What art supply would you give your 9 year old self?
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Looking to buy some art related gift for my art-inclined niece (she's 9). Looking back, what gift/book/art supply encouraged you to keep creating when you were a kid?
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@Laurel-Aylesworth I had a very weird childhood because the person I spent most time with was my 10-year-older brother - so what interested me then (Frazetta and Royo mostly) is not very relevant. But I can tell you what inspires and activates my 9-year-old daughter. She likes to follow books that teach how to draw using simple forms (their are many for children), she loves zentangle in all forms and she has recently fallen in love with a book by Linda Ravenscraft about drawing fairies. She uses my light table a lot (much more than I do) to copy drawings and photos from books and magazines. I have lent her my Winsor and Newton watercolors and showed her how much more intense the colors are compared to the children watercolor sets - and now she would love to have better watercolors than the classic children ones.
Ah, and she absolutely adores Calvin and Hobbes. -
@Laurel-Aylesworth At the moment, I am thinking about the "Art of [Some Favorite Animation/Film]" kinds of books (like "Art of Zootopia" or "Art of The Secret of the Kells" or "Art of Spirited Away" or "Art of Star Wars", etc.). I didn't have those back then, but I think that it would have been inspirational & aspirational for me [also showing me how these were created, which would have set me off on the right foot early on]. A place to start for perusing them (or buying) might be http://stuartngbooks.com/; though, you won't likely be able to get an order by Christmas, unless you live or are traveling in/near Torrence, California!
Also, a lot of my inspiration and initial development came from comic books & copying the art there...
As far as art supplies... I probably would have benefited from a prismacolor set and decent paper. I think it would make a good compliment to the watercolors that @smceccarelli mentioned, allowing her to explore wet & dry media and consider mixed media.
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@Laurel-Aylesworth Anatomy for artists book would be number one. I was pretty young when i got my first one but i remember wanting one for a couple years before i got the nerve up to ask for one
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Drawing Comics the Marvel Way was a big deal for me (that and every Peanuts/Calvin and Hobbes book I could get my hands on)... I know my kids have enjoyed several how to draw books that carry a theme they are interested in (Pokemon) and my oldest daughter loves the books that you are asked to finish drawings in.
Forever and always colored pencils and marker sets along with some sketchbooks though. I think I may have received my first drawing table around age 9-10 (made me feel like I was a real cartoonist!).
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For me it was watching movies along with having an art book available to draw while watching
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@Laurel-Aylesworth Is it too late to answer? I would have loved high-quality materials that "real" artists use. Really good colored pencils or high quality paints with really good brushes with a good shape. Toned paper with a good tooth I would have loved. Good materials can be really eyeopening. My own kids love that sort of thing, for sure.
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you have to go with the loomis books so much great info and basic enough for an enthusiastic 9 year old.
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Do you know what she is drawn to? I was all about horses, so any horse related thing was super cool. And I practiced drawing from the cartoon illustrators work from the horse magazine we subscribed to. So it could be a book for reference if she already has a lot of other art supplies. Or then I'd get a nice set of colored pencils
