Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book Drawing Animals Shape by Shape in exchange for my review. The opinions shared are authentic and our own, especially since kids are giving them!

My girls love art. I love art. My dad is an artist/artisan. My dad’s sister is an art professor. My grandfather was an artist. You can say it’s in the blood. As a busy working mom, I don’t get a chance to indulge in my creative side as much, but now that my girls are older, we do projects together (that I can then share on the blog). Lately, my eldest has been really into drawing things by copying off books, magazines, you name it. So it was perfect timing that I received a copy of Drawing Animals Shape by Shape by Christopher Hart to review.

Christopher Hart is a best-selling author known for his How to Draw series of books teaching everything from Manga to fashion design.  What attracted me to his series for kids was the use of familiar objects (shapes) to create cute and fun animals. Not only do kids learn by copying, but they also learn best when they can apply their prior knowledge to a new concept. Each drawing in the book starts out as a shape your child already knows and then slowly transforms it into dogs, cats, farm animals, woodland creatures, safari animals, birds, fish, reptiles & bugs, dinosaurs and other quirky characters. I gave the book to my eldest daughter first, but it was my middle daughter who really dove in and had fun with it. And when some of the features of her favorite animals were a little tricky (like the hair of the unicorn), Big Sis was able to help her.

Helpful Tip

Look at the drawing in its steps and not as the whole. For some of the animals, the girls were intimidated by all the details and didn’t focus on the simplicity in the step-by-step drawings. If you take things slow, and work your way through the details of each step, then you’ll get a result that looks just like or close to the original (depending on their age/fine motor ability).

Finished Work

Below are some of the girls’ creations along with their feedback:

Big Sis: “I liked it because it helped me draw animals and it showed how to do it step-by-step.”

Middle Sis (who had a lot more to say): “I liked it because you got to draw different kinds of animals. I loved the running turtle and unicorn. It was helpful and easy with the shapes. You don’t even need to know how to draw the real animals. You just draw with the shapes. And when you’re done you get to color them and draw more and more. And then it will get easier for you. It’s really awesome to do.”

I tried to get them to draw the lobster but neither was interested (for the record, Middle Sis LOVED the Speedy Turtle and drew a bunch of them), so I took a turn at it. It also helped that I practiced the tip that I gave the girls: look at the drawing in steps rather than the whole and take it slow. I think I did pretty well! I might need to pick up some of Christopher Hart’s other books.

Final thought

While I was writing this, I kept thinking what a great gift this book would make for kids- especially if they like art. If you typically give coloring books and crayons as gifts for kids parties, give them an art pack with this book + drawing pencils + crayons + paper. You might bring the cartoonist out of someone.