Art Apps for iPad

Due to the weather where I live and my current family and work obligations I haven't been able to shoot much at all in the last few months. So, over the holiday break I decided to try sketching and painting on the iPad. I have had several art apps on my iPad for the past seven months or so, but have used them very little. I have done some work in Brushes on the iPhone and a little on the iPad and added Art Studio a few months back and have enjoyed using it. Last week I added SketchBook and Inspire Pro and have spent a little time on each. I have also used Adobe Ideas once or twice. I am impressed by the variety and robustness of the art app offerings for the iPad.

This won't be a thorough review, as I haven't used each enough yet to be able to form a strong opinion about any of them. I do have some impressions about each, however.

The first is that Brushes seems so far to have the most friendly interface. It has fewer features than some of the others, perhaps this is why it is easier to navigate. Moving around between images and layers and colors was easy and fairly intuitive. SketchBook has probably the best color mixer, with Inspire Pro not far behind. Art Studio's color mixer is lacking a little bit, but that is one of the only areas it does lack. It has a wider range of features than any of the others. Some features, like the smudge tool, I can't believe aren't on the others. SketchBook, however, has a great set of templates that can be imported as layers; things like grids and perspective guides. Adobe Ideas is the most basic of the five, but is not bad for being free.

I hope to give each app some more time in the coming weeks and will post a more thorough review when I have worked them over some more.