While I Can Do All Things, second edition is suggested for ages six and up, you need not limit this resource to children in the primary grades. Most activities are appropriate for anyone who wants to learn beginning drawing and techniques for working with colored pencils, colored markers, and acrylic paints. Occasional pictures or assignments seem directed only at young children, but older students can adapt or skip those.
Stebbing provides tips for the teacher. Lessons then address various skills and techniques appropriate for each art medium. Lessons mix text and black-and-white illustrations to provide step-by-step instruction. Each student needs his or her own book since many lessons are done directly on the book's pages.
Those who prefer not to hunt down the required art supplies can purchase one of the bundles from the HowGreatThouART website that includes the acrylic paints, brushes, watercolor markers, a black drawing pen, Prang colored pencils, a kneaded eraser, and a sharpener.
The 38, 8 1/2" x 11" marker/painting cards are printed on heavy card stock for use with colored markers and acrylic paints. Additional students need their own sets of marker/painting cards and art supplies (as well as their own book).
Lessons are organized into five sections: Introduction to Drawing, Beginning Drawing, Colored Pencils, Colored Markers, and Beginning Painting. It might work best if you follow the author's recommendation to alternate lessons using different media rather than teach through entire sections in sequence. However, some lessons work in a progressive order. For example, students learn to draw circles, then snowmen, faces, cans, jars, and other round things. Other lessons, like those teaching shading, showing depth, drawing people, and cartoons, can be used in a random order.
DVD Instruction
An optional set of four DVDs provides instruction and demonstrations for the 142 lessons in the book. Lessons are taught by the author of the book, Barry Stebbings, who encourages students while also alerting them to common mistakes to avoid. The DVDs can be purchased separately or within the "DVD bundle" from HowGreatThouART that includes the textbook, the marker/painting cards, art supplies, and the DVDs.
Summary
I Can Do All Things makes it easy to present age-appropriate art lessons that introduce children in the elementary grades to a variety of art media. The book should easily take more than a year to complete if your child is truly exploring and learning to work with each medium.
