Here’s a great rainy-day art project for your kids to have a go at that involves drawing their favourite soft toy or teddy bear. It’s a nice easy one and they can follow along with the simple instructions.
(This art project comes from back issue #9 of the BRILLIANT BRAINZ children’s magazine. Every issue is packed full of activities for your 6-to-12-year-old, so subscribe now to get it delivered to their doormat every month! Sample issue)
Draw your beloved soft toy
INTRODUCTION: Today, you will be creating beautiful detailed drawings of your most treasured teddy bear or soft toy. You will just be using pencil for this art project, and you learn some techniques to help you capture the aspects you love most about your toy: the fur, the eyes, the softness, the character, and your feelings towards him or her.
This drawing style is slow, and requires careful observation, but, as the subject is something you love, hopefully, you will enjoy the process, and use the same technique to draw other toys and objects. Or, if you are feeling brave, your pet!
YOU WILL NEED:
- A soft toy
- A piece of white A3 cartridge paper
- A few different pencils – HB & 2B/4B (2B and 4B are much softer)
- Rubber
- Pencil sharpener
WHAT TO DO:
- Place your soft toy in front of you in a position you like. Start by lightly drawing the head – with detail such as eyes, ears, and nose.
2. Lightly draw in the rest of the toy: the arms, legs and body. Try to capture the shape and the softness of your toy.
TOP TIP: You will notice that there is no straight outline anywhere on your soft toy, the line is soft and made up of fur, so make sure to look closely at its shape.
3. Next add the fur detail. Start with the face, and really look at the shape, length and direction of the fur. Make little marks using your pencil to try to recreate this. The fur on our teddy was slightly curly, so the pencil marks are slightly wavy and the direction follows the shape of the teddy bear.
TOP TIP: If you squint one eye and examine your toy, you will see that light and shadow make parts of your teddy look lighter or darker…
4. Continue adding furry detail, and the eyes, nose and ears. The nose of our teddy had much shorter fur, so we used dots here. You can sometimes press much harder with the pencil, and other times much lighter depending how thick the fur looks, or if there is light or shadow hitting the surface. Eyes are usually smooth and shiny, so use shading to create this and leave a little area of white near the centre to create the ‘shine’ on the eye.
5. Add other details, such as clothing, hats, or ribbons. The ribbon on our teddy had vertical lines so we created this using pencil lines following the shape of the ribbon.
6. Finish adding the rest of the detail by continuing with the fur marks, observing closely, and making sure your pencil marks follow the shape and direction of the fur. You can use your pencil really softly to help to show how soft the toy is, and to show its personality through your own eyes.
