Book Nook: Color Squared

My daughter loves art, as you probably know by now, so I love having the chance to review art books - especially being able to look at a kind of book we haven't seen before. That was the case with Color Squared: Color, Dot, Dash, or Stamp Your Way to Awesome Pixel Art. My daughter had seen pixel art before, but hadn't really done much with it.

Both of my girls love Legos and Minecraft, so the idea of pixel art fits right in. Instead of long line drawings, individual little squares or blocks make up the drawing. The book begins with an explanation of different ways to create pixel art. My daughters immediately new about color blocks, but it was a new idea to them to use one color with different shading, stamps (the book discusses how a pencil eraser is perfect for the grid it uses), dots, or patterns to differentiate between different areas on the grid.

Each spread has a small black-and-white pixelated picture, so the reader knows what the object is. Then there is plenty of blank space on that page to create a key using whatever tools the artist wants; the second page is the full numbered grid to create the design.

Occasionally there were surprises - my girls couldn't always tell right away which color was going to go where, so occasionally they'd end up with a picture a little different than they expected, but it still was a fun way to create designs. There's a bit of a nod to old-school designs, like roller skates, cassettes, and phones (which gave my girls a mini history lesson on icons of my childhood). 

It's a fun book, good for any artist, or even for kids who aren't totally into art but need a rainy day activity.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."