Beyond Drawing: Learning Art

Art and How it Works: An Introduction to Art for Children by Ann Kay. Copyright 2018 by DK Children.
Ages 7-9; Lexile level 880 

Among procedural non-fiction, few categories are as popular as “how to draw” books. For aspiring artists, these instructions on how to draw people, pets, Pokémon, and everything in between help develop confidence in their skills to put the images in their head to paper. Yet there’s so much more to art than accurately reproducing the shapes of things. How will young artists learn about the different mediums available to them or the elements that shape the viewers experience of their art unless they are taught? Hopefully, these children have quality art classes available, whether at school or elsewhere in the community.

For those who do not have such lessons (or who wish to explore further), Art and How it Works: An Introduction to Art for Children is art class compressed into a book. provides curious artists with a little bit of everything, mixing art history seamlessly with elements of art, art mediums, techniques, common subjects of artwork, and color associations.

Publisher DK is well-known for their use of large, appealing photographs in a variety of expository works, and that holds true here too. About half of each two-page spread is imagery, providing plenty of practical examples to accompany the text. Also, the text is grouped into small snippets rather than a single long explanation of each idea, which helps keep the attention of young readers. And that’s important when there’s as much information per topic as there is here! Reader tools include a timeline in the back helps bring all the mentioned history into order, as well as a glossary and index.

Even though this book is expositional rather than procedural, the vast overview of art topics can provide fledgling artists with starting points for different kinds of procedural art books or online resources, whether they find interest in a new medium like watercolors or a new technique like pointillism. One great resource to consider could be Creativebug, a subscription service that provides access to video lessons made by established teachers and artists on a variety of art and crafts topics. Especially for libraries that have a makerspace, setting up a library Creativebug account could really boost opportunities for new artists - children or otherwise!

Art and How it Works could be just the push that a child needs to progress from imitating the works of others to creating their own original imagery - and who knows, maybe someday that original work will make its own appearance in an art book down the road!