Boogie Board Play n’ Trace with Transparent Tracing Board, Stylus, and Templates for Kids to Write, Trace and Draw, For Boys and Girls, Ages 3+

Great for adult aspiring artist
This “toy” for 3 to 10 year olds is too good to be true, for someone like me who is trying to learn to draw. When I read reviews about it before buying, I couldn’t understand why no adult art students were trying it out. But I took the chance and bought it anyway. And it works even better than I had hoped! While learning to draw things in proper proportions, imagine the help it can be to lay down the Play N Trace over a photograph or sketch, and map out locations of a few key points… where the nose is located, eye locations, heigth of head, etc. You can map out just a few, or as many as you want, depending on your skill level. Then pull the Play N Trace away from the model drawing, and draw the rest in by eye. It has a surface easy to sketch on. Don’t like your drawing? Press button and it erases, and you can start over. It works best to use the board with a black or dark background while drawing, to make the lines more visible. I use a brown office clipboard. Then, if it turns out good enough you want to keep the sketch, photograph it with your cell phone, using black construction paper underneath the board, to make the lines stand out and create a sharp background. Import it into any very basic Photo or Art editing computer program — even cell phones have ones that can work. Choose “Greyscale” or “Black and White” to turn the green lines to white lines in the photo. Next, choose “Negative” or “Invert Image”, and the white lines turn to black, and the black background turns to white. Now you’re looking at the photo of a sketch that looks like it was drawn with pencil on slightly grey background paper. Think of it people! With this thing, you can mark perspective points on a sheet of typing paper, and any grid guidelines you want to use, or any other guidelines you want to use. Put it behind the Play N Trace, and draw your image on the Play N Trace, using the guidelines and markings showing through, and you have a very nice drawing, without having to clean up all your guidelines. Yes, it’s a child’s toy, and built like one But, for LEARNING how to draw, learning proportions, and learning perspective, I see nothing better on the market at a reasonable price. Plus, you can hold it up and view a real-life scene. The greenish background of the board hides a lot of the darker colors — anything darker than a medium blue — but it still gives a person a very good feel for where the proportions of the real life scene land on the board. You can again quickly mark key points, if you can keep a steady hand, and keep your eye steady in relation to the board. Then, you’re ready to try drawing the scene. Plus, I’ve been a fan of the boogie boards in general, for art learning and sketching for a few years now. Started with the old 10.5″ board (no longer made by the company). So I’ve always used this way of photographing Boogie Board images to save them. But having a TRANSPARENT Board just makes the good GREAT! To tell the truth, I’ve already ordered a second Play N Trace. I’m hoping that I can actually make my guide markings on one Play N Trace (holding it up to a real-life scene, and calculating where the vanishing point is located, and sketching out some quick perspective guidelines), and then put the second Play N Trace on top of it to draw the “final” drawing on. I don’t know if it’ll work or not — whether the lines will be visible enough from one board, through another, but it’s worth a try, and at the price of a “toy” is well worth the financial risk. Another thing to note about Boogie Boards for art is that they can almost become a charcoal-LIKE media with the use of a few tools to take place of the regular stylus. Rubber tipped paint erasers work marvelously for shading Boogie Board drawings. Pull them along the surface slowly for darker shading and faster for lighter. It’s not EVEN shading — there are green dots and lighter areas mixed in. But, for learning, and practicing tonal sketching, they’re marvelous. There are also some rubber-tipped tools known as Style Stix (and other companies “Stix”), which I bought last week and am having great fun with. They’re apparently used by people to make marks in clay models, but work well on the Boogie Boards that I own, including the Play N Trace. (Note, the SMALL Jot 4.5 does not do very well with the shading tools just mentioned for some reason. It’s great for SMALL line sketches, but the surface doesn’t register much with rubber-tipped tools. I haven’t tried the larger Jot, or the original Boogie yet with the tools — just Play N Trace, the 10.5″, the old Rip model, and Jot 4.5.) Personally, I wouldn’t bother gathering the styluses that go with the Play N Trace and all its add-on kits for shading or special effects. The one that came with the Play N Trace is OK for normal lines, but dismal for any sort of shading or paint type effects. The rubber tools work VERY well on Play N Trace. Take note, that there is no way to erase mistakes you make as you draw, and then continue the drawing. It’s all or nothing. When you press a button on the side, the WHOLE drawing erases, and you have a blank screen for your next drawing. Remember, I’m saying this is an effective LEARNING tool for art. I’m not saying you’re going to be selling your Play N Trace photographed sketches. There are a couple of people on the Net that DO VERY impressive art on Boogie Boards. But they’re already professional artists, and usually process the photographed drawings in a high quality photo editing program like Photoshop. But I AM saying that Boogie Boards, and especially the Play N Trace, for me, are a marvelous way to learn art. If treated well, the other boards I’ve owned do last a long time, although I haven’t tested Play N Trace longterm. Just got that today, and was so excited I had to post an instant review after joyfully drawing on it for hours and testing out all its possibilities. If it DOES break and turn out to be low quality, I’ll try to get back here to update the review. But it looks as sturdy as any of the Boogie Boards, and the drawing surface, except for the transparency, is just as responsive. And it photographs great and edits well. I’m overjoyed. Just count me among the happy kids, even though I’m not 3 years old, nor even 10 years old, but am headed for 60 years old soon. 😉

Great for all ages!
This was originally bought as an instructional tool for my 5 year old students learning how to write and the children I tutor in writing. I shared it with my friends, and younger children and everyone was amazed by it—quickly getting to work on their masterpieces! I quickly fell in love with writing and drawing on it as well.They all love it as do I— it’s a great tool, both for teaching, drawing, and relaxation alike. The best part is NO MESS! And no wasted paper with only a couple lines here or there or marker ALL OVER the place.I highly recommend it— it’s like the best kind of magic✨

(UPDATED) Stopped working after first time changing batteries.
2 YEAR UPDATE: Shortly after writing this review, I contacted the manufacturer and got a replacement board that was apparently updated to prevent this from happening. Now over two years later and my now 5 year old loves stealing dinosaurs with crazy detail. We lost the stylus a long time ago and haven’t bought a replacement yet. Great product, great company and customer service.This didn’t last long. When the batteries wore out, maybe about 4 months, we tried to replace them and now the thing is fried. I looked it up to see if I did something wrong and found that this wasn’t too uncommon. Others had experienced the same problem trying to replace the batteries and it no longer works anymore. Contacted the company and they are [hopefully] sending out a replacement unit.