What Is Step-by-Step Drawing for Kids, and Why Does It Make Drawing Easier to Learn?
The quality of an instruction is not set by the number of steps, but by whether the child can tell what to do next.
Step-by-step drawing is a way of teaching drawing by breaking a finished picture into a sequence of manageable actions. For beginners, it is especially helpful when each stage makes the new line or shape immediately clear. A more complete practice sequence is to first study the steps, then trace the finished picture, and finally draw it independently.
It is more than six little pictures in a row
Step-by-step drawing usually means taking a finished picture and breaking it into several stages. But the quality of the instruction is not determined by how many steps it contains. The more important question is whether the child can immediately tell what to do next.
When we developed 111 drawings for Magic of Discoveries, this became one of the main rules behind the book. Every stage needed to add a manageable part of the picture, and the change needed to be immediately visible.
One step, one clear change
Imagine six nearly identical pictures, all made with black lines. An adult can quickly compare them and find the difference. A child has to search two entire pictures to figure out what changed.
That is why previous lines turn gray while the new lines stay black. The eye is immediately drawn to the change. It may sound like a small design decision, but clear instructions are built from small decisions like this.
Why the drawings begin with simple shapes
A child may not know how to draw a koala, but they can try to draw an oval. They may not know how to draw a whale, but they can make a curved line.
For a beginner, "draw a whale" and "draw this shape" are very different tasks. Step-by-step drawing replaces one large, unfamiliar result with a sequence of smaller, more familiar actions.
Showing the steps is only half the activity
This is where many drawing instructions stop. They show five or six stages and then expect the child to find a separate piece of paper and reproduce what they just saw.
We added an intermediate stage. After studying the sequence, the child first traces the complete picture along dotted lines, and only then draws the same subject independently. The sequence became: look, trace, draw independently, color. That is the foundation of all 111 activities.
Why the practice space is inside the book
We could have included only the instructions and fit more drawings onto fewer pages. We chose the opposite: 231 pages for 111 drawings, with almost every subject getting a complete two-page spread.
Instructions without a place to practice are only half an activity. The child does not need to find a sketchbook, a parent does not need another sheet of paper, a teacher does not need to print a worksheet. Open the spread and the activity is there.
What we learned from designing 111 sequences
The hardest part is not creating an attractive finished picture. The harder part is taking that picture apart correctly: deciding which shape comes first, which details can be introduced together, and when a step becomes too large.
That is why good step-by-step drawing is partly an illustration problem and largely a sequence-design problem. The English edition was a finalist in the Educational category of the Children's Book International Awards 2025.
What a good step-by-step instruction looks like
- You can see what changed at every stage
- The first step is a simple shape, not a finished outline
- The steps are shown in pictures, with no text
- After the steps there is tracing and space to draw
- Usually about six steps per drawing
Frequently asked questions
What is step-by-step drawing for kids?
Step-by-step drawing is a method that builds a finished picture through a sequence of manageable actions. Instead of copying the entire subject at once, the child adds one shape or detail at a time.
What makes a good step-by-step drawing instruction?
A good sequence makes it immediately clear what changed from one step to the next. In our system, new lines are black while previously drawn lines turn gray, so children can see exactly what to add.
Why do step-by-step drawings start with simple shapes?
Because "draw an oval" is a much smaller task for a beginner than "draw a koala." Familiar shapes are combined gradually until they become a finished picture that looked much more complicated at the beginning.
Why trace a picture after following the drawing steps?
Tracing creates a bridge between looking and drawing independently. The child physically follows the complete shapes and lines before trying to reproduce them without the dotted outline.
How is this different from a typical how-to-draw book?
Our activity does not end with the last instructional step. Each subject gets a full two-page spread with the drawing sequence, a dotted picture to trace, blank space for an independent attempt, and room to color the result.
Why does a 111-drawing book have 231 pages?
Because we deliberately made room for practice. The goal is not to fit the largest possible number of tiny tutorials into the book. The child can actually practice directly on the pages.
What is the four-part drawing method used in the book?
The sequence is look, trace, draw independently, color. The activity structure stays familiar across 111 different subjects, while the pictures themselves keep changing.
Test the method at your own table
Ten spreads from the book are free to print, so a child can run through the whole sequence, from the first shape to a colored drawing.
Read next
- How to Teach a 5- or 6-Year-Old to Draw: From Tracing to Their First Independent DrawingAt five, a child does not need a perfect picture to copy. They need to know what to do next. The four-part method behind 111 activities.
- Drawing Activities for the Entire School Year: 111 Ideas Without a Stack of WorksheetsThe hard part is not finding one activity. It is finding the next one, and repeating that all year. 111 activities in one book per student.