Cognitive Drawing: A Timberdoodle Review

This is a sponsored post. I received this item from Timberdoodle in exchange for an honest review. These thoughts and these words and these opinions are, as always on this page and in real and regular life, all completely and totally my own.

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I have a lot of artistic kids.

And figuring out ways to manage their interests and increase their abilities and provide practice for their skills has been a formidable challenge over the years.

We’ve done in person classes – which I prefer – and we’ve experimented with online courses and we’ve checked out library books and tapped into whatever else seemed to work at the time, from You Tube videos to friends with talent.

And maybe this is just another one of those ideas.

It’s a self-paced course and it’s a consumable book. But maybe consumable isn’t the right word. You WILL draw directly in this book and you will need one book per student taking this course. But I also believe you will save this book when your student is finished as part of their portfolio for their year’s course work.

Here’s what I like about it:

It’s drawing the male figure. (This one is the male figure – this company does sell other options I believe.)

That’s difficult to find in an appropriate way. And yet, the human figure is critical to learn to draw. It’s foundational and important..

This book handles the human figure in a respectful and non-giggly way for high school students.

It uses a technique they call The Testing Effect. It is supposed to use a skill that increases long term memory in various forms of studying. I like the idea. In drawing, it basically means you look at an original you want to imitate. Then you test your memory and draw without looking at the original. Next you study the original again and then draw a new picture while you’re looking at the original. You cover up all the drawings for the third practice and work form memory again.

The book walks you (clearly and concisely) through various exercises just like this. The human eye. An arm. A horse. Etc.

It’s step by step so it’s easy to follow and even easier to see progress, which makes it immediately more accessible to kids who need to see their progress. (And that’s every kid I’d say.)

In fact, on Day 2 you draw a full bodied person and on Day 90 you will draw that same person so you can see tangible results fright in front of you.

At the front of the book there is a page that you fold over the original art in order to draw the pictures from your memory for one of the steps.

There’s an additional page in the back to tear off to hide portions of the pages when that step is involved.

I think this would be an easy course to assign for independent work for a student and I also think it could be a lot of fun to do this together with a group or with all of your kids. The workbook says ages 8 and up and Timberdoodle includes it with their 11th grade curriculum.

Obviously, whatever age you do this with the student would do at their own ability, which makes it idea to complete with various ages.

You can order an individual copy right here or order the 11th grade entire curriculum right here.

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