DIY: Draw and paint online

If you google "draw online," many sites will come up (about 606,000,000 results).  Here is information on the top 5 currently listed and an interesting site I found some time ago called Janvas.

With Janvas you can create vector graphics online, store your creations on Google Drive, collaborate online, create interactive content in SVG, and there's a code editor for developers. The Janvas program has many of the features that a desktop-based graphics program has, such as layers, node-editing, effects, and so on.  There's a library and animations can be done.  Also, a Janvas community can be found on Google+.

To see how well your browser supports SVG, check here; to see how well other browsers support SVG, check here. For information on using SVG for mobile devices, take a look at this About.com article.

Why SVG? The attraction of SVG is that it's vector and the images are stored in XML format.  Vector images are resizeable, bit-mapped images resize poorly. 

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Darth Stabro, "VectorBitmapExample." Wikipedia

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As for the other sites found -- OneMotion offers the opportunity to paint and draw online, play games, fiddle with a drum machine or a DJ's turntable, and animate breakdancers. QueekyPaint has a large toolset, layers, and a number of graphics options; it may load slowly at first. Sketchpad has some nice text fonts available; however, when I tried to start a new project, I got an error message -- "Your browser does not support FileSystem API"). DrawIsland is also available on iPad and iPhone. And at ArtPad, sponsored by Art.com, you can replay the strokes you made and splatter paint.

-- Marge

Inkscape: a sweet SVG app -- and it's free

Tools that generate 2-dimensional digital art are divided into 2 main types--

• raster (often called bitmap), which is pixel-based and not easily resizable, and
• vector, which can be easily and smoothly resized.

Examples of apps that will generate raster files are Adobe Photoshop (.psd) and Corel Photo-Paint (.cpt); vector applications are CorelDraw (.cdr) and Adobe Illustrator (.ai). All of these are proprietary and must be purchased for full use.

Inkscape is an open source vector program that produces files in Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) format.  The SVG format has been named the standard for vector graphics in HTML5.  And, because vector files can be resized, it's the most logical format to use for developing mobile content.  Raster files can also be used for mobile content, but extra steps are required to render them at a size appropriate for the device.

Not all browsers are fully HTML5 capable.  Here is a breakdown of what browsers can handle HTML5 and inline SVG.  Note that the usage is 65.79% as of that writing.  Here's a more detailed breakdown of browser usage from Sitepoint.

But back to Inkscape.  As said before it's open source; you can download it here.  By the way, the documentation is very good.  And here are some videos to get you started:

Bitmap to vector

Shiny button

 

If you find Inkscape useful, please remember to donate.  And while you're in the pass-it-on mood, please remember Wikipedia, as well (where would we be without it?).

--Marge