My neighbor boy, who is about 9, wants me to teach him art. He’s serious and devoted. But, he’s just a little too young/naive to accept or understand the kinds of serious stuff I try to show him, and honestly, I don’t know how to “dumb it down” to better fit his age.

I’m wondering if anyone has an idea of an age appropriate web site, or book that I could suggest to him? I appreciate any help or ideas.

I actually think 9 is old enough to understand most of the core concepts in representational art, like light/shadow, shapes, values, edges, colors. What did you try to explain to him that he didn’t quite understand? Maybe more demonstration and less theory would help?

I’m very interested in this topic because my son will be born in May and I’m already imagining what I could teach him at what age

I was seven years old when I realized I was able to draw horses and trains. At the age of nine I got interested in drawing people. Of course, I drew anything and did not have any idea of the basic principles of drawing. Later on I wanted to work on oil and watercolor. No body guided me since I had a “teacher” who had no clues about art. I wish someone would have guided me in the right direction. At the beginning of secondary education an art teacher became interested and showed me how to paint using oil. I guess that was too much for me. In fact he painted me at the age of 10. My portrait is shown below. However, since he was not my real art teacher I lost interest and I abandoned art later on. Well, I guess is never too late to learn art.
At this young age drawing still life and to learn composition and values would be a major step for a talented child and to be persistent and be guided by an adult in order to avoid giving up a good and promising career. I still believe that children understand very well at this age, but they still need to be guided by the right person.
I will never forget after I had my first communion at the age of eight our teacher told us: “Now you should know what is right and what is wrong”. I understood very well what she meant to say. However, the proper guidance of a dedicated adult is always needed.

I think 9 years is a time for exploring media and drawing, painting, modeling, creating what interests him…perhaps drawing his action figures…

One book that is available as a free download is Stan Lee’s How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way…It introduces a lot of drawing concepts in a clear and fun way.

Most 9 year olds also like to do stop motion animation…which can be done with clay or play doh or whiteboard or toy or a combination. There are free apps to download.

Amazon has drawing books for his age. I bought my 6 yr old granddaughter some books on how to draw animals.

Quwatha Valentine

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/quwatha-valentine.html

http://quwatha-valentine.artistwebsites.com/index.html

Those how to draw books are great!
The one I got was “How to Draw Horses” I loved it, simple shapes, oval, triangles and rectangles that become the form of the horse.
I did move away from art after grade school and didn’t come back until my 40’s but those basic lessons came back fast.
I think the boy is wanting a companion as much as an instructor.
The best teacher is experience, so a quick lesson, not too much theory and set him to draw while you work on one of your projects. He’ll learn as much from watching you work as anything you could teach him orally.
A picture is worth a thousand words and watching someone make a picture a is worth a million or more!

Two suggestions
1 If dinosaurs are his thing you might try https://www.dragoart.com/dinosaurs-c323-1.htm Which is free dinosaurs drawing tutorials geared to kids.

2 If he wants to learn more the lessons here are great, just adjust explanation to his educational level and let him see what others have posted.

Kinda sounds like he is interested but no one at home is. Good luck, you may have a future artist at your side. At 9 I could not sit long enough to draw for more than a few minutes,:lol:

Joe