Wednesday, April 30

Drawing 101



I've always enjoyed drawing, but am not one to sit down and draw very imaginatively. I'm more of a still-life, figure-drawing type. Just meaning that I feel like I need to look at something to draw it successfully. That's probably why I don't necessarily enjoy drawing with my kids. It seems like drawing with kids is usually, "Here are some crayons and blank paper. Go for it."
Well, recently, I've been seeing these Ed Emberley books highly recommended (on several blogs. You know, all bloggers are reading, making, cooking the same things). So, of course, I gave in and bought some. Not really....I told my mom I wanted one and she bought some for us. I'm really glad she did. My daughter has so far enjoyed drawing animals with these very simple step-by-step instructions and now my husband and I have a book to go to when the kids ask how to draw a specific animal. This book starts with instructions for a simple ant and ends with a more complex dragon. In between are fun animals like happy pollywog, turtle skating in the rain, pig with trousers, goats butting, and mean octopus. The pictures above are my daughter's first attempts at smiling spider, bug, pollywog, caterpillar, rooster and porcupine. The pictures below show the book's images compared to her drawings.

I think this afternoon we'll try still-life drawing. Such a simple activity, and yet I had to read the suggestion somewhere to realize I could try it with small children. I think I'll let them choose a piece of fruit or vegetable and a toy to set up on the table and we'll all draw them together. Hopefully, this will be fun for them, but as a bonus, it should be fun for me to get my drawing fingers going again!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think those are very good drawings for a 4-yr-old (and I'm not biased, not at all). Makes me wish I had kept my own sketch books; but I do have some of yours in case your children ever want to see them!

Anonymous said...

I *love* that happy little spider! What a kick!

We've found that "authentic" art activities are extremely satisfying for our kids. Which does get a lot easier as they get older, but I wish I'd thought of the still life idea. Perhaps we'll try it this summer, but at 8 and 10 my kids are wanting to get their own ideas on.

Thanks, Megan,
Susie

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Anonymous said...

thaks for the post i just got some if his from the library i'm going to get my oldest a sketch pad and some colored peniclsand markers and crayons as her summer is here present! so she can learn to draw those this sumer!

SewAmy said...

I love childrens drawing. I think I need to get this book for my son. He loves to draw. thank you for posting the wonderful pictures.

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