The Sketchbook blog
The impact of lighting
Placing light sources in your scene is a strategic decision that should be part of your creative process. Lighting drives color, how you approach highlights and shadows, and sets the tone of the overall piece.
Exploring shading techniques
Shading can bring your artwork to life. Even the simplest doodles can be transformed with the most economic placement of color and shadow.
Characters and their clothing
What a character wears provides valuable insight into who they are, what they do, and even hints at their attitude.
This post shares useful design considerations and tips on drawing fabrics and materials.
Painting Workflow - The Cowboys
This post takes you through key steps of a classic Western style painting, sharing valuable considerations and practical digital painting techniques.
New features: Lasso Fill and Draw Outline
Two new productivity features: Lasso Fill and Draw Outline have been added to Sketchbook! Dynamically fill areas with Lasso Fill, and apply a stroke to a selection path with Draw Outline.
Concept art is visual problem solving
Concept art is taking the seed of an idea and exploring all the visual possibilities of what it could grow into. It's about defining style, setting a mood, and giving clarity to artists working downstream on a project so that they can bring it to life.
Erasing Overview
Demonstration of the basics for eraser brushes and clearing paint from layers.
Artist Spotlight - Bernabe Martinez
Every morning while his kids finish getting ready for school, Bernie Martinez sits down and draws on his phone. He's been doing it for 100+ days straight.
Creating Stitch Brushes
It’s easy to customize brushes to make repeat patterns. This tip shows how to create quick straight stitches in any version of Sketchbook and how to customize Nib Shapes in Sketchbook Pro or with the Premium Bundle.
Artist Spotlight: Chaya Weerasinghe
Spotlight on artist Chaya Weerasinghe, an Illustrator and Animator who adapts her style to every project. And Sketchbook has been her tool of choice all along the way.
Creating smooth strokes
A video demonstration using Predictive Stroke and Steady Stroke to create smoother line work.
What are your favorite moments from 2025?
With 2025 coming to a close now is the perfect time to reflect, and drawing is a wonderful tool for contemplation.
Artist Spotlight: Susan Murtaugh
Spotlight on artist Susan Murtaugh, who's been a champion of digital art since the iPod Touch days (!!).
Operation Snowflake
Try this month’s seasonal warm-up exercise to get the creative juices flowing and counter the winter blues.
For the love of dragons!
From sketches in iPad to finished artwork on desktop, watch Monika’s tribute to Toothless from How To Train Your Dragon.
6.2 update on Android and iOS
Sketchbook on mobile gets new features in the 6.2 update, including new layer adjustments (Blur, Sharpen, Brightness/Contrast, Grayscale, Invert) added to the Premium Bundle.
Getting Started on Mac and Windows
This video and blog post give an orientation overview to Sketchbook Pro for people just getting started with the app.
Getting Started on iPad and Android Tablets
Learn the essentials of Sketchbook and how to get started.
Sketchbook and Apple Pencil Pro
Sketchbook on iOS now supports squeeze and barrel roll with Apple Pencil Pro. Set squeeze to the tool palette option to quickly choose from your brush history or color history.
Feature update: clipping masks
A highly requested feature - clipping masks! Clipping masks are a way to blend and manage the content of your canvas across different layers more easily. They are flexible, allowing you to alter the visible results such as experimenting with texture or color without making more permanent changes to your art.