An interactive drawing tool aimed at young children, ages four and up, to explore colors, textures, and movements found in everyday materials by “picking up” and drawing with them. The tool looks and feels like a conventional hand-held paintbrush but has a small video camera with lights and touch and orientation sensors embedded inside. Outside of the drawing canvas, the brush can pick up color, texture, and movement of a brushed surface, either from objects or surfaces, or from an electronic palette that stores captured images and colors for repeated use and may be implemented by a tablet computer. On the canvas, children can draw with the special “ink” they just picked up from their immediate environment. The canvas comprises a display screen combined with a brush position sensor coupled to a personal computer which also receives image and control data from the brush.