Kids are naturally creative. It comes out in the way they tell stories, how they play together, and most of all, when they interact with art. There’s something beautiful and relaxing about pulling out a box of crayons and paper with your kids and sitting around the table to see what appears on the page. Now, it’s possible to enhance that fun and creativity with digital art games for kids.
Though the basic benefits of giving your children an art game are obvious – it’s just plain fun – there’s more to it than that. Over 43% of adult digital artists say they began working with digital art before the age of 15. Giving your child a chance to interact with art through the digital medium early not only enhances their career opportunities, but gives them a creative home. Ephraim Obare notes, “Digital tools enable artists to combine various elements, such as animation, sculpture, photography and painting, to develop new art forms.”
Whether you’re looking for a way to teach kids about art or just keep them busy for a bit, an art game for kids can be a great choice. They’ll learn by doing – both how to interact with the program and how to unleash their creativity. Coloring pages and stickers make it easy for even the littlest hands to play with art, while you maintain full control over their screen time and what they can access.
In this article, you’ll find our lineup of the best art games for kids to get their creative juices flowing.
Best apps and resources for art games for kids
Digital art games for kids are a great way to help them explore their creativity solo or in a group. We researched the options available today to choose the ones we can recommend for kids to help build art skills and engage in creative play. Here are a few of the top choices out there today.
1. Aqua by Adobe
Adobe Aqua is an interactive art game for kids that combines the best of hand drawing with games and creative engagement with AI magic tools. Kids can travel to various creative “islands,” where they find themed coloring pages, games, and activities designed to spark their interest in art. They can save their favorites in an art museum, which they can decorate themselves with their own work and stickers.
Interactive tutorials can teach your child the basics of drawing and colors and give them chances to explore their own creative landscape. AI “magic” buttons let your kids transform their 2D art into 3D, with various options and styles to choose from. Security protocols keep this app safe for kids to use, and parents can opt in to notifications about their kids’ activity in the app.
Made for: Kids and parents looking for a place for their kids to make and store their art
Available on: App Store
Price: Free
2. Adobe Fresco
Adobe Fresco is designed to be a digital blank page for those who enjoy drawing and painting. Though it can be used by an older audience, kids can also interact with colors, shapes, lines, and other tools in it to exercise their creativity. Features like Paint Inside, symmetry, and animation offer a few ways for little hands to access more detailed art tasks.
Made for: Free drawing, sketching, and painting for Apple users
Available on: iPadOS and iOS
Price: Free
3. Color by Number
The Color By Number app for iOS is a game designed for mobile platforms. Users interact with various colors assigned to numbers and fill out detailed coloring pages with pre-determined colors. Kids who understand or are learning numbers can use this app to create pixel-style artwork. Though the app is not built for user-generated creativity, kids can learn about how colors look and shape an image through games like this.
Made for: Mobile gamers
Available on: iOS
Price: Free with in-app purchases
4. Crayola Create and Play
Crayola Create and Play is an art-based gaming app for kids that can be played in a web browser or in an iOS app. Kids can choose from games that teach science, history, and art or create a pet they can interact with on an Apple watch. Stories and activities make art interactive and accessible to kids of all ages. Templates and stickers make this experience more game-like than other platforms, though some individual creative expression opportunities appear throughout.
Made for: Kids
Available on: Web, Apple Arcade, App Store, and Google Play
Price:
- Free trial
- $35.99/year
5. Joydoodle
Joy Doodle is a drawing app designed with a neon and doodling aesthetic. Kids can use the 20 brushes, with names like “glitter” and “fireworks,” to create bright and childlike images. The animation feature turns drawings into short videos that bring doodles to life. Kids can enjoy a sandbox-style game that encourages creativity, while working within the bright framework provided by the app.
Made for: Kids and adults who enjoy doodling
Available on: iPhone and iPad
Price: Free with in-app purchases
6. Kreska.art
Kreska.art is a drawing and painting program that can be used on any modern browser or system. Designed to both create and manipulate existing images, you can use a number of tools, brushes, and filters to work with your piece. This platform puts no limits on the elements of the program you can use or the number of drawings you can do, but you can only work on one painting at a time.
Made for: Drawing, painting, and manipulation of images with various tools and filters
Available on: PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and any modern web browser
Price: Free
7. PBS Kids Art Games
PBS Kids Art Games features many of the characters kids see on PBS Kids in various interactive and art-style games. Kids can choose between interactive games and artistic exploration with PBS characters and stories, and games include a range of free drawing features and also template and tool-based art. Accessibility features and games in both Spanish and English are available.
Made for: Kids to explore games and art
Available on: App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore, and web browsers
Price: Free
8. Procreate
Procreate is designed for sketching and drawing on iPad and iPhone. A range of tools provide options for drawing from scratch or engaging with existing artwork. Kids can use a stylus (like the Apple Pencil) or their hands to engage with the app on a mobile device. With Procreate Dreams, you can create animations from artwork.
Made for: Mobile artwork for Apple users
Available on: iPad and iPhone
Price:
- Procreate for iPad: $12.99
- Procreate Dreams for Animation: $12.99
- Procreate Pocket for iPhone: $5.99
9. Tate Draw
Tate Draw is a web-based art game in which kids can explore various drawing activities. Free drawing options come with different backgrounds, and kids can also explore memory draw games, word prompt drawings, mirror drawings, and one-line drawing games among others.
Made for: Kids
Available on: Web browser
Price: Free
10. Toca Boca
Toca Boca is an app that lets kids engage with locations and stories in fun and creative settings. Kids report that they can playact going to school, the mall with friends, and even the hospital. Themed stories like Tatami Townhouse and Toca Boca x Wicked: For Good are available for kids to explore. In-app purchases can unlock additional content.
Made for: Kids
Available on: PC, Amazon Appstore, App Store, and Google Play
Price: Free with in-app purchases
11. Simply Draw
Simply Draw allows users to combine traditional pencil drawing with an online app, exploring their creativity and gaining skills through practice and tutorials. Kids can choose from sections like “Animals” and work their way through the different options from owls to pandas. Users can also create their own character in the app. The app teaches techniques like shading and structure and helps users gain skills and explore their unique creative choices.
Made for: Pencil drawing practice and education
Available on: App Store and Google Play
Price: Free with in-app purchases
12. Sketchbook
Sketchbook lets users work with layers, brushes, tools, filters, and different colors to design their own creations. Use a stylus to mimic the hand drawing process and work with fills and tools like symmetry to make precise choices with lines and colors. Kids can learn by exploring the digital art space and test out techniques and ideas on the blank page.
Made for: Artists of all ages
Available on: Mac App Store, App Store, Microsoft, and Google Play
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Fun art games for kids
There are a variety of art games for kids to explore. Some are great for playing with friends and siblings, while others work well for playing solo. Whether you’re looking for something for the kids to do together or something for your child to entertain themselves with, there’s a choice available.
Group games
Participating in drawing games together is a fun activity that can take just a few minutes or be repeated several times for longer play sessions. Get your kids together and join the fun with them in one of these drawing games:
- Back-and-forth drawing game: Start a drawing and let other players build off of it to create a unique image
- Scribble challenge: Face off in a drawing battle with friends and family or players online
- Team drawing: Kids collaborate to draw something from a prompt, taking turns to build out the image in sections
- Simon says: One player is named Simon and directs other players with instructions to draw by saying “Simon says” and then giving the direction
- Pictionary: A player is given a prompt to draw and other players guess the prompt based on the drawing
- Picture telephone: Players begin by writing a prompt and passing it to the left. The next player creates a drawing from a text prompt and then the next player writes a new prompt based on the new image. Subsequent players try to alternately write the prompt or draw the image until everyone has had a turn. Hilarity ensues when players revisit the original prompt and see how far the image has drifted from the original meaning.
Solo games
Sometimes kids need a quiet wind-down activity or something to keep their hands busy during a long car ride, and art is a great choice for these pockets of time. Try one of these games to keep your child busy and creative during quiet moments:
- Quiet time art game: Kids can explore their creativity quietly with drawing, doodling, and coloring.
- Double doodle art: Use both hands at once, and whatever colors you like, to create a symmetrical drawing.
- Blind contour drawing: Look at an object, not the paper, and draw the outline of the object without peeking or lifting your hand from the paper.
- Easy heart mandala drawings: Kids draw a heart and then fill the heart with lines, patterns, colors, and doodles.
- Fingerprint drawing: Fingerprints make up the base of images like flowers, people, and animals, and kids add colors, lines, and shading to form the image.
- Shadow drawing: Kids can trace shadows and then fill the outline with whatever they like to create their drawing.
- 5-dot challenge: Place five dots on a page and then create an image using each of the dots.
- Animal shape challenge: Create animals out of shapes and color them in.
- Blindfold drawing: Put on a blindfold and draw an image - take it off and see how well you did!
Make the most of rainy days with the best art games for kids
On dreary days, kids look for fun and excitement to beat the boredom. Art provides a great way to exercise their little brains and work out their creativity. The best art games for kids provide a mixture of education and free-play, letting them choose their own adventure when they’re ready and keep them engaged with stories and lessons when they lose their way.
With Adobe Aqua, kids can visit islands where they can draw on a blank page, enjoy seasonal activities, play games by themselves or with friends, and archive their work in their very own museum—designed their way.
AI “magic” helps transform drawings and paintings into “3D” images in all kinds of styles. Kids earn shells that they can spend on special filters and prompts or stickers and templates, and they get more shells by creating more art. Kids can choose from tutorials or other learning games when they need more engagement and opt for the blank page when they want to create their own work.