How to Turn Your iPad into a Light Box

Wanting to learn how to turn your iPad into a light box for tracing? Its so easy! Keep reading to learn how!

Why Would I Use a Light Box for Calligraphy?

Light boxes or light pads are often used by artists for many purposes! Often, you may find an artist using a light box to refine a design by tracing their original an making small adjustments to achieve a beautiful final product! Calligraphers also may also find light boxes very helpful in their practice and work. Because calligraphy is such a precise art, calligraphers often use guidelines to keep their writing straight and on a particular slant line.

Writing with guidelines is achieved in 3 different ways:

1. Using pre-lined paper. Calligraphers may purchase pre-lined practice paper or generate guidelines for personal use. I love Lan’s free guideline generator found here. Just plug in your desired x-height, spacing, etc. There are also several presets saved for different types of calligraphy! Simply choose your settings, download the PDF and voila! You have a wonderful set of guidelines to use!

2. Drawing guidelines with pencil onto the desired paper and then erasing once inked. There are so many tools available to generate guidelines. John Neal Books and Paper & Ink Arts both have a wide selection available.

3. Using a light box or light pad to illuminate guidelines through the paper. In this method, the calligrapher is able to see the guidelines and write on top of the without having to erase after the piece has been inked. Others may choose to pencil out their composition and then trace over using a light box- also eliminating the need to erase pencil lines when complete.

Which Light Box Should I Choose?

At this time of writing this blog, I have not found a light box that I would recommend. I have tried at least 5 different brands, and each of them have had issues fairly quickly. I will keep searching and update if I find one I like! But thankfully, we do have an alternative to a light box!

How to Turn Your iPad into a Light Box

To turn the iPad into a light box, we will enable a feature called “Guided Access.” This feature disables the screen while in use, so it will not move when touched.

• A few notes before we get started:
  • I would recommend that your iPad have some type of screen protector in place before trying this method. I am currently using the Paperlike screen protector, but have used all kinds and have liked them equally so far.
  • Use a light touch while tracing to prevent damage to the screen- although unlikely, we don’t want to take a chance on damaging an expensive device 🙂
  • Do not use your pointed pen on top of your iPad! Feel free to use a tool with light pressure like a pencil or brush pen, but the pressure required for a pointed pen is not safe to use.
  • This method is not useful for thicker papers. It works well with Strathmore Parchment Paper, Strathmore Calligraphy Paper, Canson Marker Paper, and tracing paper. I was not able to see through with my go-to Strathmore Bristol Smooth paper that I usually use for commissions.

How to Enter Guided Access Mode:

1. Be sure that you have a photo of the work you would like to trace loaded into your photos app.

2. Navigate to “Settings”, Scroll to “Accessibility” and then scroll to the bottom and choose “Guided Access.”

Once in the “Guided Access” menu, toggle on the option for “Guided Access” at the top of the page.

• I would recommend going ahead and creating a passcode to exit the Guided Access feature easily. To do this, choose “Passcode Settings,” then “Set Guided Access Passcode,” and then enter a passcode of your choice (I did 0000 to make things easy).

3. While in settings, navigate to “Display & Brightness.” Be sure that your brightness setting is at the max.

4. Exit settings and navigate to your photos app. Once in the app, find your photo and tap it to select.

5. Push the power button on the top right of the ipad 3 times in quick succession to enter guided access mode.

• If it is your first time entering guided access, you will have a screen pop up and will prompt you to “Start” at the top right (mine says Resume here because I didn’t get a picture of the first time).

• On the bottom left, you can check the “options”- be sure that “touch” and “motion” are toggled on.

A little caveat- this process went a little differently than what it is supposed to do based on my research… So including my few extra steps here :).

• When I enter guided access mode, my screen still moved around when I touched it. So, I ended up having to exit guided access mode by clicking the top power button 3 times, which took me here after entering my passcode:

Then, I had to click the (x) on the top of the grayed-out portion to deselect the area to disable. Next, I had to re-draw my de-select area. This was a bit confusing at first, because I tried to start drawing my circle outside of the selection, thinking this would allow me to select the whole screen. However, no selection would ever happen. But! If I started on top of the picture, and then drew a complete circle, it worked. See below-

Once the gray-ed out portion returned (as pictured below), I was able to select “Resume” at the top right of the screen, and everything worked just fine!

6. Now you should be able touch the screen without anything moving around!

To Exit Guided Access Mode:

1. To exit guided access, push the power button 3 times in quick succession.
   • If you set a passcode, enter it when prompted. Click “end” at the top left of the screen.

Voila! Your iPad is back to normal!

Want To See The Process in Real Time?

Check out the video on YouTube for a step-by-step demonstration. As an added bonus, you can click here to grab your freebie to trace along with me!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read, and I hope that you’ve found the tips on how to turn your iPad into a light box helpful! If so, let me know in the comments below? I would be interested to see if you had the same experience as I did.

While you’re here, feel free to browse more blog entries on various calligraphy topics! Thanks again for reading and I hope to see you soon!

Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the channel so I can continue creating content. Thank you for your support!