Vara is a drawing and digital painting application with pressure-sensitive brushes.
Vara aims to support non-artificial works, while still supporting a digital workflow. This is why many features like the shape tools, copy-paste, cloning and filters are avoided. If you need such features, there are applications like GIMP.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- User interface – brush presets, quick palette, and keyboard shortcuts.
- Undo/redo support, clear layer.
- Tools – pencil, brush, erase, eyedropper (colour picker), and a basic bucket fill.
- Dynamics – pressure-for-size, and stroke smoothing.
- Foreground and background layers.
- Layer visibility – 100%, 50% and 0% for foreground, on/off for background.
- Viewport – zoom with buttons, zoom by scrolling, navigation with scrollbars, quick buttons for 100% zoom and centering.
- Export image or layer to PNG.
- Scratchpad mode – turns the current document into a sandbox, letting you experiment with brushes and colours directly on the main canvas without making permanent changes. When the mode is exit, all changes are automatically undone.
- Cross-platform support – runs under Linux and Windows.
Website: nandakumar.co.in/software/vara
Support:
Developer: Nandakumar Edamana
License: GNU General Public License v3.0

Vara is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Painting Tools | |
|---|---|
| Krita | Edit and paint images; part of the KOffice office suite |
| MyPaint | Paint program with dynamic brushes for graphic tablets |
| GIMP | GNU Image Manipulation Program |
| Drawpile | Draw, paint, sketch and animate |
| AzPainter | Full color painting software |
| Tux Paint | Drawing and painting software designed for children |
| Milton | Infinite-canvas paint program |
| Vara | Minimalist digital painting tool |
| CorePaint | Paint app for C Suite |
| InfiniPaint | Collaborative, infinite space, infinite zoom, canvas note-taking/drawing app |
| BlockPaint | Terminal-based painting tool |
| Alchemy | Non-orthodox painting tool experimenting with alternative ways of drawing |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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