Python | Creating a Simple Drawing App in kivy (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 12 Jul, 2025

Kivy is a platform-independent GUI tool in Python. As it can be run on Android, IOS, Linux and Windows, etc. It is basically used to develop the Android application, but it does not mean that it can not be used on Desktop applications.

Kivy Tutorial - Learn Kivy with Examples.

Drawing App:

In this we are going to create a simple drawing App with the help of kivy initially we are just making a canvas and a paintbrush so that by moving the cursor you can just feel like a drawing Application.
In this, the widgets are added dynamically. If widgets are to be added dynamically, at run-time, depending on user interaction, they can only be added in the Python file.

We are using widgets, layout, random to make it good.

Now Basic Approach of the App:

import kivy
import kivy App
import Relativelayout
import widget
set minimum version(optional)
Create widget class as needed
Create Layout class
create the App class
create .kv file
return the widget/layout etc class
Run an instance of the class

Implementation of the Code:

# .py file:

Python3 `

Program to explain how to create drawing App in kivy

import kivy module

import kivy

base Class of your App inherits from the App class.

app:always refers to the instance of your application

from kivy.app import App

this restrict the kivy version i.e

below this kivy version you cannot

use the app or software

kivy.require('1.9.0')

Widgets are elements of a

graphical user interface that

form part of the User Experience.

from kivy.uix.widget import Widget

This layout allows you to set relative coordinates for children.

from kivy.uix.relativelayout import RelativeLayout

class Paint_brush(Widget): pass

Create the layout class

where you are defining the working of

Paint_brush() class

class Drawing(RelativeLayout):

# On mouse press how Paint_brush behave
def on_touch_down(self, touch):
    pb = Paint_brush()
    pb.center = touch.pos
    self.add_widget(pb)
    
# On mouse movement how Paint_brush behave
def on_touch_move(self, touch):
    pb = Paint_brush()
    pb.center = touch.pos
    self.add_widget(pb)

Create the App class

class DrawingApp(App): def build(self): return Drawing()

DrawingApp().run()

Code Explanation:

The code starts with importing the kivy module.
The code then defines a base class of your App inheriting from the App class.
This restricts the kivy version i.e below this kivy version you cannot use the app or software.
The next line is where we create Paint_brush() class which is a Widget and it's layout, Drawing().
In order to define how paint brush behaves when touched on screen, we have defined two methods in its layout: on_touch_down() and on_touch_move().
These are called when user touches down or moves their mouse over it respectively.
In order to create an instance of your application, you need to call build() method in your App class which returns a widget object that can be added as child element in RelativeLayout (Drawing).
The code is a simple example of how to create a drawing app in kivy.
First, we import the kivy module.
Next, we define our base class as App and then we have defined the Widget class which inherits from the App class.
We create a layout class where you are defining the working of Paint_brush() class and then finally we create our application which is DrawingApp().

# .ky file: