Etchart: Secret Sea: 1

They were a Christmas gift,

Waste of money. Stylus not does not erase ink. Not strong enough. I was very disappointed with this purchase of Etchart Secret Sea, not working as I bought it for a person living in a nursing home with dementia.

Good

I was REALLY disappointed with this. All the designs are beautiful and intricate and fun looking but when you go to scratch the foil it either doesn’t come off or goes through to the cardboard. Really disappointing. Save your money sadly 💁🏼

A simply beautiful book of 10 different sea scapes for you to createYou receive a tool which has a flat wide end for scraping away bigger areas and a fine end for the detailed bitsIt's fairly easy to do & would suit a real age range, my friend thought her 7 year old could do it & I thought it would appeal to my 22 year old daughter who loved foil art as a kid.It isn't aimed at either male or female & with it being brightly coloured on black I would say it could suit either.It's not a product designed for "doing your own thing" it's the idea is that you follow the lines & create the picture that's there.It's a lovely gift to give to someone

The stylus pen does not scratch the pictures

I have fond childhood memories of the black-coated boards that, when scratched at with a metal stylus revealed either trippy rainbow patterns, silver or gold beneath. Generally, my memory is that they had a line art design over the black surface and the intention was to carefully scrape away the black within these areas to completely fill them with whatever colour or metallic finish was revealed. A much more interesting development with this book format of nine images, is that the child is encouraged to use their creativity: the facing page to each design gives a little guidance on how they might use the plastic tool to scrape at the image, but a lot of the time this is to suggest that free form patterns are scraped into the surface or - such as with the clownfish image - areas of the black are left specifically to create a recognisable fishy pattern.The style of the illustration is charmingly reminiscent of what a talented child themselves would draw, but with a more experienced eye when making beautiful colour combinations, and each image is accompanied by a short rhyme to describe the animal/scene pictured. The black surface material is surprisingly thick and quite a lot of pressure/practised skill is required when scraping it off, so despite the 5+ age recommendation on the back cover, I'd advise that the intended recipient needs pretty good motor skills - and a reasonable amount of focus and attention - to create the images they want, and to avoid tearful disappointment. All in all, a lovely activity book, a lovely gift for a creatively-inclined child, likely to spur conversation about the real animals shown, and well worth the £10 price.

This is the kind of thing which is probably more as a relaxation or training thing than a particularly creative product.You have a stylus, which you use to scrape away the surface revealing different colours to form a multicoloured picture.It's a really nice little book, but worth keeping in mind that this isn't necessarily a creative tool, but it's relaxing and the results are nice.