Magic Canvas

A Good Computer Coloring Book

A Review of Magic Canvas

Karina Worlton

IBM’s Magic Canvas is a paint program aimed at ages 3-10, and as such, is a

very simple tool. Overall, it has entertainment value, but isn’t very

useful as an educational tool, or as a drawing program. It has lots of good

features, with minor flaws.

Magic Canvas includes an Art Pack of twenty backgrounds for the young

artist to color. (Additional Art Packs can be ordered.) The backgrounds

are varied, with options such as a treehouse, haunted house, football field

and “freestyle” or blank screen. The graphics are appealing to children,

and can be colored with sixteen bright colors. The backgrounds can be

personalized using 10-15 “stamps” (graphics specific to each scene),

letters, numbers, and symbols.

Tools include “paint cans” (which perform the fill function), and crayons

in three sizes. There are five sizes of erasers, and an option to wipe the

canvas clean. The undo option will reverse the most recent change made to

the canvas. The more advanced tools can be used on stamps to enlarge,

reduce, flip top to bottom or left to right, and/or rotate them to the left

or right.

Magic Canvas includes a few special features that make it better than the

average coloring book program. First, the graphical interface is easy to

use, with each tool represented by an icon. Even my two-year-old knows

where to click! Second, the program includes short random animation

sequences where a character, such as a star or a plane, praises the artist

(“Cool!” or “Neato!”).

Any time the artist leaves a painting, the program automatically saves it,

allowing later access. Saved canvases can be exported to other programs in

several graphic formats. The artist can also retrieve canvases from another

copy of Magic Canvas.

The program is easy to install and use, making the included documentation

unnecessary. A help bubble appears whenever the cursor passes over

something the artist can click on. My favorite feature is the ability to

“lock” the program by use of a password, which keeps your child from exiting

the program and messing up your setup.

I found a few problems with Magic Canvas. First, adding color to the

canvas can be difficult. The paint can (or fill) is hard to use in small

areas. When I tried the crayons, I could not completely fill in an area,

and I certainly could not draw anything with them. Second, the outline

square used when resizing or rotating a stamp occasionally remained after

the stamp had been placed. Third, the Help bubble kept getting in the way

on the stamp screen.

To summarize, this is probably one of the better coloring book programs

I’ve seen. Don’t expect it to be a full-featured paint program, and you’ll

probably find that your youngsters enjoy playing with it. By the way, I

recommend that you don’t run the program in anything higher than a 640×480

color resolution, as it is becomes harder to use with higher resolution.

School House Scorecard

Product:	Magic Canvas
Company:	IBM Multimedia Publishing Studio 1500 Riveredge Parkway 2nd Floor Atlanta, Georgia 30328
Cost:	$16.95

System Requirements:

IBM Compatible PC with 386 or higher processor,
1.44 MB 3.5″ diskette drive, 4MB RAM,
5MB available hard disk space, Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later,
SuperVGA display supporting 256 colors,
mouse or other pointing device.
Optional:
Windows compatible sound card
Windows compatible printer.

Breakdown:

Ease of Use 4
Learning Value 2
Entertainment Value 4
Graphics 4
Sound 3

Overall Score: