Review of Tuxpaint

I spent some time surveying Open Source applications.  I found many were not designed for Macs and that one had to download additional applications to open it.  I am wary of adding too many unknowns to my Mac, so I searched for those that were Mac compatible.  I also had difficulty finding one that would be useful in an elementary classroom.  The Open Source application I ultimately found and tested was at SourceForge.net.  It is called Tuxpaint, and it is an elementary painting program similar to Paintbrush or Kidpix.

Tuxpaint is attractive and easy to use--its logo is a little penguin with a paintbrush, ergo its name, Tuxpaint.  It has a wraparound sidebar with tool icons running in a double column along the left of the work space.  The tools include such functions as "brushes," "text," "paint,"  "stamp" (mostly penguins of different sizes), and "magic".  If you click on a function on the toolbar on the left, the choices for that function show up on the toolbar on the right.  For example, "magic" functions show up on the right sidebar and there is an arrow at the bottom that allows you to run through the many choices available. "Magic" includes some neat computer art-type ways to manipulate images.  If you pick "shapes," the shapes run the gamut from stars triangles, penguins (!) random blobs and stampy figures, spirals, kitties, snowflakes, hearts and arrows.

The colors run along the bottom of the page.  When you click on a color, the name of the color displays on the screen, so you know which color you are using.

There is one feature that children would most likely love, but that I found supremely annoying:  every move made is accompanied by a sound.  They are random computer generated sounds, which I do not want to invade whatever personal soundtrack I run when I am creating.  Thank heavens for headphones!

Of course there is an undo, save and print function.  So, all in all, a servicable, easy-to-use,  FREE program--good for districts or families who are watching their pennies.

All of this is with the caveat that computer art is not the same as hand-made art.  I strongly feel that children should have lots of practice handling media--it teaches them about the properties of matter, and gives realistic expectations as to how long it takes to make something real, as opposed to virtual.  That being said, this is a nice product.