Chrome Can: Drawing and Painting on a Chromebook

I am a hobby artist and enjoy painting using various media. However, back in 2006, I discovered an awesome painting application that I downloaded onto my Sony VAIO. It was called ArtRage (see examples below). I loved it so much I ended up purchasing it. The purchase enabled me to install it on my MacBook as well so all was great. What I liked about this particular application was the way it mimicked real-world painting tools and media. I didn’t think about having this type of application on my Chromebook when I first began using them back in 2012. However, now that I have been using Chromebooks for a while and they have gotten way better in regards to how an artist might interact with the device (touchscreens), I began thinking about how one might draw or paint using their Chromebook.

Let me first start off saying that the addition of Android apps makes this proposition a whole lot better because there are a plethora of painting and drawing apps available including my old favorite ArtRage. These applications work very well in a touchscreen interaction environment because they were made to work this way. This is great, but I wanted to know which ChromeOS-based or Progressive Web Apps (PWA) were available for this type of task and how they work with the touchscreen. To ensure that I was able to test the full capability of the app with the touchscreen interface, I used the CTL Tx1 Tablet for my testing.

The first web app that I tested is Chrome Canvas. The user interface is simple and it has a good number of basic drawing tools including a pencil, pen, marker, chalk and an eraser. The artist can change the color, size, and opacity of the tool to create their artwork. When finished, the artist can export their work as a Portable Network Graphic (PNG) file. The touch interface worked without any hiccups and was very smooth on the Tx1. I used the stylus to create my quick sketch.

For those of you who like MS Paint you will be glad to hear that there is an online version. I tested this one on the Tx1 and while it worked, it was glitchy and at times, not smooth. I found two versions of this painting tool. One is available as a Chrome Extension. The other one is just a website. This isn’t a painting application that allows the artist to use life-like tools but more like a typical computer-based drawing program.

I tested many other online painting applications but they didn’t work with the touch interface. What this means is that at the moment, Android applications are the better option for artists who want to take advantage of the touchscreen interface.

I tested some of the painting apps that didn’t work on the Tx1 on my Samsung Chromebook Plus and they worked well. If you are not only wanting to use the touch interface and are willing to use a mouse or trackpad some of these are a great option. SumoPaint

I am certain that things will get better as time passes and we will see art applications that are PWAs develop into fantastic tools for artists to create!

Thanks for reading

Dr. Shannon H. Doak