My daughter loved it!!!!!
And I loved to see her loving it !!!!
She enjoyed it a lot. I don't usually request things for her but I did and zero regrets!!!

Interested in drawing cute things?
Freelance illustrator Becky Castaneda presents her book "Kawaii Drawing. Learn to draw more than 100 super cute things", published by Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster. The book starts with the chapters "Welcome", "Materials", and "The Fundamentals of Cuteness" and then presents sixteen designs (e.g., Kitty Girl, Party Bear, Cute Cakes, ...). In the chapter about materials Castaneda presents her favorite drawing items (mechanical colored pencils, fine liners, and alcohol markers) but she gives also an introduction to digital drawing and painting. In the chapter "The fundamentals of Cuteness" she talks about the origins of Kawaii. It "is a Japanese word that’s usually used as an adjective, and it means something like “sweet,” in the sense of “cute.”, but underlines that "... kawaii is much more than just a word. The term also incorporates a whole cultural trend of cuteness which started in Japan in the 1960s and slowly took over the world in the ’80s and ’90s as it gained popularity and became a part of global pop culture" (p.17).
I found the sub-title irritating since it talks about more than 100 super cute things, but in reality there are only sixteen step-by-step drawings. The only explanation can be that every step was counted as a drawing. I recommend the book to readers who plan to use colored pencils (mechanical or normal), fine liners, and alcohol markers for their drawings, but even those readers who use different materials (e.g., water colors, ...) can glean new ideas.
The complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley free of charge. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
#KawaiiDrawing #Netgalley

This is a step-by-step guide to creating cute illustrations. Providing techniques to create everything from animals, landscapes and more, this is a fun guide to kawaii-style drawing.

This was a super cute book and I enjoyed looking at the illustrations. However, I don't feel that this would be effective as a guide for me. The instructions felt a bit confusing for me, likely because I am a very early beginner. I think this might be better suited to someone that has more understanding of the concepts than I currently have. I think there is definitely an audience for this book that would be able to follow these instructions. Unfortunately, it was too difficult for me. I would recommend this to others with more skill.

Cute drawings and several steps to help a beginner like myself. I have not given the book full marks, as it did help me draw different things, but not clear to move on to do my own drawings afterwards. I also found it a bit daunting having quite a detailed picture as the first item to draw, when I found the later ones easier and more appropriate to start out with. Cute drawings,

Love the overall colour palette and design of this book, especially the section on the fundamentals of cuteness! It includes the perfect amount of information to get you drawing cute things with helpful pages on expressions, proportions and more. I loved this and would highly recommend.

Thanks for NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

If you are just starting off or already enjoy drawing kawaii art then this is the book for you. It features various tutorials covering a wide range of skill levels and themes.

I thought the tutorials were fantastic and wasn’t overwhelming compared to other tutorial books like this.

I would say that the age group for this would older children and up as you need to be able to follow the tutorials to really appreciate this book.

Overall it was great fun to try some of the tutorials out and can’t wait to see what comes next.

Thank you Quarto Publishing for providing me with an e-ARC of Kawaii Drawing!

Becky Castaneda’s art style is chef’s kiss. Everything is so adorable & the color palette is amazing. Becky breaks down different characters in a simple way perfect for beginners! I definitely will be adding this one to my collection!

If you like to draw and love kawaii art, then this may be the book for you! Inside, you will find 100+ drawing tutorials covering a range of super cute types of drawings. Whether you’re looking to up your game on drawing cats and mermaids or some new tips on making your drawings a little more complex, this is the right book to go with.

One of the things I like about this book is that there are some excellent tips on figuring out what materials you want to buy if you’re new to drawing. I’m a big fan of checking out video reviews on different types of markers I want to check out, and the author has some great tips on saving yourself some money. Between checking out reviews and making sure you’re looking at the right types of materials for the medium you plan on starting with or expanding on, there are some excellent tips here!

As for the drawing tutorials, they are really cute and fun. I really like their tips on simple ways of adding movement to your drawings. Plus, their tips on creating the illusion of depth are wonderful! I took a few drawing classes in college and I really like how they present depth in a simple and non-overwhelming way. They weren’t joking about how depth can be a struggle for artists at any experience level, so I like how they simplified it and encouraged readers to experiment with it. It can be a little stressful when figuring it out, but when you look at it as an experiment to see how you want to make it happen and how you like to create depth, it takes a lot of the stress off one’s shoulders!

All in all, this is an excellent and fun drawing book that I think will be great for people of all ages, but maybe not kids younger than third grade level because of some of the more complex tutorials.

A very good book. It gives details for drawing some drawings. I tried one of them. I like books like this, and people who like to follow the steps to draw characters or doodling will like this book.

My kids and I had so much fun learning to draw so many cute new pictures. They were easy to follow and really let us adapt to make them our own!

Thank you Netgalley, the publisher and author for my ARC!

Thank you to Netgalley and Quarto publishing group for access to this Arc in exchange for my honest review.
I love this book, it goes through the basics of drawing kawaii characters, food, clothes and then over 15 full illustrations. The steps are very detailed and break down the whole process from the sketch to the coloring and adding details. I would have prefered to have the people illustrations at the end because i usually find them quite challenging personally, but you can pick and choose any section to start with. I wish there were tips on how to choose a color palette.
Overall, the book was very fun to play with and follow

Not sure this helps very beginners but it’s good for inspiration and some technique. Would make a good gift for a kid that likes to draw.

This is just so fun. Its super cute too! These drawings were a little complicated but had such great detailed instructions. They were easy to follow. I loved how the author told us what they use to draw on and what to use when drawing on paper. They also talk about shadowing and colors. I loved this. Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Fantastic even if you, like me, have zero drawing talent!
I picked this up because I would love to be able to draw cute things on my snail mail for friends instead of constantly relying on stickers. It really helps! I was a little surprised how easy the tutorials were to follow and how much my drawings looked just like in the book!
Highly recommend!

The book is very sweetly designed. I find the step-by-step instructions very good and helpful. You can actually learn to paint with them. Unfortunately, I think there are far too few instructions and they are not that varied.

I am a total newbie at drawing and I was looking for an easy guide that would help me draw kawaii Illustrations for birthday cards for my loved ones. This guide gave me exactly what I was looking for! It goes into details about all the drawing tools necessary for the best outcome, including information about note-books and, in particular, how to draw on a tablet or computer. It is super useful since I intend to draw on my tablet, and I didn't know any of the apps mentioned: I am looking forward to trying them all. I thank the author so much for the advices.
And that is not all. I particularly liked the animals kawaii Illustrations; but there are also kawaii humans, food, clouds and plants!! I loved the kawaii food and clouds, which I did not expect to find, and it was so fun to try drawing!!! It was very clever thinking.
And for each new illustration, there's a guide that meticulously explains how to reproduce it, including how to color them and which elements you can add to make the illustration even more sweet.
I thank the author and publisher so much for the opportunity to read this book. I'll do my best to try drawing them all and make the best of it to cheer up my loved ones on special occasions!

This book was super easy to follow! At first I was fairly intimidated because the art examples given in the "lessons" look very advanced but the instructions really break everything down so much that following them and creating your own kawaii drawings is so easy!

This book breaks down images into simple shapes before guiding you through the motions of making these into actual objects/people in the illustration. Not only are the images cute, the text guide is thorough and explains what it happening at each given moment between the stages.

I would suggest that this would not suit beginners, only because of the shading concepts and how some of the simpler adjustments within each stage require a little more thought to get them right (Facial expressions, colouring etc) but each section helps you to build your confidence with creating Kawaii drawings, bit by bit.

I will be rating this a 4* as I feel there is still something lacking in the layout of the instruction, perhaps because all of the outlines/sketchlines are the same colour but different hardness, that it makes it a little more difficult to see what has changed between each step unless analysed properly. I think this would be difficult for anyone with visual impairment who cannot differentiate colours too well when they are shades of the same.

Thankyou NetGalley & Quarto for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

This is such a cute book! The author takes her time showing you step by step in how to draw your favorite characters. She even goes over what materials are best in all the different ways!