I make LittlePaper, a small iOS app (and a free lesson site) that teaches kids to draw one animal at a time. I write the app myself and draw every lesson illustration by hand. After making a couple of thousand lessons, I've settled on a few rules for breaking a drawing into steps. Here they are, in case they help anyone teaching drawing to kids, or building anything step-by-step.
1. Start from the biggest shape, not the face
Adults want to start with the eyes because that's where the character lives. Kids who start with the eyes usually run out of room for the body. So step one is almost always the largest simple shape: the round head of an octopus, the bean-shaped body of a cat. Everything else hangs off it, so its size and position decide whether the rest fits on the page.
2. One new idea per step
Each step adds exactly one thing: the arms, then the face, then the details. If a step needs two sentences to explain, it's two steps. This is the same rule I'd use for onboarding in an app: a screen that asks you to learn two things teaches neither.
3. Keep the earlier steps visible
Every step shows the whole drawing so far, not just the new part. A kid who looks up from the paper can see where they are and what the drawing should look like right now, which matters more than any written instruction for a child who can't read yet.
4. Prefer forgiving shapes
Short curls and round shapes survive a shaky hand better than long precise lines. If a small curve comes out a bit off, it still reads as an arm or an ear. The drawing should still work when it's wobbly.
5. Finish with color, and make color optional
The last step is a colored version, but the drawing is already "done" one step earlier. Some kids want to color, some want to draw the next animal. Both count as finishing.
An example
Here's one lesson built this way, a cartoon octopus with a round head and short curled arms:
https://drawwithlittlepaper.com/drawing-lessons/how-to-draw-a-cartoon-octopus-round-head-and-short-curled-arms/
The web lessons are free to use at home or in class. If you teach drawing to kids, I'd love to hear what step-breaking rules you use, especially for kids who say "I can't draw."
Top comments (0)