Illustration
Journal your hiking adventure day in a short story with illustration.
The App has two Canvases where you can create your Hiking Story Article pages, and make a memorable digital travel journal.
1. Moments Canvas
Illustrate your travel story in handwriting, sketches, map snaps and pics.
Take a DIY approach and adopt a free layout for a collection of your fav moments.
Add Calligraphic annotations, and draw doodles to give a creative touch to your travel notebook!
Kindly refer any applicable subscription requirement for these app functions:
-
Canvas (Moments Canvas, PDF Canvas)
-
Dot Grid on PDF
2. Intelligent Shapes PDF Canvas
Annotate your adventure travel pics and map snaps, by writing on or across them.
Draw doodles in the empty spaces of your article, or on the thick border frames of your collaged pics.
Illustration Features
Canvas
Draw spreads and plan your travel itinerary using your own Journaling conventions.
Write your Travel Story on the Canvas:
-
Select a background color for the Canvas, to match the mood of your travel story,
-
Draw a doodle, sketch and shade a scenery, or create a full-page illustration to highlight Moments in your story,
-
Pinch out with 2 fingers, to zoom in and draw those intricate details,
-
Pin multiple Map snaps and memorable Photos to your Hiking Diary’s Moments Canvas,
-
Annotate by adding floating text panes.. or you can add annotations in freehand, in the PDF Canvas.
When ready, send the contents of the Moments Canvas to the PDF Canvas, by tapping on the Export to PDF Canvas button (highlighted in the adjacent image)
Draw-and-hold on this Canvas to add intelligent shapes:
-
Draw the Sun and clouds in the Summer day sky, or
-
Draw the Moon and stars in the night sky!
A Dotted Grid as a visual aid
Turn on the dotted grid in Moments Canvas, to aid your travel planning and journaling. Then send to Intelligent Shapes PDF Canvas and draw a table in freehand for your trip’s daily or weekly spread.
Or, starting with app version 10.1.0, you can use a togglable Dot grid in the Intelligent Shapes PDF Canvas.
On trip days:
-
write about the place of visit,
-
write about the nearby POIs you visit,
-
write about your activities,
-
track your habits,
-
note the gratitude points learnt from people you meet, and
-
draw your mood smiley!
Visual recognition of handwritten text
In Moments Canvas, the app attempts to read your handwritten text. This processing is done within your device.
This processed text is saved to your iCloud drive, along with your article file data like floating pane text.
If this text is interpreted successfully, your Article becomes searchable for your handwritten text.
Article Storage
The Article files created are stored in your iCloud drive in a 3-level folder structure:
Genre folder / Subject folder / Topic folder / Article file
Export the Moments Canvas Article as PDF, to a structured directory in your device, or on your iCloud drive.
On an iPad, you can collate all PDF Articles contained in all Topic folders under chosen Subject folder, into a single PDF.
Note:
If you prefer a flat-structure (rather than a book-structure) for your Travel Story Article pages, you can add new pages to the same PDF document.
1. Hiking Notes
Narrate your stories about each day's biking / hiking experience.
Pin map snaps of places visited in the trip.
Annotate and highlight your special moments from the trip.
3. Configurable Dot Grid
Toggle the Dot Grid ON.
Dot thickness and color are configurable in Canvas Settings.
The grid in Moments Canvas can be carried over to the PDF Canvas as background. Or, starting with app version 10.1.0, you can toggle on the Dot grid in PDF Canvas, as a subscribed user.
In Moments Canvas, you can toggle the grid off. However, this won't reflect in the done work in PDF canvas.
Note:
Sending a fresh background from Moments Canvas overwrites any existing content in PDF Canvas.
5. Sketch / Draw
Draw on dots-aided or blank Canvas.
1. Draw with pen/ sketch with pencil
2. Use lasso to select and copy. Now paste multiple times. (Does not apply to Floating panels)
3. Use eraser to erase a selected drawn object, or to erase pixels. (Does not apply to Floating panels - each can be deleted using on-panel delete button)
4. Use the Clean Canvas button - at top right of the Moments Canvas page - to clear the open Canvas's contents (including Floating panels and drawings)
7. Floating Image / Photo Panels
In Moments Canvas, bring in Map snaps / Photos of your trip (from camera roll folder), on to the drawing canvas.
Move, rotate or enlarge the floating pane, as required for your story.
9. Save to iCloud Drive
Keep composing your story. Take breaks to ideate about punchlines.
Remember to press the Save Drawing button (floating panels are also saved).
Come back the next day to continue where you left off.
11. Export to PDF format
Export each composed story, from the Moments Canvas to the Intelligent Shapes Canvas, as a PDF.
Share via email.
Note:
PDF (either individually or as a collection) is the recommended format of storage of Articles, once your editing is complete in all ways.
13. On iPad - Collate a PDF collection of stories
Select a level-2 (Subject) Directory and Generate a single PDF that collates the existing exported PDFs of your story Articles, from across Topic folders.
2. Your own Canvas background
In Moments Canvas, explore your preferred style, bring in your art piece as a background.
Blur the background to put focus on doodles.
Or apply the grey filter and reduce alpha to trace a scenery.
4. Freehand writing
Choose the Pen tool, and select the color of stroke.
Write your travel story, or pic caption, in freehand.
Draw line art with a different thickness of the pen. Or, choose the pencil tool for lines with a bit of texture. Or, choose the monoline pen tool to get uniform stroke width.
Use the highlighter tool to highlight any specific region.
Use the fountain pen tool to write in Calligraphy.
You write in a straight horizontal line, but sometimes it ends up at 15 degrees to the horizon? Use the lasso to select a word and move it around in the canvas!
You could even select an entire paragraph and move it around!
6. Floating Plain-Text Panels
In Moments Canvas, you can scribble / type into movable, plain-text boxes.
Describe an image/photo, or write about a place you visited. The text content of a text pane is searchable from the Illustrate Page.
Add color to font, or to floating panel background.
Move, rotate or enlarge (scale / resize) the floating pane, as required for your story.
Update the text size of an enlarged panel, to match (or to differ) with neighboring panels.
Use a different panel and font, for pic heading / title vs. pic description text.
8. 3-level Directory structure
Create your hiking story in 3-level Directory structure, and keep your stories organized
10. Export to Image format
In Moments Canvas, export your Story Article as an Image.
Share to your social network.
12. Create symmetric / smooth-stroked shapes
In the PDF Intelligent Shapes Canvas, draw-and-pause to create symmetric or smooth-stroked shapes.
Saying done on this Canvas saves the Article with .pdf extension
14. Add next page to a PDF
Additional page/s can be added to PDF, manually, in the Intelligent Shapes Canvas.
Open the page thumbnails view in Intelligent Shapes Canvas. Tap to select a page. Tap on the 3-dotted button and choose to Insert from File.
Select an image file or a PDF to import. This will import the entire file content into the open Canvas.
Now, using the page thumbnails view, you can select and delete individual pages that you do not need.
Illustrating your adventure trek, with watercolor painting in your digital travel journal
When it comes to capturing moments of serenity during treks, there's no better way to bring them to life than through the art of watercolor painting.
In a digital travel journal, you have a convenient portable platform that lets you be in the midst of nature and soothingly illustrate your travel experiences. The gentle strokes of a digital brush against the digital canvas perfectly replicates the ethereal quality of watercolors, effortlessly creating tranquil landscapes or calming seascapes.
Whether it's a serene mountain peak surrounded by mist, or a peaceful lakeside scene bathed in warm sunlight, a digital travel journal provides a relaxing outlet for the artist in you, to convey your most cherished memories.
Each stroke holds in it not only vivid hues, but also a deep emotional connection encapsulating your experience - thus allowing others to journey along with you.
Soothing and therapeutic, digital watercolor paintings in a travel journal become not just beautiful images, but gateways into moments of tranquility, for both the artist and those who view their work.