I am a natural born beta tester for anything free or open source. Why? Because I am cheap and I am nosey. So i will be reviewing a lot of open Source programs here.
Trying out a bunch of stuff, I had a very pleasant surprise when I found this particular program.
So much that it quickly became my new addiction!
It is available for the most popular platforms, it is really light and you can download it fast even over dial up and install just as easily.
Basically it is a virtual painting studio, like the very expensive and not so light and user friendly Painter, and delivers high quality simulations and renderings of conventional art media such as oil, pastels, markers, crayons and different settings and textures for canvases. Along with the ability of layering tracing images.
And that is just for the basic free version. If you are willing to spend the 25 dollars, you get even more medium options and full layering/stacking capabilities.
The application is simply deliciously fun to work with. I mainly use it with optic mouse, but a friend of mine, to whom I recommended the program, uses with is Wacom tablet and says it gives you even more control than offered by earlier versions of Painter.
The cool thing about this program is exactly its simplicity. Evem my 4 yo loves to use it. And if you wanna see the kind of work it delivers, check my portfolio. I have a lot done with ArtRage there. And yes... it is the basic version... I never spent the 25 bucks. (I told you I was cheap!)
Now to the more important... the URL to download the toy!

http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html