Teaching Step By Step Drawing For Kids

(Why and How to Write a Tutorial)

Providing first-rate drawing instruction in the form of step by step drawing for kids can make a big difference in developing budding art skills.

Children who are just beginning to learn to draw are developing all kinds of fundamental skills, including their capacity for creativity and imagination, hand-eye coordination skills and understanding of foundational concepts such as perspective and shading. Drawing instruction via a step-by-step tutorial can help facilitate early learning of these concepts by providing frequent feedback and a specific visual frame of reference. This is especially important for kids who are visual or kinesthetic in their learning as they tend to master new concepts by copying and imitating.

Developing Imagination

All kids have some capacity for imagination at the beginning of their drawing endeavors, but encouraging them to develop and widen their capacity for creativity can make it easier for them to take chances later on in life – and to truly make their drawings their own. If you are writing a step by step drawing tutorial for children, make sure to include little notes that show them where they can stray from the illustrated path. Keep the foundational skills basic, but make it abundantly clear that the details can be customized any way the child wants. If they are drawing a puppy, let them draw it with short fur or long fluffy curls. Have them color it and give it markings or a collar, etc.

Helping with Hand-Eye Coordination

One of the most difficult aspects of learning to draw for small children is the problem of hand-eye coordination. Children who simply have not developed advanced coordination will have problems replicating the most well-drawn tutorial even if they work carefully and slowly. Small children will get better at coordinating their movements with time as their development matures, while older children can further refine their coordination through practice and attention.

The best advice to give should be part of the very first step in the tutorial. Tell kids that they might not get it right on the first try because most people need more tries than that. Let them know that if they keep practicing it will get better. Encouraging them to keep developing is the best way to help them get through the initial problem of coordination, when some children are likely to give up.

Building Foundations

Nearly all the foundational skills of drawing are developed best through imitation, and once established, provide a good base for improvising and drawing images from an idea instead of from copying a picture. Most children are very excited to reach the point where they can draw from their head and bring their own concepts to life.

In a step by step tutorial, make sure to point out where fundamental concepts such as perspective, shading and crosshatching are used so that children recognize them later when they become important. If children use size differences to demonstrate distance perspective in an early tutorial, they will remember it later when they are trying to draw their own picture and need to represent an object as being closer or farther away. The best way to develop these foundational skills is simply to keep using them so that they are committed to memory, and well-written tutorials can help kids achieve this.

Summary

These are just a few of the important aspects to writing an effective tutorial on step by step drawing for kids, but they are some of the most important parts. Helping children to master foundations, practice coordination and broaden their imagination can make their entire drawing education much easier. Paying close attention to the unique needs of new drawers and young kids alike is a vital part of writing a helpful tutorial that provides knowledge that will stick and become widely applicable.

Now, if you're a teacher looking for a model drawing tutorial, we recommend Jenni Gibson's The ABC of Art Skills because it's a simple, proven drawing program that has helped thousands of students for nearly two decades.

And if you're parent looking for a good step by step drawing guide for your child, again we recommend The ABC of Art Skills because it’s fun, inexpensive and works well.

Jenni Hollister

(editor, Step By Step Drawing)