Book Nook: Art Books for Kids from Quarto Knows

While I enjoy getting to review art books for older kids and adults, sometimes it's nice to look at books with projects geared more for beginning artists, especially kids. I have the chance to highlight four books that are great for budding artists of all ages, but especially designed for kids, who like to incorporate play and experimentations in their artistic endeavors.

Art Lab for Kids: 52 Creative Adventures in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Paper, and Mixed Media-For Budding Artists of All Ages
This step-by-step book offers 52 fun and creative art projects set into weekly lessons, beginning with drawing, moving through painting and printmaking, and then building to paper collage and mixed media. Each lesson features and relates to the work and style of a contemporary artist and their unique style. Grouped by medium, the labs are set up loosely to build skills upon the previous ones; however, you can begin anywhere. Color photos illustrate how different people using the same lesson will yield different results, exemplifying the way the lesson brings out each artist’s personal style.

Mixed-media artist and art teacher Susan Schwake is best known for her playful, process-oriented teaching style and for her bold use of color in her nature-inspired paintings. For over 20 years, she has enjoyed bringing out each student's personal style and nurturing their self-expression through their own artwork in her classroom. She continues to teach art in her little private school called Artstream Studios in New Hampshire and online at www.susanschwake.com. Susan has written five books about making art with others. Her Art Lab for Kids series is a bestseller—the series has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide and is available in nine languages.

Rainer Schwanke is a versatile and talented media designer holding a master's degree in graphic design. His photography has been used in hundreds of business- and arts-related design works for print and websites. He is co-owner of artstream studios (www.artstreamstudios.com) and lives with his wife, Susan, in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Creative Adventures in Cursive
Creative Adventures in Cursive gives kids ideas for practicing writing skills, then guides them into cursive creativity. As many educators will attest, writing in cursive provides cognitive benefits in spelling, memory, reading comprehension, language skills, and overall academic confidence. Practicing cursive carries similar benefits when drawing; once you learn the basic shapes, you can play with it by creating your own personal style.

In Creative Adventures in Cursive, noted author Rachelle Doorley, the creative force behind Tinkerlab, shows twenty-two fun and colorful ways to use script to make posters, present school projects, design monograms, create greeting cards, decorate book bags and t-shirts, ice cookies and cakes -- writing in script with everything, including fabric markers, pastry tubes, string and yarn, and of course brushes, pens, and crayons.

Rachelle Doorley is an arts educator, community builder, and founder of the popular creativity blog Tinkerlab. She is also the author of TinkerLab: A hands-on guide for little inventors, published by Roost in 2014. Rachelle lives with her husband and her two curious daughters in Palo Alto, where she leads workshops on visual thinking and hands-on creativity. Rachelle believes in finding fun and meaningful ways to make every day creative, and can often be found experimenting in her sketchbook, taking her kids on adventures, and asking lots of open-ended questions. 

Playful Learning Lab for Kids: Whole-Body Sensory Adventures to Enhance Focus, Engagement, and Curiosity
Recent research has shown that children learn and develop new skills more quickly when they engage in playful, whole body activities. Movement allows them to refocus their attention, improves brain function, reduces stress, and improves circulation. Not only that, but the more senses that are used for learning, the more likely information is to be stored and retrieved.

The activities in Playful Learning Lab for Kids explore concepts in reading, language, math, art, music, science, geography, and social studies, all while engaging children with movements, touch, sound, and sight. Most distinguishing of all, the activities and lessons here include suggestions for tailoring the experience to different levels, making it a book children can grow with. The skills range from visual perceptual skills and spatial awareness, to early geometry concepts, visual motor integration, and fine motor skills.

Claire Heffron is a practicing occupational therapist. She completed her undergraduate studies at Ohio University and holds a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from the University of North Carolina. She has been practicing in public and specialized school-based settings for 10 years. Claire is also mother to three noisy boys.  Lauren Drobnjak graduated from Youngstown State University with a Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy. She has practiced for more than 18 years in both clinical and school-based settings, and 17 of those years specifically in pediatrics. She is also a busy mother to three.     About The Inspired Treehouse: ​Claire and Lauren are executive directors of The Treehouse Ohio, a non-profit organization located in Bedford, Ohio that provides free and low-cost play groups for kids to promote developmental skills. Together, they run theinspiredtreehouse.com, an online community serving therapists, parents, and teachers. They believe that with a little help, kids can build strong, healthy bodies and minds through play. They feature easy-to implement activities that are designed to promote all kinds of developmental skills for kids. As pediatric occupational and physical therapists, they are also passionate about sharing information, tips, and strategies to help their readers conquer the common developmental roadblocks that come up for kids. They believe that the more parents, teachers, and caregivers know about child development and wellness, the better off kids are! They are also coauthors, with Dayna Abraham, of their first book, Sensory Processing 101.  Follow them online to join the community: www.facebook.com/inspired.treehouse, www.instagram.com/insptreehouse/, twitter: @inspiredtree Collage Workshop for Kids: Rip, snip, cut, and create with inspiration from The Eric Carle Museum Collage Workshop for Kids pairs essays by educators from The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art with instructions on collage technique. Chapters explore favorite art themes for kids and demonstrate how to work with colored tissue paper, newspaper, fabric and buttons, painted paper, torn paper, and more. In each chapter, Reggio-inspired author and teacher Shannon Merenstein explores each technique with original ideas. Members of the museum's education staff offer expert advice on creating art with children. Shannon Merenstein is a mom and educator in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The owner and creative director of Hatch Art Studio, she is endlessly inspired by the creativity, joy, and imagination of children. Part art-making studio, part community-gathering space, Hatch aspires to be a special place in Pittsburgh for people of all ages to explore, create, and imagine. Shannon returned to Pittsburgh after graduating from Pratt Institute, where she studied painting and art education. Before opening Hatch, she was an art educator and instructional coach for nearly a decade, all the while dreaming up and testing out new and creative art projects for children.