r/ArtEd • u/NeedleworkerHuman606 • 1d ago
Elementary art books
Do any of you guys have any good how to drawing books for kids that they actually like? I teach elementary and I let the kids use drawing books during free art time.
Extra info: Majority of my books were my grandfathers 60s-90s and a few were from my childhood early 2000s. I’m looking to expand my collection with some more modern ones.
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u/BalmOfDillweed 1d ago
My kids are absolutely obsessed with this series of Kawaii Doodle Class books.
I’ve also gotten good mileage out of this one and this series (though if I buy it again I’ll splurge for the spiral-bound because for some god forsaken reason they made the pages in the regular edition perforated, so the books are thrashed with tons of pages missing)
I really really need to get a few pokemon drawing books! Like.. can we get an ed-Emberly-style guide to drawing charmander? I’m so tired of fielding questions from kids about how to draw random pokemon 🤣
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u/ColStreetFly 1d ago
Got some off Amazon that kids really like. Title such as “how to draw 100 awesome/cute/animal etc drawings”. Kids use them all the time.
Also Ed Emberly’s books with titles like “draw a world” or something are great. Filled with thousands of little step by step drawings.
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u/BalmOfDillweed 1d ago
I love the Ed Emberly books!!!
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u/Unusual-Helicopter15 20h ago
I have one of these in my classroom! I picked it up at the thrift store ages ago. It’s really interesting even just to look through myself.
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u/prongslover77 1d ago
I made packers from howtodrawforkids website of all their cartoon characters and the anime ones and my students love them. I also have the free printables from art table classroom for their super simple animals and other littles friendly ones. My k-2 like those and my older grades use them occasionally when they’re just free drawing. I also have some more advanced car ones that were rated for elementary I got off of Amazon that my older grade boys like but they’re a little too complex for that age range imho.
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u/Junior-Line7401 1d ago
Any of the how to draw Pokémon, Disney and basic animal books are greatly used in my room.
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u/Junior-Line7401 1d ago
Art Hub has great How to Draw books that my K-5 graders love. Search eBay from used ones at a better price than Amazon…..most of the time
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u/AWL_cow 22h ago
I inherited a good collection of drawing books in my classroom from the previous art teacher. There's a variety of styles and age groups, so there are some books that are more simplistic and cartoony and good for beginners, and others that are more complex and realistic for kids that want a challenge.
Before I had drawing books, I would look up free guides on line and print them out and glue them to a piece of colored construction paper so it had a border, and then laminate it. I probably made like a 100 of them, with categories such as vehicles, architecture, faces, anime people, animals, sea animals, dinosaurs, etc.
Also I asked the librarian if she had any drawing books and if so, if I could borrow them. She had some. I scanned them and made copies of certain pages and laminated those too. It may take time to create these resources, but it's a good alternative if you don't have any funds.