123 I Can Paint!

Janet Collins is a freelance writer in Sechelt, British Columbia.

Here’s a series of books that is bound to inspire many a budding young artist. Each volume provides easy-to-follow instructions on how to approach a series of projects involving one type of art-making technique—drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpting.

Using inexpensive materials, a number of projects are given to guide the reader through a range of related art-making techniques. The drawing book, for example, introduces the steps for creating various types of lines before moving on to drawing various geometric shapes. Those shapes are then combined to form a face, and then a body. Similarly, the painting book provides exercises to develop an understanding of colour theory, tonality, and colour mixing before moving on to a presentation of different painting techniques that will allow the budding artist to incorporate those lessons into the composition of a painted picture. The printmaking book presents a range of techniques that produce an equally wide range of effects—block printing, relief printing, stamping, etc. The sculpting book builds on the concepts presented in the other books in the series to help the young artist create three-dimensional artworks. So fingerprints can become butterflies, egg cartons turn into alligators, and so on.

Middle-school readers can handle most of the text themselves, while younger ones will find the colourful illustrations inspiring enough to get the creative juices flowing. All of the finished projects illustrated appear to be made by children within the target age group, so the outcome of the projects is quite achievable for young readers. Notes to parents and teachers at the back of each volume will help focus learning outcomes and aid in building lesson plans from the step-by-step instructions provided for each project.