Get your kids’ hands all over some of the most famous paintings in history, and let them do art their way…without being kicked out of a museum

PlayART, by Tapook, is a brilliant app that lets your kids strip down 5 artists’ masterpieces, and reconstruct elements of the paintings into their very own creation, with many awesome, intuitive functions, that makefor artsy fun again and again. PlayART is available for the iPad for $3.99, and is recommended for children ages 5 and up. PlayART features five artists: Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Henri Rousseau and Paul Klee, with 100 elements and 25 canvasses from the artists’ original paintings from which your child can manipulate and create.

When you first enter PlayART, you’ll see a short tutorial video on how to use the app. Great idea! In 2 and half minutes, I knew how to navigate the app, and was super pumped to dive in and get started. Also, this tutorial video only appears the first time you use the app, so you don’t have to go through it over and over. If you would like to see the tutorial again, you can access it via the home screen.

From there, choose an artist’s work to dismember; you can press the play button arrow next to the artist’s name, to watch a short video on the biography of the artist. The bio videos are very well done! The videos are narrated wonderfully by a child, and I love the animation that become illustrated before your eyes, like an artist is creating it as your child watches the video. The videos are no snoozy documentaries, but are engaging, and will keep your child’s attention while he or she learns the background of the artist’s life, the artists’ inspirations, and their created works. I love this feature, and it’s a great taste of Art History for little ones, at their level.

Now, tap on the painting to start manipulating the elements of that artist’s work. Select from a variety of elements of the paintings in the toolbar below. Just tap on the desired element, and it will appear on the canvas. You will also hear a musical melody whenever you insert or edit an element (if this music annoys you, you can turn it off by tapping on  the sound icon on the left-hand toolbar). You can change the size of the element by using the two finger method (which you can view how to do in the video below), and also rotate it. Tap on the “Canvas” feature at the bottom of the screen to change the canvas design/background of the piece.

The functions menu on the right-hand side is also really useful and lets you do a lot with each element. You can reverse the image by choosing the “Mirror” icon, delete the image,  duplicate it, lock it so that it can’t be moved, send it to the back or front of another object, or you can save a certain element in “Favorites”. If your child really wants to get creative, save their most loved elements in the “Favorites” section, and make a work of art combining elements from several different artists. Once you are done creating the work, save your image to “My Museum” by tapping on the “Museum” icon in the left-hand toolbar. On the “My Museum” page, you’ll see all the finished projects your child has created, complete with beautiful framing that looks like it is actually hanging in the museum. You can also save the image to your iPad’s photo gallery,  to share. Visit the Artists Museum to see all the artwork of the five painters your children will have fun mashing-up.

PlayART is a great app to introduce Art History to your children, while also giving them an opportunity to  get involved in art and be creative. I feel children well better learn and remember the artists and their works while playing with this app, because  it’s not just memorizing words or images from a textbook, but the app becomes a creative art project of his or her own. PlayART is a wonderful and highly recommended app to share on your device, mom. Get it!

Be sure to also check out the newest app from PlayART, PlayART Museum! This app is a FREE, spot the difference game, where the artwork used has been designed and submitted by real children across the globe! Want your child’s artwork included in the next update? Email your child’s artwork to Tapook, and if it gets the most likes on their Facebook page, your child’s piece will be added to the app! Get it now: PlayART Museum – Tapook Publishing