It’s official: I may never get my iPad back from my children. Now that
there is a new Crayola app that combines all the fun of drawing and
coloring with all the brightness and beauty of the tablet screen, my
iPad has subtly drifted from the land of “Mom’s little online helper” to
“Kids’ glorious art landscape”. Heavy sigh.
From the awesome minds at Griffin and Crayola who brought us the innovative coloring app Crayola Colorstudio HD, now there’s Crayola DigiTools,
creative tools that enable kids to use the tablet as a canvas in even newer, more hands-on ways.
Each
DigiTools pack includes styluses and stampers to create dazzling digital
effects, a clip-on carrying case, and an app download that provides
pages of virtual background scenes and animated stamp designs. There’s a
3D tool (it even comes with glasses, above) for jump-off-the-screen art, an Effects
tool for glittery and color-changing art effects, and an Airbrush pack (below)
for wildly colorful digital spray art complete with the sound of a
spray can–hilarious.
The
tools can be purchased separately at $19.99 each, or all three for
$39.99 which is a great deal if you’ve got an art addict at home. You’ll
also have to download the DigiTools apps for each program, which are fortunately free.
Then once the masterpieces are created, they can be saved,
shared, or printed with an AirPrint-enabled printer.
At
times I can be sentimental about the messy, waxy crayoned pictures of
my youth, and I’d still never trade our actual crayons for digital ones.
But when you see the gorgeous colors and palate of possibilities in
this nifty little
program, you realize it’s just one more way for our kids to bring out
their inner artists. Especially those who might have outgrown the humble crayon-paper combo.
This is technology for children at its best.-Shari
Purchase the Crayola DigiTools set at The Griffin Technology Store. And download the DigiTools apps for iOS for free. They’re compatible with the iPad, iPad 2, and iPad 3.
