Member Reviews

Great step by step drawing instruction book. Easy enough for beginners.

This would be a good book for a parent to work with a child on. The text was more like reading a children's book than an instructional book. I mainly used the illustrations after awhile. But children would love hearing the whimsical instructions.

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Drawing Cute with Katie Cook: 200+ Lessons for Drawing Super Adorable Stuff by Katie Cook teaches readers how to draw everything adorable in her first tutorial book. These are quick, easy-to-follow step-by-step lessons with some silliness on the side. All you need is a pencil and paper, or a napkin or a wall depending on how confident you are in your drawing ability. Readers will be shown how to turn curvy blobs, shapes, and squiggles into more than 200 different things. Some subject included are fuzzy animals, cute food, and inanimate objects like yarns balls, luggage and a toaster. Add details like nubbins, floof, and smiley faces to anything and everything to transform it into something really, really cute.

Drawing Cute with Katie Cook: 200+ Lessons for Drawing Super Adorable Stuff is a fun read, even if you are not terribly interested in becoming better at drawing adorable critters and such. Cook includes plenty of cuteness and humor along side the drawing tutorials. I love that she simplifies each of the drawings into things like basic shapes, but often in terms of produce, i.e. eggplant, potatoes, and seeds. I think this is the perfect instruction book for those that want to draw and doodle adorable things, but do not have a ton of faith in their own artistic skills. The instructions are well written, in a relaxed and fun way, that should set even the most trepidatious sketcher's heart at ease and allow them to have some fun with the process. As a bonus, fans of puns, fun facts, and Doctor Who will find little references and jokes to make the read even more fun.

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This is a super cute book that I think kids and beginner adults would like. I have been drawing for years and I still felt this book is useful.

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As a teacher I am always trying to draw decent things on the board. Oftentimes I look at books that teach how to draw and they are geared at artists, but Cook's book make her adorable illustrations accessible for even novices like myself.

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Until now, I only drew stick figures. I can't even explain how or why I was overtaken by the desire to learn how to draw more than this, because I really didn't know where to start. How do artists see things and pick up a pencil or paintbrush then draw something that everyone can tell what it is? Art has always been a mystery to me.

This book makes it so simple that even someone like me, who only draws stick figures, can learn how to draw.

Amazing! I recommend this to everyone who thinks they are artistically challenged.

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Super adorable how to draw book, starts with animals and then moving through food, hobbies, and all kinds of things. Definite nostalgia for me to “how to draw” books that were at school book fairs in my childhood, but the sheer cuteness of these critters makes me feel not so weird to be an adult following step by step instructions on how to draw a cat or a chicken. (The chicken was far more successful than the cat: do yourself a favor and have an eraser handy when initially drawing to avoid the frustration of not being able to find an eraser when you want to just fix that one line.)

I have no idea if this is marketed to kids, but I found it enjoyable as a 30 something woman with so-so drawing with a non-digital tool skills when I haven’t been drawing on a regular basis in general who likes cute things. Definitely would recommend. It may not help in terms of someone immediately wanting to develop their own artistic style - but is helpful in terms of breaking down a complex animal or object into simple shapes and building to the final beastie one step at a time. And drawing tons of things is a step on the way to developing your own style, generally. The animals I found the most interesting part of the book personally, but seeing everyday objects broken into simple shapes was neat.

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Severe formatting issues, therefore totally unreadable. Sad - I was really looking forward to this book! Can’t say much more. Only bits of pages visible.

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Goodreads Rating: 3 stars

I’ve known Katie’s work since I first stumbled across her webcomic Gronk many years ago, and fell in love with her cute style. So I grabbed this galley when I saw it, because her’s is a style that seems so complex, but is really quite simple.

This is not a traditional step-by-step how-to-draw book, that wants you to meticulously sketch out every circle and oval perfectly with guidelines and result with a life-like drawing when finished. Rather, Katie’s style is cute and bloopy, and she instructs you how to start with bloopy shapes (potatoes, circles, ice cream cones) and keep adding elements to them until they turn out into bloopy cute creatures. If you’re a yarn crafter, think amigurumi-style doodles!

She provides much more commentary than actual instruction; the text that goes with about half of the steps are not actually telling you what your drawing, but are cute little observations. You definitely need to pay attention to the visual steps, as the written ones won’t really give your much help (i.e. it doesn’t say, “now draw the penguin’s wings” it says “draw the flip flaps!”). This was annoying at first, but it also didn’t detract from the steps themselves, as those are quite helpful and it’s very obvious what’s added in each step.

Unlike with the hyper-realistic how to draw books, I was actually able to replicate many of these drawings, by copying the steps, although cute faces (and faces in general) elude me (eye spacing and shape are baffling).

This would be a fun gift for artsy kids, as they will probably respond very positively to the cute language and pictures within.

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This book is, as the title suggests, really cute! If you can draw a potato, the author says, you can draw cute animals. It’s true. I was surprised at the number of things you can draw with a few very simple shapes.

This is mostly a book for kids, but adults will enjoy it too, particularly if you are one of those adults who would like to learn how to draw but think you are hopelessly inept when it comes to pen and paper. The drawings literally start out with circles, or squares. Easy to draw shapes. You can do it.

The author has a very funny sense of humor and sprinkles amusing stuff all through the book. For example, French fries are “ketchup delivery sticks” and bird wings are “flap flaps.” Chili peppers are spicy dragon claws.

You start out with lessons on drawing animals. Each one can be drawn in 4 steps. The diagrams show you how. And the pointers are not only helpful, but funny too. There are Pro Tips too, on some sections. These are fun. It’s not a serious drawing book. It’s meant to be enjoyable. It’s a fun and easy way to draw by seeing the examples shown and trying it yourself. The next section is on how to draw food. Cute food. So, all the food items are smiling of course. You also get to draw sports and recreation items. I loved the soccer ball section. Haha. I think you will get a kick out of that one. Or the magnifying glass with the caterpillar! Funny stuff.

There’s a whole section on drawing holiday items too. Then there are seasonal items like sunscreen and beach toys, mittens, birds, cactus, and so much more. Then there are the everyday objects, which include just about everything else that wasn’t in the previous chapters. Here you find robots, phones, even a Walkman, Polaroid, and a record player. Your kids might ask you what these are.

The book does show you have to draw and it looks so easy. These are simple cartoons that even a newbie can draw. Just practice what the author shows in the steps and it’s that easy. If you worry about drawings being perfect, this book will help you overcome that and just draw some cute, funny cartoon characters. It’s a great way to practice.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how to draw or just wants to see how to make cute cartoon characters out of anything from food to toasters to animals.

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This is a super easy way for kids or adults to learn how to draw all kinds of really cute and cartooned out things using a basic shape like a potato and simple fun directions for success. Guru of cuteness and cartoons Katie Cook shows you how to make over 200 things using simple shapes.

Chapter 1 is all kinds of Animals - pets, sea life, woodland creatures, bugs, jungle animals and others. This chapter is my favorite, making really adorable critters that you’ll want to at least try, and maybe even become good at because they really are cute and it’s such a neat skill to have.

Chapter 2 is Food – desserts, drinks, fruits & vegetables, meals and others.

Chapter 3 is Hobbies & Sports – art, musical instruments, sports, outdoor activities, and gaming.

Chapter 4 is Holidays and Seasons – winter, spring, summer, fall. Another favorite chapter, so cute.

Chapter 5 is Handy Dandy Objects – electronics, household items, useful tools. That is how the sections are set up.

An advance digital copy was provided by NetGalley, Katie Cook, and IMPACT for my honest review. Publication date is Feb 14, 2018

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The only negative comment I have about this book is that the formatting for my copy was off, making it difficult to view.

That out of the way, this is a perfect reference for all ages and all ranges of talent wanting to better themselves at cute cartoons. It acts as a model, allowing the reader draw inspiration and give their own creative spin. In keeping with the title, the text is ridiculously cute, allowing the reader to have fun rather than feel burden by the need to be perfect.
I loved this book. It was cute. It was funny. And it was helpful.

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Drawing Cute With Katie Cook is a demonstration on how to draw animals in a simple and cute way, just like the author.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Budding illustrators of any age with interest in similar art styles like the author might pick up one or two things here.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
The simplicity of it all. The author goes a great length to make the reader feel at ease with the process.

.......
Drawing Cute With Katie Cook by Katie Cook is available to buy from on all major online bookstores. Many thanks to Impact Books for review copy.

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A fun book for any age. Loved having a go at creating these pictures. Great for children and adults alike.

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4 Stars! This book takes the reader step by step with easy to do instructions! Perfect book for anyone who can’t draw- like me!! I loved how the author broke it down for me! The things she teaches how to draw are cute, pretty simple & perfect for kids or adults that need help drawing! She added some cute & funny instructions too! (Ears are now known as ‘flap flaps’ at my house! Ha!)
*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own!*

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This is exactly what it sounds like. A big book to help anyone draw cute animals, food, etc. It is a little more fast pace then many drawing books, but it works well.

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This book is great. My son wants to draw and we enjoyed looking at this book together. He said it will be very helpful and we found the pictures cute. The author give good details to help with each step of drawing such things as animals. We loved learning about drawing a horse. We do recommend though getting a PDF version or paperback version. We think it will be easier to see how to draw everything.

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It was just impossible to read and view the images on a Kindle, so I'll reserve judgement until I've devoured a printed copy. I love the premise of the book, just cannot bear poor formatting.

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**Thanks to NetGalley for the digital copy to peruse**

Super cute ideas, with lots of how to and an occasional bit of trivia. I feel like this is aimed toward children.

I think it's crazy adorable, and loaded with cute things to draw, I felt like there was a lot of room to make it even easier.

She could go backwards just a step and start with shapes and introduce erasers. When I draw, I pencil it first, go over the final product in ink and then erase and color.

I'm not a great artist, I can't draw a bean, but I can draw 2 ovals. That's what I'm saying. But I did draw my one kid a cat, and the other an octopus which was wrong because it only had 7 legs - lol.

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Looks like it might be a cute book, but Kindle version is formatted so badly, that I'm unable to decipher (words and images are chopped in pieces) or review.

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This book is PACKED full of step by step guides to drawing sooooo many cute things.

Great for kids old or young, with simple step by step pictures and easy to understand word descriptions, breaking down the steps needed to make a "bean" into a fox ... or a cat ... or a spider.

Definitely recommend for budding artists.

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