Loading brushes

What if you’re working on a job and have to use custom brushes they’ve made? Or, a friend wants you to check out a cool new brush they’ve made? You can import them, using the Brush Library. However, you will see two cases below where it might not be quite that straightforward.

IMPORTANT: You cannot import brushes to your iOS or Android devices.

The brushes I want to import were created in a different version of Sketchbook than what I have

If you’re running the latest version of Sketchbook – you’re golden. If you’re not, you’ll need to be running the same version the brushes were made in or higher.

Someone sent me brushes not made in Sketchbook

We only support the .skbrushes brush format, so you won’t be able to import and use these brushes within Sketchbook.


Importing brushes in Sketchbook Pro for desktop

There are two ways to import a brush on desktop. The most straightforward is to drag and drop the brush into the canvas or double-click the brush file. If it isn’t handy, try this:

Loading brushes using Import Brush Set

  1. Download our Free brushes (or wherever there's a brush set) and save it to your computer.
  2. In the Brush Library, tap a brush set.

Brush Palette and icon to open Brush Library Brush Library

  1. Tap-hold Marking menu icon and select Import Brush Set Import Brush Set.
  2. Navigate to your Downloads folder. (This is the default location for where the downloaded brush set should be.)
  3. Double-tap the brush set. Even though it's a zipped file, this shouldn't be an issue. The set is immediately loaded into your Brush Library.

The set is immediately loaded into your Sketchbook Brush Library


An alternate method to import a brush

  1. In the Brush Palette, tap to open the Brush LibraryBrush Library icon to open the Brush Library.
  2. Tap within a brush set to access Radial marking menu icon.
  3. Tap Radial marking menu icon and select New Brush to create a brush.

Palette with icon

  1. In Create Do-It-Yourself Brush, tap Import.

Create DIY dialogue

  1. Select a brush and tap Open. The brush will be loaded into the Brush Library.



Pinning a brush set to the Brush Palette

Now that you’ve created and probably imported brush sets into the Brush Library, you may have found a set you love to use. If so, why not pin it to the Brush Palette? This will replace the current brushes in the palette with those in the chosen set.

  1. In the Brush Library, tap the brush set you want to pin to the Brush Palette.

Brush Palette and icon to open Brush Library Brush Library

  1. Tap-hold Marking menu icon and select Pin Set To PalettePin Set To Palette. You will see your palette is now loaded with the new brush set.