Krita is a professional digital painting application built by artists. It’s free, open-source, and rivals paid tools.

Installation

brew install --cask krita

The Interface

Krita’s default workspace has the canvas in the center, toolbox on the left, and dockers (color, layers, brushes) on the right. Go to Settings → Configure Toolbars to customize.

Essential Brushes

Press F6 to open the brush presets. Start with these:

  • Basic-5 Size — General painting
  • Ink-3 Gpen — Clean lines
  • Wet Bristles Rough — Painterly strokes
  • Blender Basic — Smooth blending

The brush engine is Krita’s superpower. Each brush has dozens of adjustable parameters.

Layers

Layers work like transparent sheets stacked on each other. Paint on separate layers for:

  • Sketch (bottom)
  • Line art
  • Flat colors
  • Shading (top)

Use the layer blending modes (Normal, Multiply, Overlay) for shading and effects.

Stabilizer

If your lines are shaky, Krita’s stabilizer smooths them out. Find “Tool Options” docker → Brush Smoothing → enable Stabilizer. Adjust the distance for more or less smoothing.

Wrap-Around Mode

Press W to toggle wrap-around. The canvas repeats infinitely in all directions — perfect for seamless textures and patterns.