How to Draw in Canva

Canva is one of the best graphic designing websites. You can do so much with the free version and a lot more with the pro version. Canva is freely available as an app on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices. It’s a handy tool for all your last-minute designing necessities and a great space to begin, manage and even sell out designing projects. Canva works perfectly both as a web client and as an application.

However, the platform lacks one thing – the feature to draw. At least, it used to. Canva introduces the option to integrate a drawing application – for both the free and the paid versions. But, only for desktop and tablet users. So, here’s how you can use the Draw application on Canva to facilitate your free-hand drawing requirements.

Free-Hand Drawing on Canva Using the Draw App

First, open Canva on your device (desktop or tablet) and either open a blank design or a prepared one – it can be a post, a presentation, an ad, etc. The point is to launch the designing options to proceed.

Once the designing options on the left margin are visible, click the ellipsis ‘More’ icon with three horizontal dots at the end of the list.

Now, scroll through to the end of the ‘More’ option, passing all the apps and integration options to find the ‘Draw’ app. It will typically be the last option.

This feature is in its beta phase at the moment. It isn’t officially released on Canva. Hence, can be subject to newer updates and changes.

Confirm using this app by clicking the ‘Use’ button after the app’s details on the left.

Choose the brush you’d like to use on your canvas – pen, marker, glow pen, or highlighter. You can customize the size and transparency of all brushes. Simply click and drag the toggles along the size and transparency sliders to make your choice. Or manually enter a number in the fields provided next to both aspects.

The higher the slider on the transparency option, the more opaque the lines.

To choose the color for your brush’s ink, click the colored square of your choice. If you’re looking for a color that isn’t on this palette, click the ‘+’ button at the start of the palette to customize your color(s).

Click the same ‘+’ button again in the color context menu which executes the same color scheme as before.

After choosing a brush, you can choose a color from the customizable palette and directly draw with that color! Place the color slider on the color you’d like to choose from and move the circle across the rectangular spectrum to choose your color. Then, select the pen icon to the right of the customizable palette.

You can now directly draw with the brush and color of your choice on your canvas.

Once you’re done drawing, click the ‘Done’ button to close the app’s options.

Editing Your Drawing

Once your drawing is complete, Canva would consider it as an image, and hence, all image editing options would open to your drawing as well. To edit your drawing, select your drawing first, and click the ‘Edit image’ option above the image.

You are now open to all the image editing options.

Adjusting Your Drawing

To adjust your drawing, you can either directly manipulate the ‘Adjust’ options (brightness, contrast, and saturation) if that’s all the adjustment options you’re looking for. To view all the ‘Adjust’ options click the ‘See all’ option.

You can now choose any ‘Adjust’ setting and either click and drag the toggles on the respective sliders or add precise numbers in the provided boxes.

If the adjustments messed up, you can always reset all the aspects by clicking the ‘Reset’ button at the end of the ‘Adjust’ list.

Other image editing options include filters. If you wish to add filters to your drawing, make your drawing more photogenic (which is just an extension of filters), or incorporate your drawing into a smart mockup, scroll through the ‘Edit image’ section to find ‘Filters’, ‘Photogenic’ and Smart Mockups. Click their respective ‘See all’ options to view all the filters in either section and choose (and customize) your favorite.

Animating Your Drawing

Apart from editing your drawing on Canva, you could also animate it! Here’s how.

First, select your drawing (it can also be individual parts of a drawing), then click the ‘Animate’ option with a 3D circle icon just above the live designing area.

Since your drawing is considered as an individual image, you’ll redirect to the list of ‘Photo Animations’ options on the left. To animate the entire page, scroll through the ‘Page Animations’. Click to choose and apply an animation option from either option.

The choice of animation will be visible above your design in place of the ‘Animate’ option. You can return to the animation options by clicking this button. To remove the animation, click the ‘None’ option – the first block on both animation options (photo and page).

Additionally, you can customize the duration of the animation as well. To do this, deselect the drawing/parts of it, and click the timer icon with 5 seconds. You can either click and drag the toggle along the ‘Timing’ slider or type in the seconds in the box next to it. More the seconds, the slower the animation.

To play your animated drawing in the duration of your choice, click the block with the play button and the chosen number of seconds to the right of the site/app’s ribbon.

You will now see your drawing in motion. You can download the clip from this screen as well. Click the ‘Download’ button to the top right corner of the playing screen, select your file type (we recommend going with the suggested file type) in the drop-down menu, and hit the ‘Download’ button at the bottom of the menu.

You could also download from the designing screen by clicking the ellipsis icon (three horizontal dots) to the top right corner of the screen and selecting the ‘Download’ button from the drop-down menu. This would open the same download box as shown above.

How to Remove the Draw App

If you wish to remove the ‘Draw’ app from your Canva margin, simply hover your cursor over the app’s block and hit the tiny ‘X’ to the top left corner of the block.