Thanks to the folks over at PBS, I got a chance to spend some time with their recently updated virtual colouring book, themed after everyone’s favourite monkey, Curious George. Keep on reading for our thoughts, and our beautiful monkey drawings.
Upon launch, you’ll find a colourful menu complete with some jazzy music. You can start a new painting, or look at your previous work. An options button lets you look through tutorials and change settings. I’ll start off a brand new painting.
You can choose from exactly 12 pages of black and white templates, featuring “The Man in the Yellow Hat” and Curious George himself. It’s a great selection of images that any kid or Curious George fan will love, ranging from the monkey under the hat to hanging from a vine, to eating large amounts of spaghetti. Classic.
I went with George balancing a septuple-scoop ice cream cone. Before you start painting, you’ll get a quick tutorial on how to paint. Touch the paintbrush to choose your colour, then touch the area you want to paint. Pretty straightforward – let’s move on.
At the bottom of the screen, you can choose from an enormous collection of colours, use an eraser, save your progress for later use and even add small stamps such as bananas or hats to your page. When colouring in the picture you’ll find great response and accuracy, thanks to a feature that lets you pan in and out, as fellow iPhone users will be used to. The tools, and the way they are presented make it both easy and fun to colour.
And there you have it! I highly recommend the colouring book for parents with kids, eager to get their hands on your phone. There are thousands of apps that target young children, and this seems like one of the most compelling. This is also great for people who grew up with Curious George. You’ll immediately remember all of the shenanigan that primate got up to. Lastly, I couldn’t help but think how well this app (and any other drawing app) will translate over to the iPad. Either way, this is one of the better drawing apps available that cater to the younger crowd. I hope this helps you out!
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