Drawing Activities for Kids

Use these drawing activities to inspire your kids' imaginations and reinforce art skills. Kids love to draw but sometimes have trouble getting started. These ideas give children a starting point and are diverse enough for every child to create something. Children will use the skills reinforced during these activities in other artwork and begin to improve their artwork as a whole.

Give children small, three-dimensional objects such as small plastic animals for this activity that teaches observation of detail in drawing. Have them examine the object closely from all sides. Tell them to pretend they are standing over, in front of, behind, beside, underneath, very close to and very far from the object as they examine it and to imagine what each view would look like. Have kids draw the object as it would appear from each of the views.

Tape large paper to a wall and have children stand against the paper. Draw around each child's outline. If the paper is not large enough, have them sit on the floor in front of the paper and draw the outline from the waist up. Give children an outline of a friend to fill in with facial, body and clothing details. Everyone keeps the name of the person he is detail-drawing a secret. Later, attach all the drawings to a wall and have children try to figure out which drawing represents which person. Remind them to look for facial and clothing detail as they draw so that others will be able to guess whom they have drawn.

Give kids a black marker and a large piece of paper. Have them pick place their marker on one spot on the paper while holding the paper still with the other hand. Tell kids to close their eyes and scribble one continuous line on the paper as they count to 10. Tell them to open their eyes and examine the scribble while turning the paper around different ways. They should imagine what the scribble could be, then use colored pencils to draw details and turn the scribble into an object or part of a scene.

Children use pencil to create rubbings of everyday items. Have them walk around as if on a scavenger hunt and find items to rub. Kids place the paper over the item and rub with a pencil. This transfers, or rubs, the design of the object onto the paper. Afterward, have kids use colored pencils to add details and incorporate their rubbings into a scene.

Choose a list of descriptive words. Words such as "hairy," "fat," "skinny," "polka dot," "crooked" or "fluffy" bring images to mind. Kids create word art by writing the word in a way that depicts its meaning. For instance, the word "fluffy" might have letters created of tiny clouds. "Hairy" might have letters created to look as if covered in hair.

Give children a theme and specific number of shapes that must appear in the scene. This activity reinforces shape use and recognition of shapes in the real world. Each kid may use the same directions but interpret them differently. For instance, the directions might say, "Draw an amusement park in which two ovals, three circles, one trapezoid, four triangles, two pentagons, one rectangle and four squares are used to create other objects." If more than one child creates the drawing, you may want to have them share their work so all kids can see how different each drawing might be.

Kids draw a picture from the height perspective of a bug. Have kids pick a location such as a park, restaurant, playground or home and imagine what that place would look like if they were a bug crawling on the ground. Children may benefit from lying on the ground but will also have to remember that to a bug, even small things such as a coin appear huge.

Each child needs four pieces of paper, all about the same size, 4 inches by 6 inches or larger, on which to draw a creature head, body, legs and arms. Have them draw one body part on each of the four pieces of paper. Give them as much or as little direction as desired about types of creature parts to draw. Instruct them to draw large, clear body parts that fill up the paper. Kids choose one body part to keep. Shuffle the rest together in piles and pass back out, making sure no one gets another body part they drew. Have kids cut the body parts out and glue them together on another piece of paper to make a creature with head, body, arms and legs. Colored pencils can be used to add detail.