Tux Paint is a free drawing program for children, with brushes, picture stamps, coloring pages and effects for making digital artwork. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, with versions for Android, compatible Chromebooks and Haiku. The drawing area sits between a toolbar and a selector that changes with the chosen tool, while a penguin at the bottom provides tips. Tux Paint is open source and contains no advertising.
Starting a new picture
A new picture can begin with a solid background, a Starter or a Template. A Starter can act like a coloring book page: its outlines stay above the child’s brushwork. Other Starters contain foreground and background scenery, allowing drawing between them. A Template supplies a background without an overlying foreground, so painting can cover the original picture.
This choice also determines what erasing does. The eraser removes added marks to reveal the original background, rather than always leaving white. Saving artwork made from a Starter or Template creates a separate picture, leaving the base available for another drawing. Children can also turn a saved picture into a new Template from within Tux Paint.
Brushes, shapes, colors and fill
The Paint tool draws while the pointer moves, using the brush selected at the right and the color selected below the canvas. Some brushes change their image during a stroke; others turn or change shape with the direction of movement. Adjustable spacing controls whether individual marks sit close together or form a trail of separated objects. The Lines tool uses the same brushes, with a preview showing the straight line before it is committed.
Shapes provide filled or outlined geometric forms that can be stretched and rotated. Color selection extends beyond the preset palette: an eyedropper samples an existing part of the drawing, and the mixer combines colors in adjustable proportions.
Fill works on a connected region, with solid color and gradients that fade in a chosen direction, radiate from a point or follow the region’s contours. Its brush mode lets children color within that region by dragging.
Rubber stamps
Stamps place ready-made photographs and illustrations onto the canvas. An outline follows the pointer to preview the image’s position and size. Available controls let the child resize, rotate, mirror or flip a stamp before placing it; some stamps also accept a chosen color or tint.
The stamp collections can include sounds and spoken descriptions as well as pictures. Selecting an object can therefore introduce its name or associated information before it is placed. Parents and teachers can add their own stamp collections and categories, along with additional brushes and fonts.
Editable labels
Tux Paint treats ordinary text and labels differently. The Text tool paints letters into the picture, where subsequent drawing and effects can alter them. The Label tool keeps the wording, font, color and position separately, allowing a caption to be selected, moved or edited later. A label can also be applied permanently to the canvas when that flexibility is no longer needed.
Both tools offer font and size selection, bold and italic styling, and clipboard text input. An optional on-screen keyboard allows text entry without a physical keyboard. The interface is translated into many languages, and text entry includes input methods for several writing systems.
Magic effects
The Magic selector contains tools that either change existing artwork or draw specialized marks. Smudge pushes colors around like wet paint, mosaics divide the image into patterned pieces, and kaleidoscope effects repeat and reflect the drawing. Other tools create marks such as spray paint or calligraphy, whose stroke thickness responds to drawing speed.
Where an effect supports both modes, children can apply it by painting over a limited area or affect the whole picture at once. Some tools also provide a size control for the affected area or painted object. Multiple undo levels and Redo allow drawing actions to be reversed and restored while exploring these changes.
Tux Paint’s picturebook and slideshows
Saving does not require typing a filename or navigating folders. Tux Paint creates an entry in its picturebook, and saved drawings reopen through thumbnails. When an existing picture changes, it can be replaced or saved as another entry. Individual pictures use PNG format and can be exported to a more accessible folder or printed.
The Slides view turns saved drawings into a presentation. Children select pictures in the desired order and choose a playback speed, or advance through them manually. A sequence containing at least two pictures can be exported as an animated GIF, allowing a set of drawings to become a simple animation.
Options adults can adjust
The separate Tux Paint Config utility lets adults adjust the drawing environment. Printing can be disabled or limited to an interval, sounds can be switched off, and certain tool controls can be simplified. Save and export locations can point to a student’s folder on a shared or network drive.
Button sizes and the interface font are adjustable. Keyboard or joystick controls can move the pointer, and a sticky-click option replaces holding a button during a drag with separate starting and ending clicks. Drawing tablets and touchscreens can provide pointer input, although pressure, tilt and multitouch gestures are not supported.
