Drawing for Older Children and Teens: A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too

The book's title is what the book actually provides. Drawing for OLDER CHILDREN AND TEENS. People who give this book to a six year old shouldn't be surprised that some of the exercises or explanations are too hard. Likewise, people who want to draw like Rembrandt should realize that a book titled 'drawing for older children and teens' might not be the best resource. Do people even think any more? Anyway, now that that's out of my system: I adore this book. There are three drawing books I will never give away: this one, Edwards's _drawing on the right side of the brain_ (psychobabble or not aside, the fact is, it works!) and Dodson's book on drawing. Each has strengths and weaknesses. The absolute strength of Brookes's book is sheer enthusiasm. One reviewer is scandalized by the testimonials of success cases Brookes includes: I found them the most inspiring. But what can I say, I need all the encouragement I can get. Even if you skip all that and jump to the exercises, you will get your money's worth out of this book. What it has that is unique: a day one invitation to play with different drawing media. Edwards's book is perhaps a little too pencil-sketch focussed--this book encourages you to play with colored pencils, art pens, and pastel crayons. I reiterate the word 'play'. For those of us who want to learn to draw as a hobby, not as professional artists, the notion of art as play rather than work is very important. (Again, professional artists, the title alone might tell you this book is not for you?) It also encourages you to learn different STYLES. Edwards's book has sometimes been criticized for being too focused on realistic drawing. Brookes encourages you to try abstraction and flat drawing as well as a more realistic style. Overall, it encourages you more than any other book I've encountered thus far, to develop your own style. Even the limitations of the book are not limitations, if you take into account the audience. Her list of subjects to draw doesn't necessarily work for me, but I remember as a teenager drawing a lot of the items on her list over and over again. (I must have drawn about a million horses). A student today just handed in an in-class writing assignment with the bottom half covered with a drawing of a car. She knows, in other words, what young people like to draw, and presents the information in manageable and attractive pieces. If you're an older reader, like me, who picked this book up because I suck way too much at drawing for books like _the Natural Way to Draw_ and many other upper level learn to draw books, some of the exercises seem silly. Skip 'em! Do another one you like better, again. I've had a lot of fun, for example drawing my cats in not only a variety of media (pastel, colored pencil, conte, pencil) but also in many more styles (primitive, cartoonish, realistic, abstract). A lot of the technical exercises (copying drawings upside down, using a viewfinder) are in many other

Mona completely re-opened the "right hemisphere" in both myself and the kids I taught to use her methods (age 8 and older). For those who understand this mode of thinking, once the gate is opened and your drawing hand coordinates with it, you can draw anything well: buildings, landscapes, people, animals, vehicles. Others may not understand this approach, they may think differently and prefer the "left hemisphere" mode of analytical thinking, years of critique, the old method of drawing lots of nudes, studying the analysis behind perspective. But for those who want to get straight to the source of artistic ability and draw what they are seeing, in their mind or what they're directly looking at, here's an approach that can be very useful. After time with it, a visual of what you want to draw just seems to shoot out of your drawing hand. It sinks in deeply, vs. the other approach of taking years to gain talent, or even worse, the instant gratification approaches to drawing animals or cartoons that rely on memory of that particular step by step drawing, without being able to use it for any other drawing. All three could no doubt work together in some beneficial way, but this approach is highy recommended either by itself or with the others.

This book was easy to follow and interesting. It would be a little too much for a child to understand on their own, but with limited assistance it is an excellent guide for beginners who want to draw. My grandson was thrilled with it!

This is a wonderful book for the beginner. I was not only a beginner, but I was a beginner who didn't believe that I had any artistic talent whatsoever. TalentSchmalent! I finished this book and realized I could draw and am now part-way through a more intesive drawing study book she recommends. I could never have gotten anywhere if I hadn't started with Mona Brookes' book. Many thanks to the author!