DrawTheDraw

Drawing practice with your references

DrawTheDraw

Start timed drawing practice fast. Run gesture or side-by-side reference sessions, repeat the same subject, compare attempts, and redo or continue later.

Windows and Linux. Free demo available. Uses your references and keeps practice history on your machine.

Get the free demo See the full practice flow

How you use it

  1. Add one or more folders of reference images.
  2. Choose timed Gesture, side-by-side Drawing, or Repeat One Image practice.
  3. Set the time and number of images or attempts, then start drawing.
  4. Review your work beside the original, redo the session, or continue a saved drawing.

Practice, repeat, and review

Build a practice habit

Home shows engaged practice time, daily-goal progress, recent activity, and an optional daily streak.

Repeat deliberately

Pick one reference and make several separate attempts, then compare them together instead of losing them in a folder.

Keep working

Continue beyond a planned session pass or create a new revision from a saved drawing without replacing the original.

Review more closely

Use side-by-side review, slideshow playback, reference overlay, drawing copy, and experimental timelapse playback and GIF export.

A look inside

Examples of the practice and review screens. Click any screenshot to view it larger. Appearance may vary by release.

DrawTheDraw Home dashboard showing a daily goal, a 32-day streak, practice-time totals, and activity charts Home The start screen: today's practice time, totals, an optional daily goal and streak, and a recent-activity chart. Repeat One Image setup with a selected reference preview, timing, and attempt count Session setup Choose a mode, the time per image, and the number of images or attempts before you start. Timed Gesture session showing the current reference, timer, and image count Gesture session A timed slideshow of your references while you draw on paper or in another app. Drawing session showing the reference, partly completed drawing, timers, and toolbar Drawing session The reference beside the built-in canvas, with brushes, erasers, blend, and separate remaining and engaged timers. Repeat session summary comparing six attempts made from the same reference Repeat One Image Several attempts at the same reference, kept together so you can compare them side by side afterwards. Drawing review showing a reference, saved drawing, timelapse controls, and Export GIF Review a drawing Your drawing next to the original, with slideshow playback and experimental timelapse and GIF export. Drawing review with the saved drawing overlaid on the original reference Overlay on the reference Lay a drawing over its reference to see where proportion and alignment drifted.

Drawing and review tools

For the details and small workflow behavior, read How to Use DrawTheDraw.

Download

Start with the free demo. It uses the real workflow with smaller limits; the full version removes those caps.

See itch.io for the latest release, download files, release notes, and pricing.

Try the workflow

Demo (free)

One folder, one active session slot, and up to 3 images or attempts. Redo and Continue remain available for the demo seed.

Download Demo

Remove the limits

Full version

No demo limits on folders, sessions, images, or attempts.

The full version and free demo are on the same itch.io page.

Open itch.io Page

Platform notes

Windows and Linux. Portable ZIP archives: extract and run, with no installer or separate Python installation required.

Windows: 64-bit. To remove the app, delete its extracted folder. To erase local data too, delete %APPDATA%\DrawTheDraw.

Linux: 64-bit x86_64, tested on Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04, with glibc 2.31 or newer required. To remove the app, delete its extracted folder. To erase local data too, delete ~/.local/share/DrawTheDraw.

The local data folder contains your session database, saved drawings, and cached reference copies used for review.