Tayasui Sketches: The Watercolour App That Refuses to Bloat Itself

Most drawing apps compete on brush count. Tayasui Sketches competes on feel. Where Procreate ships with 200+ brushes and Clip Studio Paint drowns you in tool palettes, Tayasui Sketches gives you about 20 tools and makes each one feel like a real physical instrument. The watercolour brush alone is worth the download: paint spreads, bleeds, and continues to flow after you lift the stylus, mimicking wet-on-wet behaviour in a way that few apps outside Adobe Fresco can match.

Developed by the French studio Tayasui and launched in 2012, the app has been quietly refined for over a decade. Version 36.8, released in April 2026 on iOS, is now available on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Android. But the pricing model has shifted in ways that matter, and the app's deliberate simplicity means it is not for everyone.

The Watercolour Brush: Why People Download This App

The watercolour brush is the reason most people find Tayasui Sketches. When you paint with it, the digital pigment behaves like real watercolour on paper. It flows outward from your stroke, blends with adjacent wet colours, and continues to spread slightly after you lift the stylus, simulating the way real watercolour keeps moving on wet paper. Light pressure with the Apple Pencil produces transparent, flowing washes. Heavier pressure deposits more pigment, creating saturated, opaque marks.

The wet brush is a companion tool that lets you blend and spread existing paint with a clean, water-only brush. Use it to soften edges, pull colour into adjacent areas, or create smooth tonal transitions. Combined with the watercolour brush, the two tools produce effects that feel closer to real watercolour than anything in Procreate or Sketchbook.

The one app that beats Tayasui on watercolour simulation is Adobe Fresco, whose Live Brushes run a full physics simulation of water and pigment. But Fresco is a heavier, more complex app. Tayasui Sketches runs light, boots fast, and does not drain your battery the way Fresco's Live Brushes can on older iPads. For travel journaling and quick outdoor sketching, that lightweight performance matters more than physics-accurate simulation.

The Tool Set: Curated, Not Comprehensive

The free version includes a pencil, felt pen, marker, watercolour brush, eraser, and a basic ruler. That is enough to start sketching immediately. The Pro upgrade unlocks the full set of over 20 tools: rotring pen, pen brush, oil pastel, acrylic brush, airbrush, watercolour dry and wet variants, area fill, patterns, text, shapes (iPad only), smudge tool, and a colour eyedropper.

The pencil tool simulates the grainy texture of real pencil on paper with pressure sensitivity that varies line weight naturally. The felt pen and marker tools produce flat, opaque marks suited to urban sketching and graphic illustration. The oil pastel and acrylic brushes add painterly options for artists who want more than just watercolour.

What Tayasui does not give you is the deep brush customisation of Procreate or Krita. There is a brush editor in Pro mode that lets you tweak settings, but you cannot build brushes from scratch or import third-party brush packs. If your workflow depends on custom brushes, this app will frustrate you.

Zen Mode and the Interface

The interface is where Tayasui's design philosophy becomes tangible. Tools are hidden away while you draw, and only the bare minimum buttons remain visible. The Zen Mode takes this further, stripping the interface down to almost nothing: just you, the canvas, and the tool you are using. A new colour selector appears in Zen Mode that is faster to use than the standard picker.

The canvas texture is subtle but meaningful. Unlike the perfectly smooth digital canvas of most painting apps, Tayasui gives the drawing surface a slight paper grain that makes marks feel more organic. It is the kind of detail you do not notice until you switch back to a smooth-canvas app and everything feels slightly sterile.

Canvas rotation lets you turn the canvas with two fingers, which is essential for artists who rotate their paper when drawing certain angles. Stroke Preview shows a ghost of your last stroke before committing, helpful for testing pressure without ruining your work.

Pricing: It Got Complicated

Here is where things get messy. Tayasui Sketches used to be simple: free app, $4.99 one-time Pro upgrade. In 2026, the pricing structure has split across platforms and models.

On iOS, you can still buy the Pro Version as a one-time $7.99 purchase. But there are also subscription options: weekly ($2.99 to $3.99), monthly ($2.99 to $7.99), and yearly ($9.99 to $69.99, depending on the tier). The subscription tiers appear to unlock the same Pro features, so the one-time purchase remains the best value if you plan to use the app long-term.

On Android, the app is subscription-only. You can choose weekly or yearly, with a free trial available on selected plans. There is no one-time purchase option. This is a significant drawback compared to the iOS version and makes the Android app notably more expensive over time.

On macOS, Sketches is available as a separate purchase on the Mac App Store. It is a different app from the iOS version, with separate pricing.

The Pro features you unlock include: unlimited layers, the extended brush editor, wet watercolour brushes, gradients and patterns, colour mix, cloud sync, custom colour palettes, and extra rulers (arc, circle, spline, grid). The free tier limits you to a small number of layers and basic tools.

Apple Pencil Integration

Tayasui Sketches is optimised for the Apple Pencil, with full pressure and tilt sensitivity. Each stroke adapts to pressure, angle, and width in ways that feel like a real brush on paper. The watercolour brush is where this integration shines: pressure controls how much paint is deposited and how far it spreads, while tilt affects the stroke width in ways that mimic using the side of a real brush.

The app also supports the Apple Pencil 2's double-tap gesture for switching between tools. On iPad, the multitasking support lets you open two apps side by side and drag layers or documents between them, which is useful for reference-image workflows.

PSD Support and Export

Pro mode supports PSD import and export with layers preserved, which is a recent addition that makes Tayasui viable as part of a professional workflow. You can sketch in Tayasui, export the layered PSD, and finish in Photoshop or Procreate. The free tier is limited to PNG, JPEG, and PDF export.

Cloud sync (Pro only) backs up drawings and synchronises them between devices on the same platform. Note that iOS, macOS, and Android are separate apps with separate purchases, so cloud sync does not cross platforms. You cannot sync between an iPad and an Android phone.

Tayasui Sketches vs Procreate vs Adobe Fresco

If you are choosing between these three on an iPad, here is the honest breakdown:

Procreate ($12.99 one-time) is the full professional package. Hundreds of brushes, deep customisation, animation tools, 3D painting, a massive community of brush creators and tutorials. If you are serious about digital art, Procreate is the better investment.

Adobe Fresco (free, full features with Creative Cloud) has the best watercolour and oil simulation on any platform. Its Live Brushes run a real-time physics engine that Tayasui's watercolour brush approaches but does not fully match. Fresco also offers vector brushes and seamless Photoshop integration.

Tayasui Sketches wins on simplicity and immediacy. It opens fast, runs light, and does not overwhelm you with options. For a travel sketchbook, a quick journaling tool, or a first drawing app for someone who is intimidated by Procreate's depth, Tayasui is the better choice. The watercolour brush is genuinely beautiful, and the Zen Mode interface is the cleanest of any drawing app on iOS.

Insider Tips

• The one-time $7.99 Pro purchase on iOS is the best value. Avoid the subscription tiers unless you only need Pro for a short project.
• On Android, you are stuck with subscription pricing. If you only sketch occasionally, the weekly plan at $2.99 may cost less than a yearly plan over a short period, but it adds up fast.
• The watercolour brush works best on textured canvas settings. Switch to a smooth canvas and the effect loses much of its charm.
• The dry button lets you "freeze" wet paint so it stops spreading. Use it strategically: paint wet for initial washes, then dry and add details on top without the new paint bleeding into the old.
• Tayasui Sketches Pro (black icon) and Tayasui Sketches Free with Pro IAP (white icon) are the same app with different purchase methods. If you already own the free version, buy the Pro Bundle IAP rather than repurchasing the Pro app.

Final Verdict: Who Is This Actually For?

Tayasui Sketches is for artists who want a sketching experience that feels like paper, not software. If you are a travel journaler, a hobbyist watercolourist, or someone who finds Procreate overwhelming, Tayasui is the most enjoyable drawing app you can download. The watercolour brush alone justifies the install.

It is not for professional illustrators who need deep brush customisation, complex layer workflows, or animation tools. If you are producing client work, running a YouTube channel, or creating comic pages, you will hit Tayasui's ceiling fast. In that case, Procreate or Clip Studio Paint are better investments.

Download Tayasui Sketches free from the App Store or Google Play, or visit the Tayasui website to compare free and Pro features.