Art notes

So, first and foremost the best thing you can do to help inspire his creativity is by supporting his interests in any fashion, even if you aren't into it. for me as a kid it was creatures, pokemon and animals,. My mom knew nothing about pokemon and didn't understand my fascination with it but still went out of her way to get me the books (she didn't let me watch the show because at the time she thought it was too violent and thought the pokemon died XD), the games, and took me to the library so I could stock up on books i wanted. I was a very visual kid so I was always taking books that had pictures and then tried to replicate them on computer paper. Replicating is such good prcatice for kids. It helps teach to look at an image and draw what they see. It helps them to separate what you THINK an image looks like versus what it LOOKS like. This is one of the most important skills artists can need and honestly once that most of us struggle with. Bob Ross used to preach the idea of drawing what you see and ignoring the voice in yur head that tells you "no no, but trees are green and straight, not purples and deep blues with bended trunks".  To help guide him with learning this skill (for example with Litwick) tell him he did a great joba nd you want otry and draw one together! (then, pull up an image and show him all the lines that exist in the image. Teach him to look at each line and the way it curves and be positive about it. Don't make it a thing where he must FEEL pressured to draw every line but can appreciate and see them. Then ask him to draw Litwick and see if he starts following those lines with his eyes and really looking at the image and details it entails ^^ I had to learn to do this on my own and now it's the way i see most things naturally and helps alot with form and proportions when drawing from my head.

The 2nd piece of advice. I'm currently reading a book about artistic recovery because I have a bad habit of burning myself out  in my older art years haha. but in this book it talks about keeping your artistic well stocked with fish. Provide yourself with images, sensations and touchable resources that give you inspiration (for me, flowers rocks and nature life are a big trigger for my inspiration) For young kids, nature is a really good inspirer as well as books. Give him lots of them. Doesn't matter if they're artbooks or books with just pictures. Let him expirement and find his niche in what he likes to draw on his own but with gentle guidance and support. When he comes to you for advice or critique- always start with positives and be careful with your words. don't say things like "Is that a dog?" or guess what it is, because if he draw a dragon and you guess a dog, subconsciously a(of course not because you meant to) he may start to feel he isn't doing a good enough job. Instead, give small helpful tips, ask questions or give suggestions like "Oh buddy that looks so cool! What color are you going to make it? What is you make his tail a little longer? Would YOU like that?" and if he says no, don't press it.

Resources: Obviously during most of my life, it was books and movies haha. Back then photoshop and computers were inaccessable and that stuff will come later. I watched a ton of disney movies and would pause frames and try to draw or replicate them. Books that I specifically remember loving were step by steps but I was and still am picky about them. DO NOT give him the step by step drawing books that are like 1, 2, 3, 4 and DONE! Because they usually skip over added details and jump to images that didn't have a piece on step 2 that they do now on step 3....Give him detailed and resourceful step by steps that break pieces of the body or image down into parts and show you how to draw those parts first and THEN the whole. Specifically, in my dragon phase, I remember loving Neondragonart's "How to Draw Dragons and Fantasy Creatures" book and held it as a bible...still love that book. The structure of that book is what i love about it and it really teaches you to look at the way the body structure iand gives you variety on what it CAN be~ Some other books that helped me were "Draw 200 Animals" by Lee J. Ames and also the EYEWITNESS animal and nature books were great references for me as a kid because they have great images~  If you choose to enroll him in an art class, really ask about how the class is done. My mom enrolled me in an art class- trying to be helpful- when I was young but i had severe ADHD and wanted to draw specific things while this teacher wanted to "teach me" how to draw more realistic things instead of supporting what I likes to draw. And by teaching me, it meant  I sat at a desk in a room with 4 other kids, "drawing" realistic kentucky wildlife with a colored pencil in my hand not knowing the technique I was told to do by the teacher 5 minutes ago and being frustrated that I couldn't replicate it before my mind wandered about how i'd rather be drawing dragons and animals that I liked...and when the teacher came over and saw I hadn't made progess she would "help me" do it by basically doing all of it for me. So the art was maybe 85% her and 15% me.... no shock I stopped going after a year or so...If he enrolls, ask him about his teacher and how the class goes and if the teacher likes and helps him do what he wants to draw.


In the later years, when digital art began to surface, I knew nothing of tablets, photoshop and digital methods and had to teach myself a LOT because even then youtube wasn't really a thing. Kids now are blessed with a plethora of resources but honestly, diving in and just trying to figure it out is a great way to learn too and how to remember what YOU did and techniques YOU like. I began drawing with legitimately a mousepad on a laptop. it took HOURS and weeks to finish anything but I liked it and was so inspired by other people's online drawings that I wanted to try it too. I did this for 2 years and finally, i learned more about tablets and my parents helped me to get my first tablet, a very small Wacom Bamboo tablet. I really likes it at the time because it's truly a great starter tool with not a lot of buttons to interface and does its job. Streamlines drawing. The problem I have now with USB tablets (having been traditionally learned and your son may come across this if he goes from traditional to digital as well) is that there is a disconnect from your eye to your tool. With pencil and paper your hand is connected to your brain and you are looking at the image you make as you do it. WIth USB tablets, you have to look at a screen while your hand is moving and i found myself looking down at my hand but obviously there was nothing to see but the tablet's surface and it was frustrating. But it was better than the alternative laptop mousepad. So  i kept at it and got pretty good. I used USB tablets from high school all the way up until 2018. I could usually finish a simple flat bust in 2 hours time. Then, the game chnager of my miscrosoft surface pro...this sped up my production SO much because it was similar to how I remember and still practice drawing ....traditionally with pencil on paper. Being able to use photoshop and draw straight onto the screen was so helpful. I do have some qualms with the surface pro (sometimes the pen wasn't perfectly callibrated even after recalbirating) and if I held my hand at a weirdangle which I do when I draw it can't register that but overall its a great tool. For starter programs I recommend Paintool Sai. Later wgen its not so much an expense, absolutely let him use photoshop or procreate depending on what you want. I think right now my subscription for photoshop is about $26 a month which like...ehh. it isn't great because it used to be that yu buy a software key and DONE but now...monthly payment plans. I experimened a TON on my own in photoshop and learned the ropes by myself but now there are a bunch of good tutorials for adults and kids on youtube



Traditional materials:
Pencils- Fabercastell (HB, 2b,4b, 6B, 8b), hard eraser and soft clay erasers are both good. For lineart i usually use: Pigma Micron ink Pens (various sizes- .005, .01, .05, etc.) Coloring now I use Prismacolor colored pencils but, a good starter set of wax colored pencils are also Blick Studio Artists' colored pencil or even Faber-Castell. I also like coloring with Copic Markers but they're pricey in america, so a good starter for alcohol markers would be Artist's Loft ~  I'm still getting back into water color paints but honestly I find tube watercolors are better than cake watercolors. I have not tried use Gouche watercolors but I know  alot of traditional artists swear by them being the best brand of watercolor paints. I usually used Artists Loft in both cake and tube and found those worked well enough for me~ Most paper brands are good but I usually used Strathmore Bristol, mixed Media or Watercolor paper. I like the thickness of the paper and it's more durable.  For sketching a typical skecthbook is good.  I prefer perforation or  even the paper edges be bound with glue so I can take pages out if i didn't want them.


Digital Art- I've been a huge Photoshop user since high school because it's the main one I know how to use. But I did use paintool Sai and enjoyed that as well. Wacom bamboo USB tablets are good starters. If you want later for him to graduate to an actual drawing tablet, I like my surface pro but people swear by the apple Ipad Pro. I myself have never used it so I cannot attest to the quality and user-friendliness of it, but i've seen friends and people make really great things. ClipStudio Paint (free trial but not a free program) is another good digital media. I've dabbled in adobe animate but honestly feel, for me, animating in photoshop is easier becasue I don't yet know how to get rid of vectors in Animate. I hate the way lines snap instead of staying the way i drew them. Sketchpad is free and online and can export your drawing onto your computer in multiple different filetypes. Lots of resources out there for digital art as I'm sure you know ^^