Drawing and Painting with the Crayola Art Studio software (Core Learning)

CoreLearning is an educational publisher of software and books which is located both in the States and in Canada. And they have sent me a copy of the new Crayola Art Studio to review.

Crayola Art Studio is now available in Canada! When I first was selected, CoreLearning had to wait for authorization to produce the software for Canada and it took a little bit longer for me to receive the product. But now it is available for anyone who loves drawing and painting with digital tools!
Crayola Art Studio is packed with interesting activities for children to use. They will be able to pick between pencils, markers, crayons, paints and pastels to create anything they want. From decorations to greeting cards, this software has it all. The kids can use a multitude of tools and starters to bring their imagination to life.
The appropriate age to use this software is 4 and up. Even an adult can have fun with it! I tried it a bit and found it easy to use. My oldest son created some interesting art with it as well. While experimenting with the software, I discovered, with joy, that you could easily blend the colors as you draw. While using the pastels I realized that it was easy to mix the colors just as if you were using real pastels.
Mind you, as real as they can make it, it doesn’t give you the satisfaction of having colors on your fingers and feeling the paper while you are working with real pastels. I’m a Give-Me-The-Real-Stuff kind of girl and I love holding the pastels/crayons/pencils while I draw. I’m just like that. Using a software remove the touching part of the whole process. I am also at lost when I am in front of a screen to create some art. However, give me some paper and colors and I will create. Not sure why I am like that but I know that not everyone is like that. I discovered in the user manual (which comes in a pdf format) that even though the software could be use with a mouse, it is better to use mouse pen accessories or a tablet PC to obtain a better control over free-hand digital drawing and painting. Now I am seriously considering looking into getting a mouse pen accessory to try the program with more freedom in drawing and painting!
Crayola Art Studio is a cool software that children can use while exploring art. I have never seen something this fun to use and so realistic at the same time. You can easily see that they have taken a lot of time to think about what they wanted to have as a product before producing it. The colors are vibrant and even the stamps are very interesting! Once interesting tool that I likes was the symmetry tool. With this tool you could draw and create immediately in the symmetric part of it at the same time. I had fun experimenting with this and creating the following. Okay I admit it doesn’t represent anything specific but some famous painter drew some weird things and their paintings are sold for expensive prices…
Crayola Art Studio is affordable. For less than 25$ you can have a fun drawing software for your kids to use. If you have a child who loves to draw and to experiment with new things, I highly recommend it!

You want to try it? No problem, simply go to the CoreLearning website and download the demo. They also have a little video to explain how to use the software and some screenshots.