Digital Kids: Computer-Aided Drawing is Good Drawing Practice

Here is another quick post on kids, technology, and drawing. The goal to unplug your kids is important and choosing what they are plugging into is also important! Computer-aided drawing is actually good drawing practice. Here is another example of a great kid, Ananda, spending time on a computer in order to improve her drawing skills:

If she’d done the same drawing with a set of colored pencils, she would be learning more subtle, tactile fine motor skills. This would stimulate her to spend time in her body and her head. She would also be learning more challenging planning skills because there aren’t layers or the “command Z” ways of undoing things that you have in digital mediums. Still, by doing this drawing using one of Corel’s drawing programs, she is gaining real-world skills that can lead to internships in high school and a career path beyond.

I can’t take credit for teaching her the Corel program that she learned at a summer camp at The Contemporary Austin Art School this summer. This is a great place where I used to teach kids and still teach adults. She has put her basic drawing skills that we’ve now worked on for 2 years to digitally create an entertaining way to explore her ideas and share her drawings with her friends. She’s pretty awesome, and I think if your kids are going to be on computers, why not connect with them in this way?!

Here is Ananda’s awesome creation, a walk through the entire drawing process of her “Phoenix Fox” speed draw, set to Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. Enjoy!

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