Figure Drawing for Kids by Angela Rizza

Figure Drawing for Kids by Angela Rizza ISBN-13: 9781641527712 Paperback: 102 pages Publisher: Rockridge Press Released: January 7th 2020

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description from Goodreads:
Grab a pencil and an eraser! Featuring a simple, step-by-step format for budding artists, Figure Drawing for Kids is a great way to start sketching friends and family, pop culture icons, and epic superheroes--one easy-to-draw exercise at a time. Along the way, you'll learn helpful terms and essential drawing concepts like proportion, negative space, point of view, composition, crosshatch, and more.

All you need to know is in this drawing for kids' guide: From sketching basic shapes and shading to advanced skills like perspective drawing, you'll master 13 figure-drawing activities at your own pace. Get inspired by a wide range of human sizes, shapes, skin tones, and abilities. Discover how to draw from a photograph, how to set up a model station, and even how to draw the world around you!


My Review:
Figure Drawing for Kids is an art instruction book for beginners at drawing (full-body) people. The targeted age range is 9 to 12 years old, but this book would be useful even for adults. Each chapter taught a new concept that built on the last, illustrated the instructions, then provided step-by-step demonstrations for a variety of figures for you to follow to practice of the concept. The author provided text directions along with each illustration in the first demonstration, then just provided the illustrations for you to follow. Each step-by-step demonstration had between five and seven steps that were broken down enough that they were easy to follow. Each chapter had about four step-by-step practice demonstrations.

The author started by explaining the basic shapes (the angles of the shoulders and hips, a stick outline with some basic shapes on it, and drawing an outline around that), getting the figure in proportion with itself, adding further detail to the outline by learning about underlying muscles, about negative space and the clothed outline of the body, how to draw a body in motion, and how to add point of view using a vanishing point and how to draw a foreshortened figure. The author went on to explain shading, where to put features on the face, adding a background scene, drawing from a photo, drawing someone inside who models for you, drawing people that you observe in public, and adding color to the graphite or ink picture. I felt the author did a good job of explaining the various concepts and showing how to do them. Overall, I recommend this book to any beginners at figure drawing.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.