Your kid's photo. Their first real drawing lesson.

Step by Sketch turns any photo into a step-by-step drawing tutorial — and it ends in a coloring page of the thing they love.

your photo

their drawing

How it works

  1. Snap

    Pick any photo of a thing your kid loves — the dog, a dinosaur toy, grandma's cat.

  2. Watch & draw along

    The app turns the photo into real pencil strokes and shows them slowly, a few at a time, so your kid can draw each step on paper.

  3. Color it in

    The tutorial ends in a printable coloring page of that exact picture — the same lines they just drew.

Why this exists

I built this for my kiddos, who love draw-along videos and ask to draw whatever they're currently obsessed with — which is rarely the thing there's a video for.

Step by Sketch is the tool I wanted at our kitchen table: take a photo of the actual thing, get a slow, friendly, step-by-step lesson made from that photo's real lines, and end up with a coloring page of it. No characters they don't care about, no library to scroll. Just the thing they love, drawn by them.

It's a personal project, made carefully, and we use it ourselves most weeks.

Built for kids, honestly

  • No ads, ever

    There is nothing to sell and nobody to sell to. The app shows your kid their drawing and nothing else.

  • No streaks or tricks

    No daily rewards, no timers, no “one more!” loops. A finished drawing is a natural place to stop.

  • Photos are never stored

    Your photo is processed through Google's Gemini API to make the coloring page and the drawing steps, then the result comes straight back. Our server never stores it. Drawings and tutorials live on your device, and in your private family account if you create one — nowhere else.

  • Made to be read aloud

    Every instruction is short, simple, and spoken out loud, so pre-readers can follow along without help.

  • Calm by design

    Quiet sounds, slow pencil strokes, one obvious next button. The drawing is the most colorful thing on the screen — on purpose.