I usually can’t think of anything other than generic presents for my two oldest nieces (now 7 and 9) but this year I think I know what to get them… A decent how to draw book (maybe one to share and another present each, or even a book each).
I spent the last week with them (and my 3 year old niece too) and it has become pretty obvious that they like to draw and seem to have potential. They were inventing Incredibles costumes last night and I was surprised how well they drew the human form. It was then that I decided what would be a great christmas present.
I’m looking for less artsy more cartoony type books.
Learning to draw as a kid is a gift for life. I think it’s a great gift idea.
As a kid, I was a huge fan of Commander Mark and the Draw squad, although I’m not sure that his stuff is still available. He taught a very whimsicle cartoony style, but worked in a lot of lessons on perspective and shading and stuff.
A good gift for an older kid is a set of chalk pastels and some black paper or a full set of drawing pencils. As a kid, I was facinated by the idea that there could be different kinds of pencils and inordinately proud that I owned all these mysterious art pencils.
When I was a kid I used to check out books from our school library that were part of a series. They were called “Draw 50 Dogs” or “Draw 50” animals, planes, people, cars, horses, etc. They taught me a lot about form and how to draw by simplifying an object to its basic shapes, then building from there. They were really just pages and pages of step-by-step illustrations showing the process of drawing each individual type of dog, animal, plane, etc.
In addition to what Tangent said, I have found that the How To Draw series have some good books as well. Especially for what you asked for, cartoony type stuff.