ArtRage is an intuitive digital art app that mimics traditional mediums of artistic expression, such as watercolor or oil painting. Users of the Galaxy Note5 can download the app, free of charge, in Galaxy Apps.

To make your own Christmas greeting, follow these simple steps.

Start With the Drawing

To create your Christmas tree drawing, start by choosing a canvas and drawing the outline of your tree. Seasonal pines are usually topped with a star, and underneath presents can be found. Fill in your tree with ornaments and any special trimmings. You can easily replicate oil paint brush strokes using the S Pen and the Oil Brush feature. When using the S Pen to draw, the pen can recognize the amount of pressure that is being applied, creating lines of different thickness.

Use Color to Fill in the Artwork

One way to filli in the tree with color is by using the Watercolor Brush. ArtRage offers a range of preset paint techniques that mimic both oil paints and watercolors. For example, Wet on Wet lets you paint with watercolors on a wet surface, while Dry on Wet layers watercolors on a dried surface.

After filling in the ornaments, it is time to color the background. To do so, ArtRage offers the Paint Tube and Palette Knife functions. When using oils, artists use a palette knife to spread the paint onto the canvas. ArtRage offers this technique as a preset.

You can also use Frost mode to blend colors. In the example above, the red color in the background feels a little dark for a cheery holiday drawing. To adjust it, select the blue Paint Tube and spread it around the background with the Palette Knife. You can reduce the transparency of a layer, or change the Blend mode in the attribute menu to use special effects. You can also hide a layer in the layer menu by selecting the eye-shaped icon.

Bright Effects Create a Festive Look

To brighten the background, squeeze a light, bright color from the Paint Tube. White can then be sprayed in small areas to make your background even brighter. Then, use the Palette Knife to push the color outward towards the edges to give the star a shining effect. You can also add twinkling effects to the ornaments using Airbrush.

No Christmas tree is complete without lights, and using Glitter Tube can re-create the look of sparkling lights. You can choose the settings to pick the shape of the grain and colors.

Be Sure to Share

After finishing your drawing, be sure to upload it to PEN.UP. PEN.UP is great for sharing your artworks with others. Check out a wide range of holiday greetings by other artists around the world, expressed in their own styles using PEN.UP on the Galaxy Note5. You can easily join PEN.UP by downloading the app from Google Play.

There’s an undeniable sense of festivity in the air that can only mean one thing: the holiday season is officially upon us. From pumpkin spice lattes to holiday songs taking over the airwaves to the fact that just about everyone is full of good cheer, there’s plenty to love about this time of year. The Galaxy S6 edge+ and Note5 are two smartphones that are packed with features and offer apps that will help you enjoy the holiday season even more. Here are some of them.

1. Great Photos, Even in Low Light

As the year comes to an end, the days are getting shorter, but the cameras of the Galaxy S6 edge+ and Note5 ensure that you get great photos, even in low light. Whether taking pictures at a party or a football game, or just snapping photos of your fall/winter OOTD, lighting is no longer an issue.

2. Video Collage

Rather than sending out that boring, run-of-the-mill Christmas card again this year, spice things up a bit and extend holiday greetings to your loved ones with a creative Video Collage, one of the newly added camera modes of Samsung’s latest Galaxy smartphones. Choose between three options—Collage, Series or Slow Motion—and let your creativity run wild.

3. Live Broadcast

It’s not always easy getting the whole family together in the same place at the same time. But now you can share your special holiday moments with all of your loved ones, no matter where they are, with the Live broadcast feature of the Galaxy S6 edge+ and Note5. The feature is built directly into the native camera app and allows users to broadcast a live video stream directly to YouTube. Users have the option of publishing their broadcast publicly, or directly to their friends and family via a private link.

4. Samsung Pay

With all the great deals available on Black Friday, you’ll most certainly be running from store to store to load up on all of the good stuff before it’s gone. Don’t waste a minute messing around with credit cards and checks. Use Samsung Pay to quickly and easily make all your holiday purchases for friends and family (and yourself, of course). Samsung Pay is accepted virtually anywhere you can swipe or tap a credit card.

5. My KNOX

The holidays are for spending time with your loved ones, but sometimes it can be difficult to completely remove oneself from work. For the moments you have to check an important document or send an urgent email, My KNOX ensures that your sensitive work data stays protected, even on your personal devices.

6. Game Tuner

As temperatures continue to drop, there are even more excuses to stay indoors and spend your days gaming. Samsung’s new Game Tuner app for the Galaxy S6 edge+ and Note5 reduces resolution and frames per second (FPS) to ensure a longer battery life so that you can play for as long as your heart desires.

7. Game Recorder+

While you’re at it, save and share your high score as well as the highlights of your most exciting game sessions using Game Recorder+. Capture your game play and face-cam commentary with a single touch of the record button. With this app, gaming enthusiasts will be happier than a kid on Christmas.

8. Smart Manager

There’s nothing worse than losing battery power just before getting the perfect wide-angle shot of the whole family gathered around the dining room table, or getting lost en route to your colleague’s ugly Christmas sweater party, leaving you unable to call for directions. Which is why the Galaxy S6 edge+ and Note5 come equipped with Smart Manager, an app that helps extend battery life by optimizing apps. Users can also free up storage space and scan for malicious software easily and quickly.

9. Soundcamp

One of the best parts of the holiday season is the holiday parties that come along with it. Make yours a holly, jolly good time with Samsung Soundcamp. The app allows all musicians—both amateurs and professionals—to play, compose and mix their own tracks right from the screen of their Galaxy smartphone without any extra equipment. And with features like Looper and Sampler, added especially for the Galaxy S6 edge+ and Note5, DJing your own party is easier than ever.

10. PEN.UP

Artists can be inspired at any time, but the fiery autumn hues, crisp air and holiday cheer are especially inspiring. Whatever awakens your creativity, express yourself with the ultra-precise S Pen of the Galaxy Note5. Then, use the PEN.UP application to curate, tag and share your digital artwork with the world. You can also follow popular artists, communicate with people by giving “Likes” and adding comments. Your holiday art might even land you in the PEN.UP Hall of Fame.

So far, our PEN.UP series has discussed how artists can use PEN.UP and its related apps to create and share their work and how PEN.UP has been used by people around the world. But the main focus of the PEN.UP app is how easily it lets people share their creations, tagging them and putting together virtual galleries.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note5, with its powerful and versatile S Pen, is an ideal partner for PEN.UP. Together, people can bring any fantastical idea from their imaginations to life, and then show off those fun images with the world.

In these new videos, take a look at how an artist uses a Galaxy Note5 and S Pen to create two artworks: a stylish “tiger flower” and a cute girl under an umbrella.

Once the final artwork is ready, it is simple to share online using PEN.UP. The artist just clicks the share button, and chooses the PEN.UP app. Simple, fun and flexible—the Galaxy Note5 together with PEN.UP lets users create and share their ideas more easily than ever.

Read more:

PEN.UP Helps Artists Share With the World

PEN.UP Artists Share Their Passion

As described in our previous article, the PEN.UP app helps artists everywhere—both professional and aspiring—connect and share their creations with the world. It’s an easy and versatile app that provides a wide range of tools to help curate, tag and share your artworks, and it especially works well with Samsung’s S Pen and large-screen devices like the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy Tab S2.

Now let’s take a look at PEN.UP in action, seeing how real people around the world have used the artistic app to rich their lives and the lives of those around them.

Finding Friends to Turn Around a Bad Day

For the PEN.UP user who goes by the name “CandikaneBlack,” the sharing part of the app helped get her through a tough time. She was having a sad birthday, so drew a cartoon of how she was feeling, then asked people in her PEN.UP network to add themselves to her picture. The results were overwhelming. Dozens of people from all over the world joined in, adding images of themselves encouraging, playing with and sharing joy with CandikaneBlack, turning a sad day into one of happiness and warmth.

Drawing Around the World

PEN.UP has been attending various events by Urban Sketchers, a nonprofit dedicated to encouraging people everywhere to draw the world around them. As a sponsor, PEN.UP has joined in Urban Sketcher events in Paraty, Brazil, and Singapore, showing how aspiring artists can use the S Pen and Samsung devices to capture the landscape with drawings, and then share their art with everyone.

PEN.UP also attends book and events, offering lectures and lessons on how artists, publishers and others can use PEN.UP to open new opportunities professionally. Here, PEN.UP comes to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, in Bologna, Italy, and the Mobile Digital Art Summit in Palo Alto, California.

You’re Never Too Old to Learn New Things

In Korea, 70-year-old Ik-soo Son had never studied art, but after he taught himself how to draw using his smart phone, he became a minor celebrity, inspiring many with his story. These days, Mr. Son enjoys showing others how to make art using tablets and smartphones, just as he has done.

And You’re Never Too Young

The popular Korean artist Min-soo Kim (commonly known as miyune) also likes to show people how to make art using their tablets and other devices. PEN.UP and compatible apps are so intuitive using the S Pen to make art, even children can enjoy these apps quickly and easily. In this video, Kim teaches schoolchildren how to make robots, monsters and other cool creatures using the Sketchbook Pro app. After just a short introduction, soon these kids are making weird and wonderful cartoons, anything their imaginations can think of.

Whether using a Galaxy Note5 or a Tab S2, PEN.UP is a great way for people all over the world to use the S Pen to share their creativity. After all, what’s an artwork without a gallery? Thanks to PEN.UP, everyone now has access to an international gallery, all day, every day. This is just one more example of the customer-centered approach Samsung Electronics always focuses on, empowering users to connect and express themselves in the way that’s just right for them.

Imagination and self-expression are key parts of our lives, challenging us and giving us fulfillment. This is a major reason that artists everywhere—both professional and aspiring—have flocked to large-screen devices that use Samsung’s unique S Pen, like the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy Tab S2: these devices have opened new worlds of possibilities for creativity and communication. The signature S Pen in particular has proven to be a versatile and inventive tool for clearly and precisely expressing ideas.

But people want more than just self-expression; they also need to share their ideas with others. After all, what’s an artwork without a gallery to display it? Fortunately for Galaxy users, there’s an app that not only helps to make art on their mobile devices, it also helps them connect and share—PEN.UP, a social media application for the artist in all of us.

Getting Started

PEN.UP provides a wide range of tools to help curate, tag and share your creations, as well as tools to help you create better. Also, it is a snap to sign up for, and you can even register using your favorite social media account. Check it out for an introduction on how you can get started:

Watch Artists in Action

In addition to being a tool for sharing art, PEN.UP is compatible with several popular art apps for creating new works. The Korean artist known as MongPic here gives a couple of lessons on how to use Infinite Painter, one of those integrated apps. The first shows how to paint someone’s portrait on a tablet in a style that looks like oil painting. It’s amazing to see how, starting from just a few simple strokes, he builds up and refines the image until it becomes a moody and evocative artwork. In the second, MongPic provides tips on how to make a landscape painting.

Another artist who works with the S Pen is Min-soo Kim, who is also known as miyune. Using SketchBook (another PEN.UP-compatible app) on a tablet, Kim takes real-world objects for inspiration, turning them into playful and fanciful creations. Here he is turning a piece of machinery into a cute robot.

Here, the artists Junseong Park and Jaeseong Seo talk about how to make a fun animal cartoon with plenty of textures and details to give the drawing a richness that really draws in the viewer. And when they are finished, they show how to upload the image to PEN.UP for everyone to see. (Why animals from the North Pole and South Pole are cavorting together is left to the viewer’s imagination).

In this tutorial, the artist known as bbbbbun shows how to draw onto a photograph, combining the realistic and the fantastical with the ArtFlow app. The end result is amazingly detailed, but surprisingly easy to learn. Plus she shows how easy it is to add your final artwork to PEN.UP once you’re finished.

Here’s John, a PEN.UP manager, also explaining how to use the ArtFlow app. He also gives a lot of tips about sharing your art and setting up galleries.

As these many examples show, PEN.UP is a great way for people to use the S Pen to share their creativity. Whether for the Galaxy Note5 or the Galaxy Tab S2, there’s a device that is suited for each person’s inner artist. It’s just one more example of the customer-centered approach Samsung always focuses on, empowering users to connect and express themselves in the way that’s just right for them.

There’s a new trend sweeping the world by storm and it’s leaving gorgeous, colorful works of art in its wake. Adult coloring books are flying off the shelves of stores from South America all the way to Asia and landing in the top ranks of a number of best-seller lists. These collections of intricate black and white designs of natural landscapes, Buddhist mandalas and even celebrities have made an activity that was once only deemed appropriate for preschoolers socially acceptable for everyone. But just why are adults buying into this craze?

Feeling Blue? Color More.

For one, coloring allows a person to sit down, quietly reflect and temporarily escape the chaos of reality. Engaging in an activity reminiscent of childhood brings one back to a simpler time and creates feelings of nostalgia, all the while inducing a calm mental state.

Even in this moment of peace and quiet, coloring engages multiple parts of the brain, allowing one to focus on the lines, movements and colors being utilized to use his or her imagination, which is often less inhibited compared to when doing other tasks, such as drawing or writing. It’s in this uninhibited state that one can de-stress, improve one’s mood and allow one’s creativity to run free. Taking a minute to relax is essential to ensuring good mental and emotional health, and coloring is a great way to do so at the end of a long day.

Digital Designs

But the analogue hobby, which is consistently growing in popularity, is also converging with the digital world, where works are colored using an electronic device. Images of before-and-after designs continue to spread like wildfire across social media platforms. Entire YouTube channels are dedicated to coloring tips and tricks. Even “#adultcoloring” has remained a trending hashtag in the online world.

Adult coloring fanatics have also turned to PEN.UP, an app developed by Samsung that functions as a social media channel where more than 1.4 million users share their own digital art in the same way that they might share articles on Facebook or Twitter. With more than 500 thousand images having been uploaded to PEN.UP, the digital platform boasts the largest collection of art created with the Galaxy Note series.

The Power of the Pen

In fact, the Galaxy Note has evolved over the years to become a virtual “brush and canvas” for people who love to create their own art. The large 5.7-inch screen of the Galaxy Note5, the latest version of the line-up, makes it easy to doodle a sketch or design a masterpiece, while the device’s impressive Super AMOLED display produces stunning colors.

Yet, the distinguishing feature which sets it apart from other devices is its S Pen. Sure, it’s a portable mouse that allows for far more accurate input than finger tapping, but, at its heart, it’s a tool of creativity which lets users write, draw and color in the same style and thickness as a pencil, paintbrush or pen. Thanks to its Color Picker feature, creators can also extract the exact color they desire from any image, an obvious advantage to coloring with a regular old box of crayons or colored pencils.

What’s more impressive is that the latest version of the Note utilizes 2,048 pressure sensitivity levels, a number doubled from the previous model, which work to replicate the ease of writing, drawing and coloring on a piece of paper.

A Sketchbook for Your Smartphone

Such innovative features have catalyzed the creation of device-inspired applications such as SketchBook for Galaxy. Utilizing the same paint engine as its desktop counterparts while taking advantage of Samsung’s latest technology through the incorporation of S Pen functionality with pressure sensitivity support, SketchBook for Galaxy delivers a complete set of sketching and painting tools through a streamlined and intuitive user interface.

The app is ideal for digitally producing artwork on-the-go with accuracy and versatility whenever creativity strikes. It’s especially great for coloring enthusiasts. After downloading the app in the Galaxy Apps store, all a user needs to do is open the sketch file by importing the desired image from the gallery, adjust the size and position, then color away using the preferred brush styles and colors.

One of the additional benefits of the SketchBook for Galaxy app is that shades and hues can be adjusted, erased and repainted, as the entire process is completely digital. Works can then be uploaded to social media networks and online communities like PEN.UP to share with friends and fellow digital artists.

It won’t be long before the digital coloring experience feels even more like the real thing, thanks to continuous innovative technological improvements. Until then, how will you add a bit of color to your life?