Ten Ways To Turn Your iPad Into A 'Tablet Rasa'

If you've purchased or are about to purchase an iPad, it might be time to start fresh and clean the slate (so of speak). The Greeks use to call it "Tabula Rasa." iPad can now call it "Tablet Rasa." If you're artistically inclined, its time to throw away your sketchbook and/or watercolors - because going forward, the iPad is all you'll need to create art.

In addition to all its other functionality and forgiving some its errors of omission (what, no camera?) iPad owners can now think of their new iPads as a 9.5 by 7.5 inch canvas or sketchpad. Whether you are an amateur painter, a thoughtful scribbler, an avid doodler or a professional artist, there are literally hundreds of 'sketch,' 'digital design' and 'paint' apps now available for your new iPad. In my research, I was able to surface ten of consequence that you might want to consider for your own Tablet Rasa.

(Note: At the end of this post, please vote for your favorite app and leave your feedback in the Comment Section below if you have a familiarity with any of them).

1- Sketches 2

Sketches for iPhones has upgraded to Sketches 2 by LateNightSoft for iPads, which takes full advantage of the capabilities of your device, providing lots of new features while keeping ease of use, simplicity and sporting a stunningly beautiful and unobtrusive user interface. For $4.99 you can buy for your iPhone and use it on your iPad as well. It allows you to jot down your notes, scribble your thoughts and annotate your pictures using only your fingers and your imagination! You can also illustrate your ideas with simple but colorful diagrams.

2- SketchBook Pro App

Autodesk has released the SketchBook Pro App, an upgraded paint and drawing tool that it says is designed exclusively for the iPad, though it's based on the company's previous SketchBook Pro desktop software and its SketchBook Mobile iPhone app.



The new app combines digital pencils, pens, markers and airbrushes with a Multi-Touch gesture-based user interface. Autodesk says that its geared for both occasional doodlers and professional illustrators. The SketchBook Pro App has a full-screen,1024 x 768 workspace that works both horizontally and vertically. There are 75 brushes with customizable settings, including synthetic pressure sensitivity and brush modes for free sketching and creating straight lines, ellipses and rectangles. It's priced at $7.99 in the US.

3- Brushes

A little bit more pricey than the others at $9.99, Brushes is a popular painting application designed from scratch originally for the iPhone and iPod touch. Paintings produced with Brushes have appeared on the cover of The New Yorker on numerous occasions. It has now been redesigned and reconfigured to take full advantage of the larger screen offered by the iPad ,featuring an advanced color picker in higher quality than of the other apps in this TOP TEN list .

4- ArtStudio

ArtStudio for iPad developed by Lucky Clan is offering a special launch sale at $.99 (which is 80% off). It combines a number of useful art tools that are as of yet not offered by any other iPhone or iPod Touch illustration apps. ArtStudio is an app that not only is easy to use, but has a depth that will satisfy the appetite of even the most particular artists!  Some of the artwork that has already been created with this app is quite remarkable, and at the same time the interface itself is simple enough for children to use! Whether you are a serious student of art, or you just want a good tool to touch up your photos, this app is a quality tool.

5- Layers

Layers is a natural media painting app for the iPhone & iPod Touch and now the iPad. According to one review, " It has the potential to be the best drawing app out there. Nice interface. Smudge works great."

The original Layers for the iPhone is a painting app where you can create works of art just using your fingers. Even better, as the name suggests, the app lets you create multiple layers for your artwork, letting you unlock all sorts of neat possibilities. And the iPad version looks to take the possibility for great art yet a step further.

As with the iPhone version, Layers for the iPad allows you to create paintings with multiple layers, variable brush sizes, and more. The basic $7 version of Layers will sport two layers with three brushes—via in-app purchase, users can spend $3 to upgrade to Layers Pro, which adds three more layers and seven more brushes, as well as an “Export to Photoshop Feature.” The Pro version will get more features in future updates as well.