Have fun drawing with your family and friends

Drawing games are great because you can do them wherever you are – on a train, at the dentist and lots of other places too!

Drawing games are brilliant because you can draw but play with family and friends at the same time!  Drawing games are cool because you don’t need to prepare much or clean up afterwards!

All you need is paper and pens. 

Four tips for playing the games

Tip 1: Let grown-ups draw too. They might pretend they are too old to play games but really they want

to join in. Let them have some fun.

Tip 2: Everybody is an artist. So if someone draws differently from you it isn’t wrong.

Tip 3: Wrong is sometimes right! Some of the best artists in the world think their best drawings came

from making ‘mistakes’ that didn’t turn out to be mistakes at all. So, if you think you’ve gone wrong, maybe you haven’t. Keep drawing!

Tip 4: If babies and toddlers can’t understand a game, give them a very large piece of paper to sit

on, some chunky crayons and let them have a go in their own way. You’ll be surprised by what they

come up with!

What do you make of my squiggle?

Number of players: 2 or more.

What you need:

• Pieces of paper  • Pens or pencils

This game is about making something out of nothing.

1: Everybody makes some marks on their paper. Don’t think what they might be, it’s just a squiggle!

2: All pass your squiggle to the person next to you and say: “What do you make of that?!”

3: Look at the squiggle and simply turn it into something. Rotating the paper can help set your imagination free.

Alphabet landscape

Number of players: 2 to 6.

What you need:

• One sheet of paper, but not too small as you’ll need space for a lot of different drawings

• Some coloured pens or pencils  • 20-30 minutes

1: The first person to take a turn draws something beginning with the letter A. As part of the drawing they must also hide the letter ‘A’ somewhere in their picture.

2: On the same piece of paper the next person draws something beginning with B and must also hide the letter ‘B’ in that drawing.

3: From now on players take turns drawing things that begin with the next letter of the alphabet, each including a hidden letter. As your artwork grows, try to make it work as a whole. For instance, if the first player drew an apple then perhaps the second player might draw a baboon holding the apple. ‘H’ could be a chance to add a horizon.

4: When you’ve reached X give your finished scene to someone else and ask them to find the whole alphabet.  This is a drawing game, a hiding game and a finding game all in one.