This week I’m doing something a little different. To celebrate Halloween I’m going to be highlighting some apps/software that have shuffled off this mortal coil. That’s right, this week we will be haunted by apps from the, admittedly, not so distant past.
PicassoHead: I used this website as one of the tools in my master’s thesis research. It allowed users to collage abstract shapes and facial features into Picasso-like portraits. From an art therapy perspective it supported art making by making portraiture approachable. Clients who were not confident in their drawing abilities could still make expressive portraits by selecting the size, position, and color of all of the elements of the face.
Hero Machine: I used to use this website with child and teens in an evening community center program. It allowed the user to collage their own super heroes and super villains from pre-made parts. The characters were completely customizable from the facial features, hair, armor, and sidekicks to backgrounds, logos, and colors. With the teens I had them color their images in online and with younger children we printed out the images and colored them by hand. From an art therapy perspective these images allowed clients to think about their strengths and weaknesses, create aspirational or realistic versions of themselves, and develop narratives, all at a safe projective distance (through a character). Like other collage techniques, the user did not have to confident in their ability to draw in order to make a satisfying art product. The theme of super heroes/villains also appealed to youth interested in comic books, video games, and graphic novels. Despite the hard work of developer Jeff Hebert, Hero Machine is no longer operational due to the discontinuation of Adobe Flash.
Flying Colors: Flying Colors is a software program by Magic Mouse productions. I used it as part of my thesis work with children in an afterschool program. It is essentially a digital sandtray that allows the user to select different stamps/objects and place them on pre-made or hand drawn backgrounds. It added in animations and sound effects, options for symmetrical drawing, paring down the number of tools based on age-level, and the ability to play back the artistic process which made it for for kids and useful for art therapists interested in their clients’ creative process. Magic Mouse no longer offers the CD-ROM of this software (if you can even find something to play it on), however, you can find a link to download the demo version to your computer on the Wayback Machine.