellipses are now detected much more reliably from hand-drawn input
- Automatic update notifications so you never miss a new version
Other
- New app icon
- Performance and stability improvements
1.2.0 27 Mar
What's New in LayerSketch 1.1.0
Apple Pencil Tilt Shading
Tilt your Apple Pencil to shade naturally — the stroke automatically widens and softens the more you tilt, just like a real pencil. Enable it in Tools > Tilt Shade.
Timelapse Recording & Export
Record your entire drawing process and replay it as a beautiful timelapse. Adjust playback speed (1x-8x), scrub through your progress, and export as an MP4 video to share on social media.
Smart Shape Snap
Draw rough circles, rectangles, triangles, or lines freehand and LayerSketch will detect the shape and offer to snap it to geometric perfection. Toggle it on in Tools > Shape Snap.
Clipping Masks
Clip any layer to the content of the layer below it — paint only where content already exists. Perfect for shading, texturing, and non-destructive editing. Tap the clipping icon in the Layers panel.
Select, Move & Transform
Select any part of your drawing with a rectangle selection, then drag to move, pinch to scale, twist to rotate, or flip horizontally/vertically. Apply or discard with one tap.
Improved Small Screen Support
Optimized layouts for iPhone 12 and other compact screens — panels, toolbars, and the welcome screen now adapt gracefully to any screen size.
1.1.0 18 Mar
Version 2.1 — a quick fix, plus more to colour.
FIXED
• Clearing the canvas now removes stickers too. If you'd added a sticker, "Clear" used to leave it behind — and could leave you stuck. Now hold the + button and everything clears for a fresh start. Your loaded colouring page stays put, so you can keep going on the same picture.
MORE TO COLOUR
• Fresh packs have landed — Floral & Cosmic Mandalas, Dot-to-Dot Animals & Vehicles, and Trace the Shapes for early learners. Find them in Library → Packs. If you've already unlocked a category, its new packs are yours automatically.
more Version 2.1 13 hr ago
Data Not Collected The developer does not collect any data from this app.