10 Apps for the Avid Artist

This article was written on behalf of CultureLabel.com ñ the online creative department store for affordable art and unique gift ideas.

Here is a rundown of ten of the must-have creative drawing and painting apps for artists and art aficionados alike. This definitive list of great painting and drawing apps out there will help you create great smartphone art with a swipe or tap of your finger, all of which encouraging interactivity in their own unique way!

1: SketchBook Mobile – £1.49

With this great app, create amazing art with professional painting and drawing tools in a streamlined and simple user interface. You can also use it to digitally capture your ideas and produce artwork on-the-go.

You can duplicate layers, save work in progress and choose from over 45 pre-set brushes which range from pens, pencils, markers as well as abundance of texture brushes all of which can be easily customisable.

The more advanced iPad version, SketchBook Pro takes advantage of the larger screen and features more brushes and tools for easier drawing and editing.

2: iWallFlower – £0.69

This creative app adopts a truly unique real-time concept. The “first emotional networking drawing app” allows you to simultaneously view and create art within this networked world. You view artwork from others by most recent thus viewing ëlive artí, or alternatively you view by most popular.

Its concept is to illustrate how users around the world are feeling emotionally by way of being expressed through the constant stream of artwork.

The scrolling display will place you and your art within the fantastic networked world of artists and show you and others where the art has its origins by way of location. You can also network with friends viewing artwork with those closest to you.

3: Artisan – £0.69

Artisan – the trippy art forming app which requires simple finger movements allowing you to create brilliant images that continually change and transform in to new shapes over time.

Your tool can be altered for width, colour, fade, colour cycle, size and noise, and coupled with the brush and background colour variables, can enable a dynamic and quality creation.

With its nod to the infamous Windows Media Player graphics, you can watch the art evolve of its own accord, producing symmetrical patterns or brightly coloured shapes with a variety of motion. You can also email, save and upload your creations via Facebook and Flickr with ease.

4: Art Gallery Premium – £0.69

Although not a creative app as such, this amazing app features more than 7,500 art pictures submitted by its users. All images can be downloaded and stored on your iPhone for uses such as wallpapers and other in-app graphics. You can intelligently search for art by artist, date, theme and view on both landscape and portrait mode.

5: FragMental Storm – £0.69

This brilliant app is a clever bit of software that scrawls the internet using your chosen keywords and produces a collage with the image and text results. Each search will yield unique and interesting pieces of art in a flashing and fragmented medley of text and image.

You can even sync your location and return results relevant to your location or sync with your iPod using the names of tracks and artists to assist in the search that FragMental performs in creating your real-time streamed piece of art.

6: Record Makers – £Free

This app enables surrealistic art creation through the swiping of various parts of the drawing.

You can make a variety of combinations by combining 3 different images resulting in a variety of different artistic combinations.

The creative experience is also punctuated with original theme music by Sebastien Tellier and Mr Oizo.

7: Vanitas – £1.49

This app references 16th and 17th century still life paintings and presents you with an interestingly rendered three-dimensional box with a variety of objects.
You can close the box and be presented with a new set of images. These collections are referenced by beautiful music and sound effects and your arrangement can become decayed and dated and thus require adjustment, all in keeping with an original unique display.

The experience is enhanced further by famous quotes on topics such as life and vanity from authors such as Nietzsche and Sappho. This app serves as a meditative experience and a reminder of the preciousness of existing.

8: Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz – £1.49

This inventive app is both a sound toy and an art work in one. You can interact with the individual letter sound creatures and observe them interact with one another producing beautiful unique landscapes.
This creative app combines art, fun and physics in a mini world of micro-sounds and movement, all created with your touch.

9: For All Seasons – £Free

With this app comes a piece about memories and seasons.
Using the elements of textual representation you can evoke memories in a thought inspiring way ñ navigating your way around the various seasons.
This beautiful app is an amazing work of both poetry and art!

10: Ruben & Lullaby – £0.69

This app although not a painting or drawing app, is a fantastically engaging innovative app. With Ruben & Lullaby, you can experience story-telling in a new unique interactive way.

This digital comic/game enables you to manipulate the emotions of the characters with a touch, tilt, shake or rub, as the story develops through the visual reactions rather than words.

What’s more, an interactive music score is synced to your touch movements to enhance the story. This could most certainly be a glimpse into storytelling of the future.