Ann’s Art Desk: Drawing books for Children
These books are selected for young people, about 3rd grade and up to about sixth. They are all helpful, but not all suited to all children. My usual strategy with a self-serve book is to leave it lying around the house and see if it sparks interest. Two of the books, Art Fun and Math Art are activity guides rather than books kids can read and do by themselves. I usually have my kids pick through books like this for activities they wish to do, then we assemble the materials, and do the projects. I have ranked the books by preference and experience with the book.
How to Draw Everything introduces basic skills with charm and wit. It is clearly by an illustrator who loves William Steig and Quentin Blake. Leave this one lying around.
The Drawing Lesson is clever, witty and fun to read. It presents about 6 concepts that help kids learn to draw. It has sound skill building activities and a lively story. Suited for 3rd and 4th graders, probably. This one could be used as a textbook, or a lay around.
Art Fun is a marvelous book filled with drawing activities and more sculptural and crafty projects as well. This book has been foundational to my creation of two Arts Focus classes. Sadly, out of print, so I provide a link to my favorite purveyor of used books. Good for all ages. This is an activity book rather than a read alone. You will have to collect supplies and enable the process.
I learned to draw from these pattern books that break complex drawings down into shapes. I recommend them out of fondness and a belief that the shape method is fairly useful. Just be sure to make the jump from copying from a book to looking for shapes and using them to draw from observation in real life. This book is a fairly cutesy example for the form. The books I used a child were straight and direct with no cartooning or interpretation. There are so many of these books, that I picked one fairly at random to add on here.
This is the drawing book I have been using for teaching shape drawing. I like it because it is not cartooning, but rather training for observational drawing. Maybe this one for older kids and the drawing nature book for youngers? This one is also heavily skewed to topics boys woudl be interested in a conventional gendered sense. I never looked for that when I was a kid, and it does not bother me to much, but if you have a child who wants to draw fantasies and fairies, there are books similar to this, and along that theme.
I have never used this book, but I just ordered it. This could be a book that designs a class exploring the links between visual thinking, science and art. Many contemporary artists are working with these concepts. I am looking forward to going to books inc. to pick this up!