How to Use Krita: The Beginner's Guide (First Canvas, Brushes, Layers, and a Finished Illustration)
CodexFuse Team · 2026-10-29T13:21:17.280Z · 12 min read
Learn how to use Krita free: install it, set up your first canvas, master brushes and layers, draw with a tablet, and export a finished illustration.
How to use Krita is the first question almost every new digital artist asks, and the answer is simpler than the interface makes it look: install it, open a new document, pick a pencil brush, and start drawing. Krita is a free, open-source digital painting program that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and its latest releases — Krita 5.3.4 and 6.0.4, published September 15, 2026 — keep getting better for beginners. This guide walks you through the full first session: install, canvas setup, brushes, layers, drawing with a tablet, and exporting a finished illustration. If you are coming from photo editing instead of drawing, our GIMP beginner guide covers the free editor built for photos.
What Is the Fastest Way to Start Drawing in Krita?
The fastest path from download to first drawing takes under ten minutes:
- Download Krita from krita.org and run the installer — the current releases are 5.3.4 and 6.0.4 (published September 15, 2026).
- On the welcome screen, click New File, choose the A4 (300ppi) predefined document, confirm RGB color at 8-bit per channel, and click Create.
- The brush tool is selected by default. Open the Brush Presets docker (press F6), pick a pencil-style preset, and draw on the canvas.
- Press E to toggle the same brush into an eraser; press E again to switch back to painting.
- Save with Ctrl+S as a .kra file — Krita's native format, which keeps every layer.
Everything else in this guide — canvas choices, brush control, layers, and export — builds on those five steps.
How Do I Install Krita on Windows, Mac, or Linux?
Download Krita only from krita.org. The project publishes Windows, macOS, and Linux builds there, and because Krita is free and open source (licensed as GNU GPL, per the official site), there is no paid tier, no trial clock, and no "pro" unlock to worry about.
Run the installer for your system and accept the defaults. On Windows you may also see portable .zip builds on the download page — handy if you want to try Krita without installing anything. The October 2026 monthly report on krita.org notes active development on Krita 6 with Qt 6.11, so if you are choosing between the two current releases, 5.3.x is the stable mainstream line while 6.0.x is the newer-generation line; both are free.
There is one install-time habit worth forming: check the version number on the download page each time you reinstall. Brush preset names, docker names, and default canvas sizes move between versions — the steps below were verified against the 5.3 line of the official manual in October 2026.
How Should I Set Up My First Canvas?
Choose A4 at 300ppi for your first illustration. In the New Document dialog (File > New, or Ctrl+N), the Predefined dropdown offers A4 (300ppi), which the official Krita manual recommends for new documents, with the color section set to RGB and 8-bit integer per channel.
Why 300ppi? Dots per inch decide how big your drawing can be printed later. A 72ppi canvas looks fine on screen but prints blurry; 300ppi is the print standard, and starting at 300 costs you nothing in Krita because you can always export a smaller copy for the web. The original pixel math is worth keeping on a sticky note:
| Document | Size in inches | Pixels at 150ppi (screen) | Pixels at 300ppi (print) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A4 | 8.27 × 11.69 | 1,240 × 1,754 | 2,480 × 3,508 |
| US Letter | 8.50 × 11.00 | 1,275 × 1,650 | 2,550 × 3,300 |
| Square post | 10.00 × 10.00 | 1,500 × 1,500 | 3,000 × 3,000 |
| Phone wallpaper | 4.00 × 8.00 | 600 × 1,200 | 1,200 × 2,400 |
If you are drawing only for screens, 150ppi halves the pixel count and keeps Krita fast on older laptops. You can change resolution later, but raising it upscales rather than adding detail — so start high when print is a possibility.
What Are Dockers, Workspaces, and the Brush Presets Panel?
Dockers are Krita's floating panels — each docker is a little window with one job, and you arrange them around the canvas. The three a beginner needs are the Brush Presets docker (your brush library), the Advanced Color Selector docker (your color picker), and the Layers docker (your layer stack). The official manual places Brush Presets on the right side by default and opens it with F6.
A workspace is a saved arrangement of dockers. You can move and resize panels freely, then lock the layout in under Settings > Workspace > Configure Workspace (numberanalytics.com's beginner guide documents the same dialog). Beginners should start with the default workspace and rearrange nothing for the first week — every tutorial on the internet assumes the default layout.
Two more things worth knowing early: pressing F5 opens the Brush Editor, where you can tweak any preset (size, opacity, texture, and which pen-pressure behavior it responds to), and clicking the triangle in the Advanced Color Selector docker switches between its color-picking modes. You do not need the Brush Editor yet — but knowing it exists saves a hunt later.
Which Krita Brushes Should Beginners Start With?
Start with three brush categories and ignore the other hundred: a pencil preset for sketching, an ink preset for line art, and a chalk or textured preset for shading. Open the Brush Presets docker (F6), click a preset square, and paint a few strokes to feel each one.
How presets work in Krita is worth understanding once: a preset is a saved bundle of settings (tip shape, spacing, pressure response, texture), not just a round brush. The Brush Editor (F5) shows you exactly which inputs — size, opacity, flow — respond to pen pressure for the selected preset. If a brush feels dead with your tablet, open the Brush Editor and confirm that Size or Opacity is mapped to Pressure; the Cursa beginner course gives the same fix as its first troubleshooting step.
Adjust size on the fly with the [ and ] keys and opacity with the slider in the top toolbar. This is faster than reopening the presets panel every few strokes, and it is the habit that separates smooth sketching from constant panel-hopping.
How Do Layers Work in Krita?
Layers are the whole discipline of digital painting: every element of your drawing sits on its own transparent sheet, so you can redraw the line art without touching the colors. Create a layer with Layer > New > Layer (or Ctrl+Shift+N), give it a name like "sketch," and draw on it. Krita offers paint layers for pixels and vector layers for editable shapes; beginners can live on paint layers for months.
Here is the layer stack that produces a clean first illustration — build it top-down, one layer per job, in this order:
| Order (top to bottom) | Layer name | What goes on it | Blend mode |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | highlights | Small light dabs on the brightest spots | Screen |
| 2 | shading | One soft shadow tone per light source | Multiply |
| 3 | lineart | Final clean outlines over the sketch | Normal |
| 4 | color | Flat fills blocked in under the lines | Normal |
| 5 | sketch | Rough construction drawing, dropped to 50% opacity | Normal |
| 6 | background | Paper tone or simple gradient | Normal |
The two blend modes in the table are the beginner's best friends: Multiply darkens whatever is beneath (shading), and Screen lightens it (highlights). numberanalytics.com's beginner guide documents the same four modes — Normal, Multiply, Screen, and Overlay — with those exact descriptions.
The expensive beginner mistake is merging early. Keep every layer separate until the illustration is finished; a merged file cannot have its line art recolored or its shading moved. If you picked up layer habits from photo editing, our Photoshop beginner guide covers the same non-destructive logic from the other side.
How Do I Draw With a Tablet in Krita?
Plug in the tablet, install the tablet's own driver if its brand requires one, and verify pressure is working before you start drawing. Pick a pencil preset, then press lightly and heavily on the canvas: light pressure should draw thinner and fainter strokes, heavy pressure thicker and darker.
If pressure does nothing, check three places in order (this sequence comes from the Cursa beginner course's troubleshooting section): first, Settings > Configure Krita > Tablet Settings and confirm Krita sees the tablet; second, the Brush Editor (F5) for the current preset — confirm Size or Opacity is mapped to Pressure; third, the tablet brand's own driver panel outside Krita, where switching the input API can fix stubborn setups.
No tablet? A mouse works fine for learning the interface, picking canvas sizes, and practicing layers — many beginners do their first month with a mouse and upgrade later. The canvas-navigation shortcuts below are worth memorizing either way:
| Action | Windows / Linux | macOS |
|---|---|---|
| New document | Ctrl+N | Cmd+N |
| Undo / redo | Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y | Cmd+Z / Cmd+Shift+Z |
| Pan canvas | Hold Space and drag | |
| Zoom canvas | Ctrl+Space and drag (or mouse wheel) | |
| Rotate view | Shift+Space and drag | |
| Eraser toggle | E (press again to paint) | |
| Brush presets | F6 | |
| Brush editor | F5 | |
How Do I Finish and Export My First Illustration?
Save the working file as .kra first, then export a shareable copy. Krita's native .kra format saves everything — layers, masks, guides — so File > Save into .kra is your master file, per the official manual.
For the shareable version, use File > Export and pick the format by destination: PNG for full-quality images with transparency, JPEG for photos and social posts where file size matters, and the built-in web-export workflow (the official docs have a dedicated "Saving For The Web" tutorial) when you need a small file for a portfolio site. numberanalytics.com documents the same two-step rhythm: save to KRA, export to JPEG/PNG/GIF.
Two export gotchas to know now. First, always export from the .kra — never overwrite your layered file with a flattened export. Second, if your colors look washed out after export, the usual cause is a color-profile mismatch between Krita and the viewer; exporting sRGB is the safe default for web work. And if you photograph your reference art on an iPhone, our guide to converting HEIC photos to JPG gets those reference images into Krita cleanly.
Krita vs GIMP vs Photoshop: Which Should a Beginner Learn?
Learn Krita if you want to draw; learn GIMP if you want to edit photos. Krita's brush engine, stabilizers, and drawing assistants are built for painting and illustration, while GIMP is built for photo retouching and image manipulation — different jobs, different strengths, and both are free.
Against Photoshop, the comparison is simpler: Krita costs nothing, forever, with no subscription and no paid tier — krita.org states the GPL license explicitly. Photoshop has the deeper professional ecosystem (and we cover it in our Photoshop beginner guide), but a beginner paying monthly before knowing whether digital art is their thing is spending money to answer a question Krita answers free. If your art leans toward logos and vector shapes rather than painting, Krita's vector layers go partway there, but a dedicated vector tool is the right next step — our Inkscape beginner guide covers the free one.
One more practical branch: if you plan to record your drawing process for tutorials or social posts, pair Krita with a screen recorder — our OBS Studio beginner guide shows how to record your screen with settings that don't ruin the take.
Sources
- krita.org — official homepage (fetched October 29, 2026): Krita 5.3.4 and 6.0.4 released September 15, 2026; free and open source, licensed GNU GPL, forever.
- docs.krita.org — "Starting Krita" (Krita Manual 5.3.0, fetched October 29, 2026): new document flow (File > New / Ctrl+N, A4 300ppi predefined, RGB, 8-bit integer per channel); Brush Presets docker (F6); Brush Editor (F5); eraser toggle (E); Advanced Color Selector docker; .kra as the default format.
- numberanalytics.com — "Krita for Beginners: A Step-by-Step Guide" (updated October 29, 2026; fetched October 29, 2026): interface sections, workspace customization (Settings > Workspace > Configure Workspace), navigation shortcuts (Ctrl+Z/Y, Space+drag pan, Ctrl+Space+drag zoom, Shift+Space+drag rotate), brush and eraser workflow, layers (Layer > New > Layer, paint vs vector, Normal/Multiply/Screen/Overlay modes), first-artwork steps, save (.kra/.psd/.png) and export (JPEG/PNG/GIF), commercial-use and format FAQs.
- cursa.app — "Krita for Beginners: Installing, Setting Up, and Navigating the Workspace" (fetched October 29, 2026): tablet pressure verification steps, Settings > Configure Krita > Tablet Settings, Brush Editor pressure mapping, workspace customization.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Krita really free, or is there a catch?
No catch. Krita is free and open-source software licensed under the GNU GPL — no paid tier, no trial, no subscription. The project's own site states this directly, and the FAQ on numberanalytics.com's beginner guide confirms Krita is free even for commercial client work.
Can I use Krita with just a mouse?
Yes. A mouse is fine for learning the interface, canvas setup, layers, and color work; you lose pressure-sensitive line variation, which only matters once you start inking and shading seriously. Start with the mouse, upgrade to a tablet when your drawings ask for it.
Is Krita good for beginners, or should I start with Photoshop?
Krita is arguably the better starting point: it is free forever, its brush engine was designed for painting, and the 5.3/6.0 releases keep the interface approachable. Photoshop's ecosystem is deeper, but a beginner subscription buys nothing the first month that Krita doesn't give you free.
Why isn't my drawing tablet's pressure working in Krita?
Check three things in order: Settings > Configure Krita > Tablet Settings (Krita must see the tablet), the Brush Editor (F5) for your preset (Size or Opacity must be mapped to Pressure), and your tablet brand's own driver panel (switching the input API there fixes many stubborn cases). This is the standard troubleshooting sequence from the Cursa beginner course.
How do I save my Krita drawing as a PNG?
Keep the master as a .kra file (File > Save), then go to File > Export, choose PNG, and confirm. Never overwrite the .kra with a flattened export — the .kra holds your layers, and the PNG is just the shareable copy.