Great resource on getting started drawing various kinds of figures. Some are more cartoon-style, but are surprisingly simple. Following this book is a nice gateway to creative thinking.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Earlier this year, Sophie reviewed a collection of eight how-to-draw books and found them to vary dramatically in quality. More recently, she picked up How to Draw Almost Everything Volume 2: An Illustrated Sourcebook by Six Pommes (a pen name for the six contributing Japanese artists) to see how this one would compare.

The “almost everything” part of the title was certainly apt. The book contains hundreds if not thousands of drawing guides covering so many topics that Sophie could be here all day listing them. There are the usual animals and people, these are broken up by type while the people section also covers things like facial expressions, movements, and actions. From here, the book branches out to cover everyday objects (foods, furniture, cosmetics, buildings, and vehicles), patterns and borders, seasonal items for all major holidays, alphabets, and even symbols like musical notes and horoscope characters. Sophie’s digital review copy allowed her to easily search for keywords but, unfortunately, the book doesn’t appear to have been released digitally, which would have hugely improved its usability rather than having to flip through pages looking for things (there is no index).

While the book was indeed packed with drawings, Sophie did feel like they weren’t always great for following. The majority are incredibly simplistic or take big jumps between steps—“draw a circle, now add two lines, voila! Here’s an intricate snowglobe!” This was especially noticeable toward the end of the book when dozens of items were crammed on each page, compared to the beginning where fewer items were afforded more space and detailed stages.

While How to Draw Almost Everything will be a useful reference book, Sophie feels it needs to be part of a larger collection and not a standalone drawing guide. However, artistic kids will no doubt love to receive it and it will make a fantastic stocking-stuffer this holiday season.

Doodling and illustrating—all that I’m interested in but fail to actually follow through with it confidently. Books like these help with the needed boost. Feeling and flipping the pages by hand and following through with the tips and tricks can only better the feeling of reading this book. Get it for yourself.

A great drawing book that will show you how to draw almost everything in simple easy steps. The book is also broken down into sections that give easy to follow lessons with warm-ups and special lessons to extend the fun. I purchased this book for my classroom to give students the extra boost they need sometimes. The book is so fun that I am going to go and buy a new sketch book and work my way through the book. Even adults can have drawing fun.

I found this book to have all sorts of ideas to play around with. It gives very simple stick-figure like drawings of each item. It does not give step by step instructions of how to draw each one because they are pretty easy to follow without it. I enjoyed all the areas that they covered in this one. This may be a resource worth having on the shelf for those moments when you need a bit of direction in drawing something specific.
I received an ARC digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.


***Also posted on Amazon

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for provide me with a digital copy in exchange for my honest review.
Muy entretenido para explorar la creatividad, mas en estos tiempos de pandemia. Recomendado, para los que buscan una actividad creativa de este tipo para relajarse en estos tiempos de estrés y locura. Cada vez disfruto mas de este tipo de libros y de hacer estas actividades mas creativas. Lo recomiendo.

This books is what the title says it is: How to draw almost everything. It's a very cute book with a lot of mini straight-forward drawing tutorials. I can see it being used at home as a fun activity for parents with their young child. I like the simple aspect of this book and how it packs a loooot of drawings in the book!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC :)

How to Draw Almost Everything V2 is simplistic, perhaps too simplistic. It spends a great deal of time going over basic shapes before delving into slight deviations to depict various objects. This process suggests that very young children are the book’s target audience. However, the layout lacks dynamic visuals to capture and hold the reader. The format is odd, as it opens with a special lesson, which is a brief overview of basic color schemes, but the information is less special and more generic. The directions are more suggestive than step by step. Of course, a more advanced reader can make the leap of what comes next, but it is hard to see that a very young reader would necessarily follow without help.
The inanimate doodles were the highlight of the book, but, the drawings were a bit too small and the page too busy to guide the reader. As an art lover, bullet journaler, and a mediocre doodler, I had high hopes for How to Draw Almost Everything Volume 2, but I found that I did not learn anything new or purposeful and it was too basic for my taste. The sticking point is that it does not have enough detail for children either. The book’s basic template is more geared to children, but the blurb does not suggest that this is the targeted market, which may be confusing. How to Draw Almost Everything may be helpful to complete newbies, but the style is a bit too thin and lacks visual presence.

A fun how-to guide for simple line drawings of just about everything, as promised. This is perfect for someone who wants to learn how to create simple doodles of people, animals, vegetables, and so on.

Thanks to Quarto Publishing and NetGalley for an opportunity to preview an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I love this book so much that I already ordered a copy along with some of the recommended pens. How to Draw Everything is a fun-filled, extremely appealing and inspiring book. If that’s not enough, it will actually teach you how to draw and provide you with tons of ideas. In fact, you will never be able to say “I don’t know what to draw” if you have this book in your possession!

The book is very cute with all sorts of little colored drawings throughout and is very consistent in showing the required steps. The emphasis is on basic shapes, which begin nearly every drawing. Some of the drawings are just adorable like a deer in a dress, a giraffe with a scarf and a dog with an umbrella! How to Draw Everything benefits from having six authors that are illustrators and have formal education.

After a brief review of pens, lines, color, basic shapes, and perspective plus some warm-up exercises, it’s time to start drawing. The book is divided into 5 sections - (1) Animals, (2) People, (3) Everyday Objects, (4) Patterns & Borders, and (5) Holidays & Seasonal. Each section is further divided into lessons ranging in number from 3 to 14. Also, there are a few special lessons in each section, many of which show you how to make your drawings unique. Between the lessons and special lessons, there is a grand total of 47, which should keep you busy for awhile.

The Animals and Everyday Objects are the largest sections with each including the most things to draw and the majority of lessons. Animals includes some unusual ones like an otter, chameleon, alpaca, woodpecker, and mysterious creatures. Everyday Objects include food, vehicles, flowers and household objects like scissors and a piano.

The Holiday and Seasonal section would be perfect for making cards and drawing messages. The book closes with an inspiration gallery. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn how to draw “almost everything” and have fun doing it!

I liked this book. You will find a part about ball-point pens in it, tips for one-, two- and three-color illustrations and many examples you can learn to draw.

This book is a simple step-by-step guide to drawing various animals, people, plants, food, and more. Many variations are added. Suitable for beginners.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this! All opinions are my own.

Good for Artistically Inclined and Those Who Aren’t

I don't consider myself particularly visually artistic. I'm more of a writer and a musician. Both my mother and sister have been blessed with the visual art gene, and I will admit to being a little jealous at times. So I am always drawn to books that mean to simplify drawing and other visual arts. I'm delighted to have found this book. I've always joked that my level of drawing is about at the stick-figure level. I almost feel like this book starts there but leads to much more interesting, though simple drawings. In other words, this product is perfect for someone like me, without much artistic talent. I also think this book would be perfectly fine if you're more artistically inclined than me, as the book does get into detailing things like features and looking at objects from different angles.

The book is divided into an introductory section that talks about different types of pens (with specific brand recommendations), shows the basic shapes that will be combined to make illustrations, and even starts you thinking about how to detail your illustrations. The illustration section is divided into animals, people, and objects. Each section has numbered lessons. Most illustrations are broken down into several steps, which is always helpful for a newbie. They also include a few bonus lessons scattered throughout, particularly about making characters in both the people and the object section as well as how to draw cute animals. The drawings the authors have you make are simple but convey precisely what they are in a few simple strokes. Because the authors advocate working gel ink pens, the step-by-step instructions don't have you erasing some of the lines of the basic shapes as you progress through the steps as many other illustration instruction books have you do. I liked that.

This book is definitely geared for adults or older teenagers. It isn't simple enough for younger children. All in all, I liked this book, and I thought it was a great introduction to drawing basic animals, people, and objects. If you're interested in drawing simple versions of these things, you may very well enjoy this book.

This was a super fun book. After looking through it and trying out some of the drawings I want to go back and find the volume 1.

A fun starter guide to basic doodles perfect for beginners! I found the designs to be kid-friendly and they covered so much more than basic flowers and animals. While the instructions were fairly simple to follow, occasionally one or two steps would be loaded with details and difficult. I liked the expansion into borders, frames, and text at the end, encouraging imagination and creative applications beyond the book. Although great for adults and teens, my elementary-aged children found it challenging without assistance. Overall, this would make a great addition for anyone parenting or working with kids.

* I received an ARC copy from #netgalley, all opinions expressed are my own.

Amazing resource! I have a few books on how to make kawaii drawings. This book is exhaustive, I can see it being the only one you need of its type. I haven't seen the first volume. I definitely want to work my way through this book to gain facility and confidence in adding visual punch to the everyday communication and occasional birthday card. I'm an abstract painter, and always admire the illustrator types. Highly recommend this book.

This a great way to elevate your doodling. I love the neat Asian animation Style to the doodling. This inspired med to get out my sketch book and give it a go. This will help my work Notes look more professional.

This book is brilliant. My daughter and I have had so much fun together learning to draw many differents objects and characters. It's brought easy joy and entertainment to lots of indoor time. The instructions are clear and easy to follow and once you've practiced with the guide of the book, your creativity takes over and you are off. Highly recommend!

Are your kids looking to for a new activity while you're homeschooling them? Are you looking to incorporate a fun activity while babysitting? Perhaps you would even like to learn the art of drawing? Regardless of your reason, this is a fabulous book to get started.

All you need is a ballpoint pen in the size of your choosing. Techniques to cover lines, special effects, and mixing colors found in all the drawings are described with thorough examples at the beginning of the book. Once you have mastered the basics, prepare to dive into learning how to draw animals, people, everyday objects, as well as holiday and seasonal drawings.

What I love are the multitude of examples of how to incorporate those drawings into beautiful gifts that add a "WOW" factor found at the end of the book.

What are you waiting for? Grab this book, a pen, and let's get started!

Thank you to Six Pommes, Quarto Publishing Group, and NetGalley for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

A very cute, fun and whimsical guide to simple illustrations of a wide variety of items. This book seems to be aimed at kids, and there are a lot of good instructions which are very simple and easy to follow.
I really like the style in some of them that take a simple shape and the shape turns into two totally different drawings following a flow chart style guide, very clever. One issue is see is that it seems very much for children but has instructions on drawing a whiskey glass.. maybe make that ice tea or something.

I received this as an advanced reader copy from NetGalley and the publisher for my 7 year old who loves to draw.
He went straight to the section about sea animals and happily copied the instructions to make some great drawings.
It is a very clear and simple to use format and I recommend to anyone who wants to teach children (or adults!) how to draw almost everything ;)