paint

Do you still have your original "Star Wars" action figures? Mine are tucked away in storage, but looking at Rob Burden's artwork makes me want to dig them out.

The San Francisco artist is so obsessed with his old "Star Wars" figures that he does 10-foot-tall oil paintings of them, like "The Birth of a Jedi," above. The works don't portray the characters from the series, but the actual action figures themselves.

Now he's taking his passion to new heights on Kickstarter with a $24,000 campaign to produce two enormous 10x14-foot "Star Wars" canvases. … Read more

Finding applications that are appropriate for young children can be a challenge. Tux Paint for Mac may entertain young children who like to draw, but ultimately functions no differently than any rudimentary drawing application.

The program's download completed quickly, but installation required a separate installation of a font package, which extended the overall time. User instructions and other program documentation were available, which was a nice feature. Technical support for updates from the developer appeared to be present, too. The program's interface is elementary and a bit dated, but even children would find it easy to navigate. A … Read more

Photo-filtering apps can add artistic or sophisticated flair to all of your favorite photos. True to its name, One Touch Draw/Sketch & Paint lets you draw, sketch, and paint on photos, but it's marred by a messy interface that requires a lot of trial and error to get results.

Before you get started with One Touch Draw/Sketch & Paint, the app asks you to accept an ad agreement. You don't have to accept, but it installs ads on your status bar, browser home page, and more if you do. For an app that's centered around … Read more

There are some pretty cool drawing apps out there for kids. Draw and Paint Free with iPainter touts itself as a drawing app to keep kids occupied. While it does offer a blank canvas for kids to draw on, it also comes loaded with lots of inappropriate ads that kids can easily tap by accident.

We knew right away that Draw and Paint Free with iPainter wasn't kid-friendly when we were greeted with a pop-up ad for a Night Vision Pro app. And we were greeted with it every time we opened the app. That's strike one. The … Read more

Leaked videos that hit the Web today hint at a host of possibilities for Microsoft's next Windows release, codenamed Blue. Not only does it look like there might be improvements across the operating system, but also the speech recognition feature in Windows Phones could get a noteworthy upgrade.

The videos come via MSFTKitchen, which got its hands on internal videos from Microsoft's TechFest event a couple of weeks ago.

In the video that is presumably about Microsoft Blue, the company's chief technical strategy officer Eric Rudder hints that Microsoft has plans to boost their touch feature on … Read more

The MS Paint app, available within the Windows operating system, is one of the simplest and most-used apps for editing and creating pictures. Unfortunately, Microsoft never developed a version for Mac computers. PaintDS for Mac is a notable alternative for this problem.

Available as free to try without a pass code, you can use all the features of the application but only with .bmp files and in 30-minute sessions. The installing process of PaintDS for Mac is as simple as actually using the app. After downloading the .dmg file, open it and drag and drop the app into your applications … Read more

When it comes to computer graphics, Photoshop is so dominant that "photoshopping" is virtually synonymous with digital image editing. But Adobe's flagship product has some disadvantages, starting with its considerable price tag. It's also so complex that you can take courses in how to use it. But it's the standard against which all graphics editors and drawing tools are measured, which is good news because the many Photoshop clones out there include some tools that give the big dog a run for a whole lot less money. BrainDistrict's PaintSupreme for Windows is just such … Read more

Pixia looks like it came straight out of a Windows 95-era, but is one of the most popular drawing tools in Japan. Like other freeware image editors, Pixia allows you to create digital art and supports layer editing, selective undos, and an assortment of brushes and tools for artists.

When you first launch the program, you're greeted with options for filters, right-clicking tools, and a whole bunch of other tools that just flat out won't make sense at first glance. Pixia doesn't exactly win any awards for first impressions and welcoming interfaces for new users because it … Read more

LAS VEGAS--We may never be able to replace the splendor of painting on a real canvas with store-bought pigments, but the supreme accuracy of a modern touch-screen computer can offer an artistic experience that would even make Dali's head spin.

Deep within the maze-like setup of Sony's booth at CES 2013, I sat down with artist April Wong as she painted a woman using the ArtRage drawing program on a Sony Vaio Duo 11 hybrid tablet. Stroke by stroke, a realistic image emerged from Wong's stylus, and I couldn't help but find myself surprised that the visage appearing on the tablet looked as good, if not better, than a real painting. No mess, either!… Read more