How to draw with a drawing tablet on a Mac
Connect your tablet
Connect your pressure-sensitive pen tablet and install its driver. Open Paint My and click “Create Canvas” on the “New Canvas” card.
Pick a pressure brush
Click “Pencil” in the tools palette (or press P), click it again to open the style tray, and choose “HB Graphite”. It is a free style and responds to both pressure and tilt.
Press lightly, then firmly
Draw a long line, pressing lightly, then firmly, then lightly again. The stroke thins and swells with your pressure.
Lean the pen to shade
Lower the pen toward the tablet and keep drawing. The pencil lays down a wide, soft, grainy band, like the side of the lead.
Set “Steady”
Click “Tool Options” in the tools palette and drag “Steady” to the right for smoother lines. “Size” and “Opacity” are in the same panel.
Turn the canvas
Twist two fingers on the trackpad to rotate the canvas like paper, then press ⌥⌘0 to straighten it again.
A drawing app for your drawing tablet on Mac
If you have just bought a drawing tablet for Mac, the next question is which app to draw in. Paint My is a native macOS painting app that reads the pressure and tilt your tablet reports to macOS, so 46 styles respond to how hard you press, and 13 respond to how you lean the pen.
It is a free download for macOS 14 Sonoma or later, with no account. Pressure, tilt and “Steady” have no Pro lock; 14 of the 57 styles are free. New to drawing on a computer? Our guide to digital painting software for Mac covers the basics, with or without a tablet.
Pressure-sensitive drawing: what pressure changes
Press harder and the mark grows, gets denser, or both, depending on the brush. “HB Graphite”, “Charcoal Stick”, “Pastel” and the chalks change size and flow. “Ballpoint”, “Fountain”, “Brush Pen” and “Calligraphy” change size, which gives lettering its thick and thin strokes (see calligraphy app for Mac). “Mechanical 0.5”, “Carpenter”, “Airbrush” and most spray cans change flow.
Wet media respond too. “Round Wash” and “Watercolor” widen as you press (more in watercolor app for Mac), and “Oil”, “Gouache” and “Acrylic” widen the same way (see oil painting app for Mac).
At the lightest touch, a size-sensitive brush draws at about a third of the size you set. Each brush’s response is fixed, so you learn it once. A mouse always draws at full pressure.
Stylus tilt shading with the side of the lead
Tilt comes from a pen tablet. Lean the pen and 13 styles shade with the side of the tool: “HB Graphite”, “6B Soft”, “Charcoal Stick”, “Colored Pencil”, “Carpenter”, “Mechanical 0.5”, “Fountain”, “Pastel”, “Crayon”, “Conté”, “Soft Chalk”, “Hard Chalk” and “Dusty Chalk”.
A slight lean barely changes the line. Lay the pen lower and the mark becomes up to about three times wider, lighter, softer and grainier, stretched in the direction you lean. “Fountain” and “Mechanical 0.5” respond just a little. For pencil and charcoal work, see our sketching app for Mac guide.
“HB Graphite”, “Pastel” and “Soft Chalk” are free styles, so you can try tilt shading without Pro. Shading follows the screen, even on a rotated canvas.
A line stabilizer for smoother strokes
Paint My’s line stabilizer is the “Steady” slider in “Tool Options”. Move it right and the line follows your pen more loosely, smoothing the wobble out of long curves and ink lines. Move it to zero for raw input.
Set the value Paint My starts with at Settings ▸ Tools ▸ “Default Stabilization”. The “Pixel Brush” ignores “Steady” on purpose, because pixel cells need your exact input.
Shortcuts that keep your hand on the pen
Keep one hand on the keyboard and the pen in the other:
- [ and ] make the brush smaller or larger.
- Single keys switch tools while the canvas has focus: P Pencil, N Pen & Ink, B Brush, K Chalk, E Eraser.
- ⌥-click with any brush to pick a color from the canvas.
- Hold Space and drag to pan.
- ⌥⌘0 (View ▸ “Reset Rotation”) straightens a rotated canvas.
Questions
Which drawing app works with a tablet on Mac?
Paint My works with pressure-sensitive pen tablets. Pressure shapes 46 brush styles and tilt shades on 13. It is a free download for macOS 14 Sonoma or later, and 14 of its 57 styles are free.
Why isn’t pen pressure working on my Mac?
First check that your tablet’s driver is installed and up to date. Then choose a style that responds to pressure, such as “HB Graphite”. “Fine-liner”, “Technical”, the “Chisel”, “Fine Tip” and “Highlighter” markers, “Stipple”, “Spatter Flick”, “Splatter” and the Pixel styles ignore pressure by design.
Does pen tilt work?
Yes, with a tablet pen that reports tilt. Thirteen styles, such as “HB Graphite”, “Charcoal Stick” and “Soft Chalk”, shade with the side of the tool as you lean the pen. A mouse or trackpad sends no tilt.
Can I use an iPad as a drawing tablet for my Mac?
That hasn’t been tested with Paint My yet, so we can’t promise pressure or tilt that way. Paint My is a Mac app; there is no iPad version.
Can I rotate the canvas like paper?
Yes. Twist two fingers on the trackpad to turn it to any angle, then press ⌥⌘0 or click the degree readout at the bottom right to straighten it. Rotation changes your view, never the pixels.
