A technology tutor for the budding artist

The smartphone revolution, among other things, has put a camera in everyone’s pocket.

This has led to an explosion in the art of photography - if you can call an Instagram self-portrait art. But smartphones and tablets have another ability that is genuinely arty: They can help teach basic drawing and sketching.

How to Draw is a good app for learning basic skills, and is free for iOS and Android. Its Step by Step section features the main drawing lessons, each of which is based on copying simple lines that make up a cartoonish drawing of an object like a turtle or a coffee mug.

The app shows each line in turn, then you draw on the screen with a finger to copy it. More guide lines appear, until the image is complete. The app has tools to add colour to the image, or it can stay as a pencil-like sketch.

The app is aimed more at children, given the sample images and its Colouring section, which looks a lot like a digital colouring book. It starts with a limited number of sample images; more images require an in-app payment. Access to all of them costs $5.99 for the iOS edition.

Complete novices will definitely pick up basic drawing tips. How to Draw, however, is unlikely to turn you into Leonardo.

For more advanced drawing lessons, Learn to Draw Digital Sketchbook, free for iPad, is a great choice. This app is more like being taught to draw by a human teacher. It has a number of sample lessons, including how to draw a hibiscus flower or a dragon, and it talks users through the drawing of a detailed illustration.

Each step takes place on a faux sketchbook with tools like a pencil and eraser shown at the bottom on an icon bar. The app has rough blue guide lines for every step of the lessons.

A spoken guide and a text panel offer detailed guidance: for example, “start by using the sketch pencil to block in the blossom with six straight lines.” The text box can be made to disappear, and users can control the opacity of the guide lines.

In relatively few steps this app can teach a person how to create detailed drawings; the work can be saved to the iPad’s photo gallery.

One problem is that its free content is limited. For more complex lessons and to learn advanced techniques, like those needed to draw people, you will have to make multiple in-app purchases. Each new lesson can cost from a dollar or so up to $6.99 (Rs 398).

If you would like to draw people, you may prefer How To Draw: With Artist Matt Busch. This $1.99 (Rs 113) iOS app has four portrait tutorials, but unlike the other apps mentioned here, you do not draw on the screen. Instead, this app shows an image that the artist has created for you to follow in a sequence of steps, and you are supposed to draw on paper.

The app displays real drawings, and this realism made the lesson more interesting. Points of interest are highlighted in each sketch with blue pencil icons; tapping on these brings up a text box that contains guidance like, “Note when drawing noses, the less you draw the more aesthetically pleasing it will be.”

I’ve always found it hard to draw people, and yet I am able to produce passably good results thanks to the tips here. It is quite basic, however, and though you’ll learn some good drawing techniques, they are limited to people’s faces.

A great free app for Android devices is How to Draw - Art Lessons. With this app, too, you are expected to draw in pencil on paper, guided by a sequence of sample sketches, but its images are simpler. Available topics include Japanese manga characters, sea animals and even band logos. The app goes step by step on guiding the drawings. Each step is shown in color to stand out from the previous stages of the illustration.

This app is free, but the images are fairly simple and the popover advertisements can be annoying.