Did you forget to pack your sanity when road tripping with the kids? Well now there’s an App for that.
Take one iPad, add one Crayola Color Studio HD App and your new best friend, the iMarker digital stylus.
Good old Crayola has come up with an electronic coloring book complete with sounds and animations. You have several pages to color in, and best of all, you can erase and redraw endlessly. If you are really pleased with your creation and want Grandma to see it immediately you can email your picture right from the drawing board. Fridge quality drawings can be printed out. Are you catching my drift parents? One full hour of quiet play time in the back of your car, plane seat, or dentists office, oh the mind reels.
With no messy inks, clothing stays party dress perfect when you arrive at your destination.

I downloaded my free App and was ready to draw in less than five minutes. The directions were pretty intuitive and I’m embarrassed to admit I got sucked in for a good three hours. This baby could take me all the way from San Francisco to Chicago on the plane without looking up for coffee service.
According to the package, this Crayola product is meant for children over the age of three. Even though I qualify I determined the true test required an actual child product tester. The most beautiful and talented 4.11 year old Molly once again humored auntie Lynn with yet another of her crazy projects.

Molly selected her first page to color, a friendly looking monster attempting to hide under a lamp shade.
Once auntie Lynn figured out that the stylus works better if it’s turned ON, Molly was good to go. I let her in on a couple of secrets, the location of the color wheel, how to make the brush bigger and using the erase tool to make polka dots. That’s it. Because Molly is under age 12, she had zero trouble figuring out that if you press on an icon something will happen. As she made her way around the page, eyes would appear under the bed and a rug, the lampshade fell off the monster’s head, and a train chugs around the room. Molly was completely absorbed in coloring her first page. After a half hour she said her hand hurt from pressing so hard on the stylus but she didn’t want to stop. She also said that the monsters were kinda scarey, but again, she had no desire to stop playing. I noticed that Crayola devised the coloring program to make staying within the lines pretty easy. Any excess could be easily erased. Molly decided she was happy with her first creation at 45 minutes of quiet uninterrupted play. We picked out a second page for her to color and away she went for another 15 minutes.

A special note to parents. That amusing repetitive train whistle and chirping owl may engross your child for endless hours, but the average adult can last for 10 minutes without feeling like you’re trapped on an endless Disneyland ride. Remember, the settings icon is your best friend. That’s where the mute button is located. Enjoy!

No ink, no mess, and you’ve saved a tree!
More info available from Griffin.


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