Drawing Pad (iPad)

$1.99, iPad, Kindle

Teaches: drawing, art, creativity.

CTR Rating: 96%

CTR Review

Update June 2014: Version 2.5 has been updated with new coloring books that include more dinosaurs, holidays and fairy tales. Turn your iPad into a smart easel with this powerful, easy-to-use drawing experience. Because the tools appear in a drawer on the side of the screen, you can pull them out or put them away, as needed; and they flip by simply rotating the iPad. To draw with paint, pencils or markers, drag your finger over the glass, and a single line follows. Like the better known Brushes app, this is not a multi-touch drawing experience. Alas, no finger painting. Content includes just two brush sizes (a bit limited), 60 colored pencils that look realistic on the textured paper, 70 crayon colors and four types of sprinkles. The sticker library includes 140 cars, animals, trains and toys; all of interest to children, fully moveable, and resizable with a pinch or a pull. Other features include one-touch saving to your photo library and the ability to email or tweet your picture in twitpic format, as long as you have existing accounts in place. Limitations to note include no instant undo, layers, or the ability to add text to the screen. Also, there are no drawing sounds or preferences, say to offer a simplifed experience to younger children. You also can't import or edit existing photos. All in all, Drawing Pad succeeds in transforming your iPad into a feature rich creativity tool, that a child as young as three can use.