The Organic Artist for Kids

I was intrigued by the premise of this book and was not disappointed, it’s full of excellent ideas for outdoor activities and art exploration. I can’t wait to try some of them out with my children next year. Going to be ordering more copies once it is published for school.

This is an inspiring book that takes art to another level. Most children will love the challenge of the projects and having a go at making their own art tools and media. It is so organic and original and takes art into the natural environment. The structure of the book is excellent and the pictures and photographs are so appealing. This is a great book for schools and will inspire many an aspiring young artist.

I absolutely love this book! My daughter and I both love art and nature. We were so excited to learn how to use organic materials to make art. Going through this book has been so educational and fun. I love how everything is explained so well and how steps are easy to follow.

Lots of in-depth instructions for creating art from and inspired by Nature. A great book for the artistic child, although not for beginners, unless being assisted by a more experienced artist.

This book is an art book aimed at kids and is about using plants, rocks, and such to make art supplies. The author expects that an adult will supervise the children, but the children will be doing the projects themselves. He included 38 step-by-step projects with (usually) easy-to-find materials. Each project had clear pictures and written instructions for each step.

He started with projects about how to make pigment from rocks and how to make that into paint and ink. He covered how to make brushes using hair from yourself or domestic animals and how to make pens from twigs and such. He showed how to make your own drawing charcoal, crayons using beeswax, stamps from vegetables or leaves, rubbings, and stencils. He also included papier-mâché projects and earth art. It was very interesting to see how these things could be made rather simply from things found outside in nature. Overall, these look like fun projects, and I look forward to trying them with my nieces when they get a little older.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This book is a fantastic book about using natural outdoor resources such as berrys, rocks etc to make art resources. Some great ideas that i would have never thought of, however i feel it is abit too advanced for kids to do in some parts of the book and they would need adult assistance and help to do some of them. I think I too would need help and support to do some of them.
Don't let this fact put you off as this is a good book especially for forest school activities.

This book was received as an ARC from Quarto Publishing Group – Quarry Books in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I was so inspired by the ideas and crafts displayed in this book that we might consider this a children's program at our library. I was so fascinated by the twig pens and the acorn ink that I know our children in the community will love every single minute of it and the best part that the materials can be found right in our backyard. I am so find of all of the projects and ideas displayed in this book that I know it will do well in our non-fiction collection and the kids will love it.

We will consider adding this title to our non-fiction collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

This book is an absolute treat!! Where was it when I was a kid?!
Well, it doesn't matter, because it's perfect for artists of any age who want to broaden their horizons and expand their artistic toolkit to include elements of nature.
It is beautifully set out with great step by step photographs making the activities clear and easy to follow.
It gives you plenty of ideas and also the knowledge of techniques such as natural dye making and printing, how to make pigments from stones, and more...it's a treasure trove of inspiration.
Something like this is a great gift in these times when it's so easy to give kids a tablet and keep them quiet.
Kids need to get outside, need to be given the time to get bored and learn to entertain themselves. If they want to be artists, then, they can get started with the basics of paper and their imagination and use the things they find in the garden, park, outdoors, to help them thrive and explore. This book is a great starting point for a budding artist, naturalist, outdoorsy person or if you're about to embark on a camping trip or summer holiday.
It is written in a way that is engaging for children but equally informative for adults interested in upcycling, mindfulness and art/nature therapy. Well done Nick Neddo for hitting the spot!
I will definitely encourage the kids I work with to delve into these activities, and think they would be lovely projects for families, or classes to work on together.

I was so excited to preview this book, as I'm a huge fan of Neddo's book, The Organic Artist, and as I read that I kept trying to think of how to convert his ideas to work with my kids. This book is a deep dive for kids on making your own art materials like charcoal sticks, tempera paints, berry inks, paintbrushes and more. Neddo is as hard core with kids as he is with adults, teaching them how to make tin kilns to make charcoal out of sticks, how to use their own hair (or hair from horses, pets, etc.) to make paintbrushes with sticks, how to crush rocks for pigments for paint and much more.

Most of these projects will require an adult's help. To be perfectly honest, I feel like I would need an adult's help to do some of this stuff. Some are suitable for younger kids, like pounding flowers and leaves on paper to make colorful patterns. The projects at the end are more suitable for younger kids too -- things like making paper mache masks. A little of it is the typical "art materials from nature" type of stuff like dipping branches in ink or painting with feathers, but most of it teaches how to make honest to goodness quality tools.

I was actually hoping for a bit more of the kinds of art projects we do in our family -- easy, colorful, vibrant ways of using nature for art. There are quite a few kids' projects that I do with natural materials that aren't in this book, such as making playdough with natural dyes, blow painting with elderberry ink (we turn it all different shades by adding acids like vinegar or lemon juice so we have a wide range of hot pink to deep purple -- see https://www.instagram.com/p/BoXkfzPAFS6/), and making mushroom spore prints (all you need are mushrooms and paper, cover them with glass and the mushroom will leave a print by morning -- some mushrooms make gorgeous white prints on black paper and others do various shades on white). Perhaps this has to do with the definition of art and Leddo is more traditional (charcoal, paint, crayons) while I'm thinking more of craft projects as art projects too.

That said, this is really a phenomenal book and Leddo is such a gifted artist. Like his grown up book, this one includes some art that he's done with his natural materials and it is phenomenal (most are the same as in that book). This will be an especially good book for kids who like the outdoors and who like to whittle, carve and learn new skills. Kids who like "My Side of the Mountain" and imagine learning those skills will love this one, where they can learn some really advanced, creative ways to make their own art materials. Adults who were intimidated by his first book may enjoy this one but honestly don't expect it to be much easier than his adult one. Both books expect you to do some serious work, it's just that this one will teach you how to make crayons (how cool is that?) and other more child-like materials.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

Outstanding! Excellent information on getting artist of any age to make supplies from nature. Many of these project need adult supervision but nonetheless the projects are great for any age.

This beautiful book would serve as a wonderful resource for art teachers or other teachers who want to use all-natural materials with children. 'The directions are well written, with photographs clearly showing the steps needed to make ink from walnuts and acorns, pens from sticks, and dyes from berries.

A good variety of activities are offered in this book. Most of them will require adult supervision and assistance (such as boiling water for inks and dyes). However, some activities are do-able completely by the children themselves, including the making of fairy houses and making land art with found objects. Some activities require use of a knife, and the author give tips and suggestions on how to teach children to safely use knives as part of these projects.

This is an excellent resource for anyone who works with children and wants to get them outside to interact with nature. As a bonus, this book also includes interesting information on how art and crafting materials were made centuries ago. Highly recommended!

This is a great book, but it will require the committed assistance of an adult. Some of these activities are rather elaborate, This books would be great for purchase by a Montessori school. I also plan to use some of these ideas for my own library programming.

This is an absolutely fabulous book and not only or children, but any artist worth his salts should be looking at this too.
Pretend that you want to paint or draw a picture but you have nothing to start with -learn how to get paint and pigment out of rocks, how to use twigs, leaves, pine needles and more to make paintbrushes, or if you are more up market use fur, hair or a stick with a chewed end. Make charcoal sticks to sketch with, crayons with beeswax and pigment and bamboo mould. Then there are the inks and dyes from plants, stamps to be carved into vegetables, stencils make from plants, hands and ordinary items, and there is lots more.
There is so much in this book that will fascinate, teach and create and keep both adults and children enthralled for a very long time. Great book

This book exceeded my expectations and is filled with excellent exploration activities for both kids and adults. I learned quite a bit from this book and enjoyed looking through the various techniques. The book has great pictures and instructions. I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review.

Have to start off saying that my husband would love this book! Anyone wanting to get their kids into outdoor arts and crafts then this is THE book for you. Make your own paints, brushes, pens and ink are the more extreme projects, but there are also rubbings, prints, and paper mache crafts. Great for any Boy/Girl Scouts, family camping events!

Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book is really cool. So many natural ways to create beautiful art and this book give some really great instructions on how to accomplish them. From natural paint to leaf imprints this book is a great way to teach your kids about nature while getting their hands dirty.

Very cool simple nature based art workshop activities for kids. The difficulty varies enough for projects accessible even for younger children. Wonderful pictures and simple instructions abound, and I look forward to trying some of these projects.

I really enjoyed this book! Such beautiful ideas of ways to be creative with your kids in nature without the need to go out and buy art supplies.

There are a few things I thought maybe were a bit extreme or for the really enthusiastic but for the most part I found the book to be a great inspiration for myself and my family.

Alot of the prompts I had done as a child (and actually as an adult) and thoroughly enjoyed and completely forgot about! Thanks to this book it has reminded how easy, simple and refreshing it can be to get back to nature and back to basics!

I will be buying this book so I can grab it off the shelf and find things to do when my daughter and I have creative time.

A brilliant book for anyone looking for low cost, highly entertaining activities to do with their children. There is plenty to do for all ages and it is easy to follow.

I love this book. There are plenty of photos to go with the instructions, as well as nice examples of the art pieces created using the homemade tools and supplies. I'm a very DIY type of person. I love knowing how to make my own art supplies. We get spoiled by being able to buy everything from the store (or Internet). At one time, artists had to make there own tools and supplies. This book shows how you can Do it Yourself. Great!

Brilliant book, I didn’t expect to see so many things I wanted to try. Most things are pretty easy to achieve and give brilliant results. I can’t wait to get started with my daughter! Well worth a read.