|
Educational: N/A
Overall Design: 5.0
Ease of Use: 5.0
(4.0 = good, 4.5 = very
good, 5.0 = excellent, N/A = not applicable)
|
|
Crayola Make A Masterpiece
|
|
|
Publisher: IBM
Learning Areas: develops creativity and computer based graphic and visual arts skills. Introduces famous art styles and shows basic painting and drawing technique.
Age Range: 5 and up Grades: N/A
Minimum Reqs: Win 95/98 Pentium or Power Mac OS 7.5 or higher. (see below for detail)
|
Program Description Commentary Who Is This Program For
Why We Selected This Program Computer Requirements
|
Crayola Make a Masterpiece is a "state of the art" drawing, painting and graphic arts program that provides excellent on screen guidance and tips, as well as quality descriptions of basic drawing, painting and pastel colouring technique that you can immediately apply to your on screen creations.
Your guide is a quirky and fun artistic type named Scribble who gives you an introduction to the program and takes you to The Art Studio. The art tools are arranged around the board in cans and when you click on any one of the tools, they will tell you what they do. You have all the traditional tools including pen, pencil, crayons, chalk, oil paint, water-colour, markers and more. You also have an array of tools that allow you refine an image by, for example smudging or airbrushing. You then can get into stencils and animated stickers that you then can paint around. Take an animated grinning mouth and some rolling eyes and make a face to suit what the animated parts are doing.
You also have some very ingenious tools that can transform your picture into various artistic styles such as charcoal sketch, pointillism or neon to name a few. Alternatively, you can look in the journal and learn about and apply the techniques themselves
Many of the tools are surprising sensitive. With a crayon, you are able to shade lightly or darkly, just as you would with a real crayon. And for the "class clowns" there is a very large collection of "Wacky Tools" to create all kinds of off the wall visual and graphic effects (shaving cream, popping popcorn, and flickering neon paint to name a few).
You have available over 200 backgrounds that you draw and paint on. You also can import digital photographs into the program and, if you wish then integrate them into your artistic creations. For the teacher, the program has a very good ideas and applications write up on how you can use the program in a classroom situation..
Back to the Top
|
|
"Our son has been glued to this program for the past three weeks" father of one of our testers - Ryan age 7
" I have made a whole bunch of pictures, chose the frames that I liked, hung them in the art gallery and could show them to my friends after school. It is a really neat program" - Suzanne, age 10
" I liked goofing around and making all kinds of silly stuff with the moving cartoon parts. I could make a real mess and not get in trouble for it" - Peter , age 9
This is an excellent all around art program that can work well for a very young age (4 to 5) and yet has the sophistication to satisfy the more advanced artist. The program has lots of fun stuff for those who are more inclined to "light" artistic efforts, as well as a wealth of quality tools for those who really like to draw and paint.
We also liked the basic instruction on drawing and painting technique for the children who may have an inclination to want to learn more about drawing and art technique as they get involved in the art creating activities. What is convenient is that you do a little reading on a technique and then try it out using the program.
Back to the Top
Given that an art program is for those who enjoy the visual world, the graphics of the desktop itself are visually engaging. The program is very easy to operate and navigate. It also conveys a real sense of fun both by the character of the guide Scribble and the really humorous visual effects that can be created by the Wacky Tools and the animated stickers.
The quality of Crayola Make A Masterpiece is found in the little touches. Many of the art tools have the ability to create very fine visual nuances such that it is possible to create a very credible impressionist painting using this program. We also appreciated the way that when you are in the middle of selecting a tool, Scribble would pop up with a suggestion that would give you an idea that you might not have otherwise discovered. Very clever.
If you are looking at all the art programs were have suggested in this area, remember they are all good programs. What is different about Crayola Make a Masterpiece is that the on screen graphic elements are exceptional and it uniquely provides the opportunity to learn about painting and drawing technique as well as some of the art history of several artistic styles. This allows for the possibility of applying some of these ideas to your own work.
P.S. If you have a child who really likes to draw on a computer program, get a stylus which is a "computer pencil" you attach instead of the mouse. It works so much better. It can make a real difference in the quality of the visual images you are constructing.
Windows 95/98:Pentium® 16MB RAM or higher, Monitor (640X480, High-color),10MB hard disk space, Windows-compatible sound card, Microsoft®-compatible mouse, 4X CD-ROM drive or better and printer
Power Macintosh® Operating System 7.5 or later, 16MB RAM or higher, Monitor (640X480, thousands of colours), 10MB hard disk space, 4X CD-ROM drive or better, and printer
Back to the Top
or to see other art programmes
Kid Pix Studio Deluxe - ages 4-12
Disney Magic Artist Studio - ages 4-12
Orly Draw-A-Story - ages 5-10
Flying Colors 2 - ages 8 and up
|
|
|
|
