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 made of the very lines they just drew.
your photo
their drawing
How it works
Snap
Pick any photo of a thing your kid loves — the dog, a dinosaur toy, grandma's cat.
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.
Color it in
The tutorial ends in a printable coloring page built from the very lines they just drew — the drawing and the coloring page always match.
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
One optional family subscription, bought by parents on the web — we never sell ads or data, and kids never see a price.
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 exactly once, to make the coloring page — the drawing steps are then built from that page's own lines. 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.