View source for The School of Art: Learn How To Make Great Art With 40 Simple Lessons by Teal Triggs and Daniel Frost

{{infobox
|title=The School of Art: Learn How To Make Great Art With 40 Simple Lessons
|sort=School of Art: Learn How To Make Great Art With 40 Simple Lessons
|author=Teal Triggs and Daniel Frost
|reviewer=Ruth Ng
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=An interesting book that's perfect for children, of various ages, who have a passion for art and design.
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=96
|publisher= Wide Eyed Editions
|date=August 2015
|isbn=9781847806116
|website=http://www.rca.ac.uk/more/staff/professor-teal-triggs/
|video=
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847806112</amazonuk>
|amazonus=<amazonus>1847806112</amazonus>
}}

Written with an interesting approach, this book treats the reader as a new art student to The School of Art.  The five professors of the school take the student through 40 different lessons, looking at a huge range of ideas right from how to draw a line, perspective and proportion, composition and aesthetics.  Aimed probably at senior school children it could, however, also be used by older primary children who are particularly interested in art, and if you were working through the book with your child then a younger child could also try out some of the lesson ideas and suggestions.

Although this sounds like a rather weighty tome it's written briefly and informatively.  Each lesson is only 2 pages, and most of those 2 pages are taken up with illustration.  As well as an explanation of the concept being discussed, there is also always an activity for you to try something out yourself, making this a good rainy day book since it's full of things to keep children quiet for a little while!  The idea is to follow the book through as it's written, but I found that you can also dip in and out if you so wish.

I liked that the text didn't feel 'dumbed down' and that complex ideas, such as aesthetics, are introduced in an understandable way.  The illustrations within the book are drawn in an appealing way, and do help to explain the ideas being written about.  I personally spent a long time looking at a page discussing whether two different colours can be made to look the same, which I found very intriguing!

You don't need ridiculous equipment to work through the book - most of the activities involve drawing and painting, though there are quite a few that suggest taking photographs.  Be prepared to loan your phone for half an hour so your budding artist can go and photograph a few different things around the house!

Overall this is an interesting book that I felt had a novel approach to introducing a lot of different artist ideas.  I don't know that it would be particularly engaging for kids who already have no interest in sitting down to draw, but for those who like pootling about with a pencil it's brilliant and full of ideas of different things to try.

Further reading suggestion: You might also like to look at [[Drawing Projects for Children by Paula Briggs]] and [[The Pencil Book by Miri Flower]]

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[[Category:Teal Triggs]]
[[Category:Daniel Frost]]
[[Category:Crafts]]