Simply Draw: Learn to Draw

Review by eFreeware

Most people who want to draw never get past the first page of a how-to book. The gap between wanting to sketch and producing something recognizable is wide, and generic tutorials rarely close it because they teach a subject you have no interest in. Simply Draw, from Simply Ltd, takes a different angle: it builds a learning path around what you actually want to draw and walks you through it with a pencil in your hand.

The app sits in the Education category on Google Play, is free to install, and has passed 10 million installs with a 4.7 average from over 320,000 ratings. It arrived in late October 2025 and was last updated in October 2026. That is a substantial audience for a drawing tutor, and the rating suggests a lot of people are getting something out of it.

What draws me to the concept is the medium. This is not a digital canvas app where you paint with a stylus on a screen. The lessons are built around making marks on real paper, which is a slower and more tactile way to learn but also the one that transfers to sketchbooks, journals and any piece of paper you happen to have nearby.

A learning path built around your interests

The feature Simply Ltd leads with is a customized learning journey. Rather than dropping you into a fixed curriculum, the app shapes a path around the subjects that interest you. If animals are what you want to draw, that is what you practice; if you would rather work on faces or landscapes, the path follows that instead. It is a sensible way to keep motivation alive, because the practice feels like progress toward something you chose.

Professional artists and teachers present the lessons as video tutorials. You watch, then draw along, following the demonstration at whatever speed suits you. The app frames this as learning at your own time and pace, which matters for a skill like drawing where people progress at very different rates. Some will move through a session in one sitting; others will return to the same drawing over several days.

One creator quoted by the developer describes the app as calming and fun, and credits the personalized path with teaching exactly what that person was interested in. Another says it made them proud enough of their work to display it. These are marketing testimonials rather than independent assessments, but they do point at the two things the app is trying to deliver: a relaxed experience and visible improvement.

Weekly sessions and the skills behind them

Around the core lessons sit a few supporting features. New drawing sessions are added every week, so the catalog keeps growing rather than staying fixed at whatever shipped on day one. For anyone who treats drawing as a regular habit, that steady supply of fresh material is the difference between finishing a course and having somewhere to go next.

The app also promises insight into new drawing skills and mastery of them over time. The sessions are meant to build technique, not just produce a finished picture. Alongside that, tips and tricks are offered for the drawings that prove most challenging, which is the kind of help that matters when a tutorial moves faster than your hand can follow.

The most recent update was described as refining the experience and clearing out bugs, which is the sort of maintenance note that tells you the team is still tending to the app rather than leaving it as it was at launch.

What you need before you start

The requirements here are refreshingly low. You need a pencil, paper and a device to watch the lessons on. No special hardware is required, and there is no need to photograph or upload your work. That makes the barrier to entry about as small as it gets for a creative hobby.

Simply Draw is free to download and shows no ads, which is a pleasant combination in a category where free often means interrupted. It does offer in-app purchases, though the developer does not lay out what those purchases cover. I would treat the free download as a way to see whether the teaching style clicks before deciding how much further to go.

The content rating is Everyone, and the app is built for pencil work with real materials rather than screen-based drawing. If your interest is digital illustration or working in a drawing program, the skills here are foundational rather than directly transferable to that workflow.

Getting the most from the lessons

The pace setting is the feature I would lean on hardest. Because the app lets you work at your own speed, there is no reason to rush a session just to tick it off. Pausing a video to finish a line, rewinding a section that did not land, and repeating a drawing a second time are all reasonable ways to use a tool like this, and they cost nothing but time.

The weekly additions are worth planning around. If you set aside a regular slot and pick a new session each week, the personalized path has something to build on, and the skills compound instead of resetting. That rhythm also suits the calming, low-pressure tone the app seems to aim for: short, consistent practice rather than marathon sessions.

When a drawing gets difficult, the tips and tricks are the natural place to turn before abandoning it. Challenging subjects are where most people quit, and having guidance aimed at exactly those moments is more useful than another easy win. The combination of a chosen subject, a patient pace and help at the hard parts is what makes the learning journey feel less like a course and more like a habit.

A steady tutor for pencil and paper

Simply Draw is a well-scoped app. It teaches pencil drawing with real materials through video lessons from working artists, personalizes the path to your interests, and refreshes the catalog weekly. The free download, absence of ads and large, highly rated audience make it easy to try without much risk.

It suits beginners who want a guided start, and returning hobbyists who need structure and a reason to keep practicing. It is also a good fit for anyone who prefers the feel of a real pencil to a stylus. If your goal is digital art, the fundamentals here will still serve you, but the app is built around paper.

For the price of a download, you get a personalized route into a skill that usually takes years to self-teach. That is a fair trade, and the weekly sessions give it staying power beyond the first few drawings.

What's new in version 1.15.0

Just like a sketch, our app needed some refining. We've erased the bugs and drawn a smoother experience for you.