Amaziograph drawing app

If you've been following my blog for a while, you probably know that I like to use an app called Kaleidoscope Drawing Pad to come up with ideas for new tatting designs. The app wasn't intended to be used in this way, so it has a lot of limitations.

Recently, I found another app called Amaziograph which is a lot more professional and is well suited for sketching symmetrical tatting designs. There's even an option to draw without symmetry if you want to create something more free form. I have been playing with symmetrical drawings and have come up with a few sketches. Here's a snowflake I drew a couple of days ago:

This app is designed to be used with an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, but it can also be downloaded on earlier iPad models. You won't get the precision without the newer iPad and pencil though. There are quite a few videos on YouTube of people using the app, click here for one of them.

If you take a look at the Amaziograph Facebook page it looks like they are planning on releasing the app on other platforms as well. If you have an iPad, I think the app is well worth the price of $0.99. I haven't made any tatting from it yet, but I really like the possibilities.

Anyhow, if you download the app and want to try drawing something with symmetry, here's a short photo tutorial to get you started. Upon opening the app, tap the "+" symbol in the upper left corner and choose "2-Mirror Kaleidoscope" for your drawing:

This will automatically start you with a symmetry of 9 sides, so you will have to adjust it to fit your needs. Tap on the little circle icon in the upper right corner and then tap on "Adjust Grid":

This will bring up a slider at the top of the screen that you can adjust to your liking. I chose 6 to make a snowflake. If you are making a square, you will want to slide it to 4 and if you are making a doily, you might want to slide it to something like 8. You can also rotate the symmetry by moving the little orange pins near the center of the screen.

Once you have it set up, it's time to start drawing. A tip: Zooming in as far as you can will make drawing a lot easier (the lines tend to get squiggly otherwise). Zoom in the way that you normally would on a touch screen, by pinching with two fingers and sliding your fingers apart on the screen.

You can play with the options at the top of the screen to change pen width, color, etc. There's an eraser icon at the top too, as well as undo and redo arrows. I drew a few sample images testing out different symmetries:

You can also change the symmetry while making your drawing. I drew a cross by starting with 4 lines of symmetry to form the top of the cross. I then adjusted it down to 1 line of symmetry (and rotated the orange pin so that the line went straight down the middle) to draw the bottom of the cross:

The app will automatically save your drawings as you make them, but if you want to add the drawing to your photo album follow these steps. First, tap on the square with arrow in the top right corner of the screen, then tap on "Share and Print":

Lastly, tap on "Save Image" and your drawing will appear in the photo album on your iPad.

I'll add a link to this blog post on my tutorials page, so it will be easy to find if you need it. Hopefully this app will be available on other platforms in the near future as it is really useful for brainstorming tatting designs.