Launching this weekend at the V&A Museum of Childhood, the 2014 Big Draw will run from October 1st to November 2nd across the UK and 20 other countries, with 280,000 people expected to join in more than 1,000 events.

This year’s theme, It’s Our World, is a celebration of our environment – of urban, rural and coastal landscapes – and thousands of drawing activities connecting people of all ages with museums, outdoor spaces, artists, designers, illustrators and each other will be organised for those who love to draw – as well as for those who think they can’t!

If you and your children fall into the latter category then there’s plenty of printables available to download to help boost your confidence before taking your sketch pads public…

Rob at Art for Kids Hub has a dedicated How to Draw section on his website with video tutorials as well as printables that has a wide range of images in it including animals such as a koala bear, fox and lamb as well as a robot, Superman and spring flowers.

Video lessons also accompany the printable how to draw templates at Hello Kids which will have you doodling impressive looking rockets, jet places, bats, butterflies, dogs, cows and more within minutes.

Raising Our Kids offers 87 sheets of printable step-by-step drawing instructions for images including a squirrel, circus tent and a variety of people and Free For Kids presents its how-tos as drawing grid worksheets.

Since 2012 Activity Village has been producing a range of fun step-by-step drawing tutorials for kids and it now has more than 200 available!  Stating “the more you can break difficult subjects down into smaller parts and shapes, the more you will be able to tackle”, its categories include Animals, Birds, Autumn, Flowers, Sports, School, Professions and Transport.  The website, which has been providing parents and teachers with free activities since 2000, also has a Complete the Pictures section – “an original way to encourage kids to use their imagination as well as their design and drawing skills” – which includes both animal outlines ready for children to fill in certain details and some images with just a tiny hint of a picture that leave the rest for your child’s imagination.  As well as animals, the prompts include the beach, wheels and sunglasses.

Kate over at Picklebums also offers drawing prompts on her website using the need for a road trip activity as inspiration in itself.  “When you stuff four kids and two adults into a car for hours on end, you need a few distractions to stop you all losing your minds!” she writes and her printables ask their young illustrators to imagine “Where does the road go?”, “What’s in the truck?”, “Who is driving down the road?” and challenges them to come up with their own road signs.

Want to add a game element to your artistic attempts?  Head over to Learn to draw with Expressive Monkey and click on its Dice Drawing Sheets – just roll a dice to get ideas to add to your drawing and see how fantastical your illustrations become!  

Do you love finding printables on the internet?  Do you have particular favourites?  Or have you featured some on your own blog?  Email karen.malpass @ inkfactory.com with your links and we may be able to feature them in a future post.