"Fantasy Cartooning" study sketch

"Action! Cartooning" and "Fantasy Cartooning" are two of my favorite reference books that I keep in the permanent library next to my drawing table. I enjoy the content and teaching style of Ben Caldwell's Cartooning books a lot, and even submitted short reviews for both of them at Amazon. I feel they are quite accessible to young budding artists for their easy-to-follow sequential layouts filled with quick targeted pointers on character and monsters' design. Ben Caldwell's model drawings are rendered in a simple and attractive classic American animation style with some Disney influences.
At the library courtyard, I did this study sketch after the Amazons lesson on page 31 of "Fantasy Cartooning". The character stance was changed slightly, added a background, and even included a couple of lizards that were sunbathing by the fountain. If compared to the original model, it would be clear that they look somewhat different. Beginner Artist Tip: When studying any reference books do not obsess over trying to copy the original exactly (if the object of the exercise was a to make a perfect copy, one might as well use a digital camera or Xerox machine), you would be better off focusing on one or two issues you are trying to improve in your own drawing technique and enjoying the sketching process. As you practice how to achieve certain effects or create an specific look, your accuracy and likeness rendering skills will develop naturally at your own pace.

Bookstores' Colored Pencils

Picked up an inexpensive set of 24 short colored pencils (3 3/8" long) neatly packaged in a Kraft tube at Borders. Its compact size make it suitable for field sketching and ideal for long car trips with the kids.
Already had a set of large colored pencils from Barnes and Noble artist supplies section in my studio collection.
Both sets are unpainted which lends them a rather distinctive look laying down on a drawing table, but in practice it slows down color selection while working with them. Always a good idea to make color charts of new coloring sets on a sketchbook for future reference of their actual hue and intensity on the paper.
The smaller pencils' swatches were slightly more saturated, but neither set was particularly bright like professional artist pencils. Sets of these student grade art supplies are useful as starter sets for fledgling artists and to keep their younger siblings entertained once they switch to artist grade supplies.

Robot coloring page

I was asked to draw a robot for a 6 year old, and this humanoid robot pencil sketch was the first to come up. Started drawing the head, torso and limbs, and then added the floor and surrounding cityscape. Then went back to the robot and thicken its outlines to make it pop up towards the viewer. Whole thing might have taken about 15 minutes and done freehand. Point of the exercise was to just loosen up and practice my pencil strokes with my Caran D'Ache Museum Fixpencil 4 mm leadholder loaded with 3B Technalo watersoluble graphite lead. The composition was kind of spontaneous, probably inspired by a Clone Wars Animated elevator sequence.

Lamy Scribble is a perfect fit for kids' hands

One of the main themes of this blog is that a fun and effective way to encourage kids to embrace their own artistic paths and growth is to share artist grade tools with them, so they can try them under supervised conditions. In this case, I lent my large Moleskine sketchbook and a sturdy 3.15 mm Lamy Scribble (loaded with a Caran D'Ache 3.0 mm HB lead) to my niece for some doodling before bedtime.
Her first drawing was that of her trusty symbol for "robot".
As she grew comfortable with this sketching set up, she started to look around the room for subjects to draw: a stuffed pumpkin (to which she added her whimsical symbols for "butterfly", "duck", and "mouse").
And a fairly literal representation of the night table with a lamp.
The Scribble compact size, well-balanced body, and ergonomic grip make it a perfectly suitable tool for little hands. The 3.15 mm lead size resists breakage and can yield interesting strokes of varying line weight. Lamy lead refills seem to be available only in 4B that can smear rather easily on some papers. Yet the Scribble can also hold the Caran D'Ache Tehnograph 3.0 mm lead refills that come in HB, 3B, and 6B and are twice as long as the Lamy refills. The HB leads tend to yield cleaner marks that resist smudging. Though a tad pricey, the Scribble would make a fine present on a special occasion for the young drawing enthusiast in the family.

Artistic kids impromptu sketching session during birthday party

Art supplies and coloring book combo kit: always a good choice to stimulate budding artists' creativity.

The Crayola® Color Wonder® Magic Light Brush set initially caught Nicole's attention, but she later found the thick clear paint frustratingly hard to handle. While they work well in preventing potential messy staining accidents, their sticky gel consistency does not help paint flow as readily nor as smoothly as a juicy wash of artist watercolor paint. Thus this kit would be recommended for beginning artists that might make a mess, but more advance students would be better off with quality paints and close supervision for a more fruitful and joyful painting experience.
Despite the glue-like consistency, the young artist managed to produce a fairly pleasing abstract piece.
Encourage practice and enjoyment of the drawing challenge, and artistic growth and confidence will naturally follow.
Pencil sketch of dancing guys which already display several graphic symbols for sounds and music.
Never too young to start doodling and following her big sister's example.
Confidently drawing with permanent ink from a Pitt Artist brush pen.
This aquatic menagerie included a whale, dolphin, and shark among other creatures over a spiral pattern grid.
"Good cousins draw the requests of their younger cousins".
Coloring a custom Purple Ranger with Caran D'Ache Neocolor II watercolor crayons.
Nicole's wall galleries.

Camila showing a promising start in figure drawing with this little guy which was "butt-enhanced" by her sister with a "3" symbol sketch.

Another watercolor kit for kids

Got this Faber Castell Gel Sticks set on clearance at a Target store for under 7 bucks. Each stick has a protective cap and twistable-advance mechanism like a stick of ChapStick, so they are pretty clean to use. These watercolor crayons have a tad unusual texture, for they feel like very soft, creamy, and moist pastels that blend easily with a waterbrush. They deliver reasonably bright flat washes. Quick color chart shown below:
The colors might tend to stain a bit on certain surfaces, so care should be taken to protect surrounding areas while painting. I had to use Masters Brush soap to clean my waterbrush from the red crayon stains.

Intermediate Art Materials tip for Manga fans: Coloring Flesh Tones

Once a budding artist has explored and reached the limitations of "student grade" art materials, it might be time to start exploring "artist grade" professional markers and watercolors. For coloring manga faces, Copic Sketch markers are a popular choice given the wide assortment of flesh tones included in their range. For beginners, a basic set of favorite colors and a few flesh tones (like YR00, E00, E11, E50) might be a good start to try them out. The main challenge of the Copic Sketch markers is the cost barrier, and that to achieve smoother gradients and richer colors requires a large investment on bigger sets. Even though more and more art is now created digitally, every once in a while is still nice to work with quality tools in the real world. On that account, Copic markers certainly deliver top performance and convenience.Another alternative for coloring of flesh tones would be to try artist grade watercolors applied with a waterbrush or a sable brush. Raw Sienna (Pigment PY43) is a particular good choice for coloring face drawings given its transparency (for it will not cover the black outlines like a more opaque color like yellow ochre would). I used Winsor & Newton artist pan watercolor for the samples above, but Holbein tube paint might be more readily available in other parts of the world. For the latter, one could simply squeeze some watercolor from the tube and allow it to dry on a small ceramic dish for a convenient custom pan. With some practice and careful gradated washes of even a single watercolor hue, it's possible to convey volume and shadow as effectively as a handful of markers. Naturally when using watercolors, the paper support has to be able to withstand light washes to avoid excesive warping.

Just random sketch

Cave exploring kids sketched with an Uni-ball F 2.0 mm leadholder. Inspiration came out of nowhere while waiting for some auto repairs.

Creative Tip: Big sketchbook for little artists

A couple of years ago I gave a 11" X 14" ProArt hardbound sketchbook to my young nieces to encourage their artistic development and create a suitable permanent record of this collaborative effort. To start the learning process, I drew waterproof outlines of favorite subjects for them to color from time to time:



As their confidence and proficiency grew in handling assorted coloring materials (wax crayons, colored pencils, watercolor crayons, and watercolors), they also started drawing and creating their own version of common childhood drawing symbols for mermaids, princesses, and castles:





It might have seemed premature to supply little artists with so many tools so early, but in my experience their artistic growth can be maximized by the availability of good quality art tools, steady family support, and a handy sketchbook offering a large blank space for them to freely express their creativity. Kids' art tip: once a year gift a hardbound sketchbook to the fledgling artists in your list and encourage them to date each page or favorite drawings, for they easily become nice additions to the family library as visual records of each kids' individual artistic development as well as tools for them to track their progress and target areas for improvement.

Just a graphite sketch

Doodled this sketch of my artist niece from a photograph using a 3.15 mm leadholder, Lamy Scribble, loaded with Caran D'Ache Technograph 3B 3.0 mm lead. This stubby leadholder is quite comfortable for sketching albeit a tad expensive and somewhat hard to keep loaded with 3.00-3.15 mm lead which is not so widely available (luckily Google usually yields a couple of reliable sources stateside). Yet for the those committed to developing their sketching skills, it's a a sound investment and sure to become a trusted sturdy tool for life. The 3.15 mm 4B Lamy graphite refills are rather short and tend to smear, so I prefer to load the Scribble with Technograph 3B leads. The Caran D'Ache 3.0 mm graphite lead is a marvel of Swiss engineering: resistant to breakage and yields fairly smear-proof line strokes.