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

Turn Ipad Into Drawing Tablet For Mac

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 .

Astropad enables you to put your iPad to work as a fully-fledged graphics tablet With Astropad you can connect your iPad to your Mac either over your wi-fi network or via USB and use it as a second, touch-sensitive display. What it does is that it will turn your iPad into a pressure sensitive wireless surface in which you can draw on, with the drawings being mimicked onto your Mac. Air Stylus will be compatible with over 30 drawing programs available on the Mac, and will also play nicely with a bunch of pressure sensitive stylus peripherals.

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.

6- Artist’s Touch

Originally downloadable for iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad at $4.99, but Artist's Touchjust informed us, it will be offering the app for a limited time at an introductory offer of $.99. And to celebrate Artist's Touch coming to the iPad, it will be giving away a brand new iPad 3G to one of the lucky users who signs up. Just imagine beingable to draw or paint a portrait quickly and digitally, on the go. Thisapp is the perfect tool for developing art at one sitting or overtime. When the moment of inspiration hits, you can quickly sketch outyour ideas and save it for a future time to review and update. For moreinformation about the Artist’s Touch iPad app, see their officialwebsite at Artamata, Inc.

7- miArts

At $.99, miArts by miSoft is a powerful painting, drawing and animation app. Compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad, miArts requiresiPhone OS 3.1.3 or later. In addition, the Sound Recorder allows usersto record music and background sounds to sync it with the animation.The In-App Save feature of miArts enables users to save up to 5paintings and 5 animations in the App memory itself.
miArtsJr isan easy to use Paint App that integrates features that are interestingto kids. The tools include the Brush tool; the Pencil tool; the Colortool; UnDo and BringBack buttons with 15-step memory; the Eraser tool;the Finger Smudge tool and the Stamp tool.

8- Paintbook 2.5

Paintbook 2.5is a 100% vector based media drawing, painting and sketching app priced at $3.99 developed by Sean M. Puckett.The color mixer is very well thought out yet simplistic in its design.The brushes give you the choice of transparency with an effect similarto Photoshop's 'normal' and 'multiple' in the way color is added. Itworks very well and the multiplied effect indicated in thisprogram by a drop of water gives a natural look even without softedges, which is similar to transparent markers. The brush sizing andopacity are easy to use with instant visual feedback.

Here is a vid on Paintbook 2.0 before they upgraded to 2.5 for iPads.

9- Inspire

By KiwiPixel, priced at $5.99, Inspireoffers up great simulation of dry brush and a palette knife that allruns very smoothly even on a 1st gen iPod touch. There are no layersyet, but the whole point of the app is to blend with paint on thecanvas. It's an addictive and fun painting app available for the iPad,largely because of its ability to simulate wet paint on a canvas, whichcan then be blended and twirled into an array of stunning effects,courtesy of four different brush types: flat brush, round brush, fanbrush and palette knife.

10- Inkling

Inklingprovides a 'would-be' artist with the opportunity to draw bold,expressive sketches with a few quick strokes of your finger... Expressyourself with spontaneous, dramatic thick/thin lines andnatural-looking textures. Very handy for doing back-of-the-napkin typesketches to explain ideas over dinner. With its ability to draw anderase thin and thick lines, Inkling allows for some surprisinglydetailed artwork. Currently priced at $1.99.
John Tokash,who was the director of software development at Homestead Technologiesand now works for Intuit has compared a few of the TOP TEN on this list- and personally thinks that the Sketchbook Pro is the best of thebunch.
Peoplewho end up being successful usually view change differently than theaverage person. Such is the case with those that start fresh. When youclean the slate, you clear your mind and permit yourself theopportunity to start on that next project - and in the case of this TOPTEN list - you now have several options available to you. Please take aminute and vote in our 'TOP TEN Tablet Rasa POLL.' And forthose that have tried any of these apps on your iPhone,iPod Touch oriPad, please provide us with your feedback. Our readers who haveinterest need to be as informed as they can when matching up all thatis currently in the market today.

Have you heard of Air Display? For those who haven’t, Air Display is an app for the iPad that when paired with another Mac or MacBook, turns it into a secondary display. So if you have videos you want to watch but don’t want to keep alt-tabbing, then Air Display is one way to go about getting a secondary display on the cheap, assuming you have an iPad to begin with.

That being said, the developers of Air Display, Avatron Software, have recently announced a new called called Air Stylus. What it does is that it will turn your iPad into a pressure sensitive wireless surface in which you can draw on, with the drawings being mimicked onto your Mac. Air Stylus will be compatible with over 30 drawing programs available on the Mac, and will also play nicely with a bunch of pressure sensitive stylus peripherals.

This includes the Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus and the Adonit Jot Touch 4. The stylus will also support gestures like pinch-to-zoom and will also be smart enough to reject your palm while drawing, so you can rest your palm on the surface of your iPad while you draw. Unfortunately the app does not come cheap and will cost you $19.99, however if you already own an iPad want would like to try drawing with it instead of buying a drawing tablet, it could prove to be a cheaper option.

Can You Turn Your Ipad Into A Drawing Tablet

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