People often assume that a person is born with the ability to draw or they aren’t.  Some people firmly believe that you shouldn’t even try to teach a child to draw using a step by step method because it will limit your child’s artistic expression and have too much of an influence on your child’s future work.

We don’t agree with that because we think a little guidance can be helpful when trying to learn to draw for most kids. So with that in mind, if your child has expressed some interest in learning some basic drawing techniques or improving upon their already existing ability, we have found lots of great drawing websites, DVDs, apps, video games, and online art lessons that can help kids draw.

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Before beginning, check out this excellent website with two perspectives on drawing development in children that may help you pick appropriate material for your child’s age and development stage.

Quick Overview of Some of the Big Names in Teaching Kids to Draw

  • Mark Kistler has done several TV shows (Imagination Station, The Secret City Adventures, and The Draw Squad) and a crazy amount of books on teaching kids to draw. His work mainly features instruction in 3D cartoon style pencil art, focusing on basic 3D shapes and techniques. Check out his online drawing lessons.
  • Christopher Hart is another big gun in the teaching kids to draw world. He has lots of great books on how to teach Manga-style drawing, but if your kids are just beginning, you might want to check out his books on how to draw cartoons or how to draw animals. There are some free tutorials on his site, as well as a link to his blog that also has lots of cool tips and tutorials.
  • Ed Emberley is an excellent resource for kids who want to learn to draw. He has an incredible amount of drawing books for kids. Check out some samples from his drawing books to see if it is your kind of thing.
  • The Draw Fifty Series by Lee Ames is a great series focusing on teaching kids basic drawing techniques.
  • Mona Brooks is a name that comes up a lot with the topic of teaching kids to draw. She has a bestselling book called Drawing With Children: A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too that is a guide for parents and teachers on how to encourage drawing in kids.
  • Draw Write Now is another excellent series to think about if you want to get some books on this topic. There are eight books in the series for ages 5-9 that have step-by-step drawing instructions.
  • Art for Kids: Drawing: The Only Drawing Book You’ll Ever Need to Be the Artist You’ve Always Wanted to Be is a very popular and well-reviewed book that is great for helping to teach kids how to draw.

Art Lesson DVDs

Step4Kids: To Draw uses video modeling to teach viewers how to draw over 40 items ranging from shapes to more complicated things like animals, a bike, etc.

Apps

Video Games to Help Kids Learn to Draw

For very young kids, there is a Nintendo DS game that is very popular called Let’s Draw! that is designed to introduce children to the creative process by making drawing easy, accessible, and fun.

 

Online Art Lessons for Kids

  • Dragoart has lots of online drawing tutorials for kids. They have step-by-step instructions on how to draw just about anything you can think of.
  • Kids Front is another site with step-by-step drawing lessons for children that show kids how to draw cute cartoon animals.
  • Hello Kids also have drawing tutorials and drawing lessons for kids of all ages with lots of different categories to choose from.

Free Online Video Art Lessons for Kids

  • Shoo Rayner Drawing is the “Drawing Teacher to the World.” Such good lessons here. Also, check out his other channel, Draw Stuff Real Easy.
  • Mark Crilley has how to draw lessons on every conceivable subject.
  • DoodleKat1’s how to draw lessons are great for kids.
  • Doodle Academy’s YouTube channel has some simple lessons on how to create various cartoon animals.
  • Drawing With Paolo this is an excellent YouTube channel with outstanding art lessons. Probably best for an older child (ages 10+).
  • MikeyMushArt a fun YouTube channel with art lessons for younger kids.