Ed Emberley's Drawing Books

Usually it's best to stick with one book when doing a book review, but I thought "What the hay, we'll just do them all in one go."  And that's what I did.

Oh, yeah, I haven't done anything yet. Clarification needed? Now that's just asking for too much!

Today I'm going to write about Ed Emberley's massive drawing book collection. I don't take the word massive lightly either! Ed Emberley has created almost every type of drawing book a kid would ever need. There are of course the colour books. From green to orange, red to umm... whatever other colours there were - chances are that Ed Emberley had a book that matched your favourite colour. 

My favourite part about Emberley's books is that almost anyone could do the drawings in these books. Yes, I know I'm an artist and could literally do any of these drawings without help, but I couldn't always! Emberley breaks down each drawing into easy shapes for kids to draw. 

Can you draw a triangle, a circle, a rectangle, and maybe some wavy lines? If your answer is yes, then you can draw anything in these books. Really, that's all there is to it! Want to do a bit more? Then he'll help there too!

The great thing about these books is that this is really the way an artist draws. Make basic shapes (in correct proportion) and connect them together to draw anything that can be imagined. It's a wonderful start to a kid's art education.

One of my favourite books (or was it part of a book?) was the book where there was a face making game. I believe there was dice that was rolled and the roller had to draw a part of a person. The end result was usually a very funny drawing. 

There were so many books that I couldn't tell you half of them! There is a thumbprint book, where you just add details to create your drawings. I loved the large structures that Emberley would add into his big "colour" books - the ships always being my favourites. I always had a special place in my heart for the orange book, but I think it was my favourite colour at the time.  Animals, trains, ships, people, robots and so much more are things a person can learn to draw with these books. Don't know what to draw? Draw the world with Ed Emberley's Drawing Book "Make A World"!  

I love these books so very much, and I hope that those who read this will pick up a copy (they have most new versions at the major booksellers). Even if there are no kids to give this to, it's good to pick up just for personal education. I'm going to make it my personal mission to collect as many of these as I can. Uh, for my son... yeah. Not for me, because I draw already! 

A great big THANK YOU to Ed Emberley for creating these wonderful books!