Build Focus & Drawing Skills for Kids in 90 Days

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I have a daughter who loves to draw. She loves cartoons and has a skill for drawing Anime style characters. I was happy to get the chance to review Cognitive Drawing; Learning the Male Figure by Jason Brubaker. Summer is a time for learning new skills Drawing is one that we don’t take the time to hone during the school year, but it can also be just as tempting to slip into the TV habit.

Our son was a fan of the Anime cartoons too. He did a great job of discovering which ones the children could watch as a family. But the world of cartoons is not all child’s play. We have had to talk about being careful about what we watch and the messages that we are receiving. We set some clear boundaries to TV time and only give access to YouTube on the main television in full view of everyone.

How can you get drawing skills offline?

My daughter has a few favorite artists and will watch YouTube videos with drawing tutorials, but I have my own concerns about navigating YouTube. Cognitive Drawing is just the thing she needed to systematically learn how to draw the human figure. It is the foundation for great visual storytelling. Even more, Cognitive Drawing is teaching her how to use her eyes to observe the world around her.

The book is written for your student to use completely independently. This is why I highly recommend it for an elective drawing course. Art never gets its full due at our house. It deserves a place in our homeschool. Even more so. Our young artists deserve to be supported with tools and resources that help them express their gifts.

If we aren’t intentional, elective art classes won’t happen. With ten kids, I am always needed for something. Now, we have less kids but I have more jobs! Independent work is the great equalizer. Around 6th grade, kids can work independently with great success. You still have to check up on them, but they can easily read and follow directions. Even more so if it is a subject they truly enjoy.

Our daughter can work at her own pace and get a real studio study type course. Using books from the Cognitive Drawing Series is one way we are getting Art practice and more time to teach.

About the Method

The Cognitive Method uses three steps to help you develop drawing skills

• The Testing Effect – Once you learn an ideas, practice it right away to get immediate feedback

• Practice – Repeating the learned skill, several times with further accuracy and fluency

• Memory Consolation – Sleep is vital to learning new skills, your brain needs time to sort and store new

information. I love teaching my teens that sleep is a vital part of producing skills.

About the Value of Rest

Did you know that both Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo Da Vinci practiced altered sleep schedules. Da Vinci slept in intervals. He knew how powerful sleep was to cognitive performance. Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein also practiced different sleeping schedules to boost the power of their brains to do high intensity work.

My main takeaway is that NAPS are GENIUS!

Are you looking for elective ideas for your creative kid? Cognitive Drawing is part of Timberdoodle’s 11th Grade Curriculum Kit. Timberdoodle is where I go to get hand on learning ideas and the tools for electives that are meaningful for our homeschool. I am a member of their review team and will be adding more reviews of things we use in our homeschool all year long. Let me know if there is something you are looking for or a grade, age, subject you are looking for too.