My daughters spend many hours drawing so I set out to find a girly how to draw book. There are a lot of drawing books on the market, most of them are general and not frilly enough to reflect my daughter's personalities. Since my youngest loves fairies, I decided on the How to Draw Fairies and Mermaids. I also got How to Draw Princesses and Ballerinas by the same author, Fiona Watt, for her sister. The book retails for $8.95 or less.

Since I bought the books online I didn't have the chance to look through the pages before purchasing. It's true, you can't judge a book by it's cover. Maybe I'm just crazy, but the title, How to Draw Fairies and Mermaids implied that it was a drawing book. The more appropriate name for this book would be, How to paint or simply a project book.

The information in the book will instruct the reader how to make fairies and mermaids by using paint, chalk, markers, cut out old magazines, cut tissue paper and cut aluminum foil.

Paint & Supplies
Most of the projects require painting. Because of this, the book sits with the arts and craft supplies under lock and key rather than in their personal stash of books. It's almost cruel to give a child this book without paint. If you are going to buy water color paints for the projects, I would recommend pastel colors if you have a choice. Skinny fine-tipped markers also need to make the fairies look like the picture.

Other supplies: scissors, pastel tissue paper, white tissue paper, pencil, colored pencils, aluminum foil and glue (used for a few projects), and a pinch of glitter (once).

Age
On the website, the recommended age said 4-8 years which I do not agree with. The child should be old enough to read, draw from appearance without detailed steps, and be able to cut. I think this book would be frustrating to a young child because the projects do require some skill.

The projects also require patience. When painting the fairies, the reader will paint the body, face and wings then wait for the paper to dry before sketching out the rest of the fairy with a marker.

Drawing books, for this age level, should be detailed steps that any child could re-create. The drawing portions in this book sometimes require the reader to recreate the whole picture without steps. Though the fairies are not hugely complicated, it may be for a child.

Established Artist
I would consider this an intermediate book. A child with a lot of artistic ability would probably enjoy this book. The book really teaches how to add the magic to a hand-drawn fairies or mermaids through color and placement. The reader learns things like how to make the fairies hide behind a rose in a flower garden, fly between a flower field, or mermaids having a tea party. I also like how other elements are worked into the basic artwork. For instance, a skirt is made out of tissue paper or flowers are cut out of magazines.

Binding
I don't like how this book is put together. The size is that of a 8x11 piece of paper and then bound with a paper cover. Because of the tight binding the pages don't stay open on their own. It's very difficult to use the book as a reference. A hardback cover or spiral binding may have been a better choice.

Presentation
It is a beautiful book, but I think there is too much going on each page. The book has a tremendous amount of color in it. Each of the projects are on different color backgrounds such as lavender, pink, teal. Each project takes two pages, the left and right page so the whole project can be seen at a glance. With the background color, step-by-step words, and the final full-page illustration it makes a lot of visual information to process. To me, it makes it feel more overwhelming than it is.

The fairies are not multi-cultural.

Projects
There are 32 pages in the book. There are 16 examples or projects, a resource page for faces and hairstyles plus two sheets of stickers (150 stickers). The fairies and mermaids in the book look like the ones on the cover. There are also ballerina fairies, rainy day fairies, love fairies, fairies that look like girls. My favorite mermaid is one cut from aluminum foil. The instructions give an interesting hint on how to get the textured look with the aluminum foil.

Another interesting project is the fairy paperchain. The instructions give instructions on how to cut out the chain of fairies and describes a beautiful way of decorating them.

The reader will also learn how to create a large colorful mermaid that hangs from the door by the mermaid's hair. There's an area on the mermaid to right the child's name.

The last page gives lots of examples for hair styles and facial expressions. I think it's neat that the collection of faces are on one page, and the last page makes it an easy reference.

Overall
To fully appreciate this book, I think the girl should have some artistic skill and be around 8-12 years old. I'm sure a younger girl would be able to accomplish these projects with the help of an adult.

I think some of these fairies and mermaids would be very cute on greeting cards or could make lovely thoughtful masterpiece to give to someone special. The book does recommend full scenes to draw so the final masterpiece will look beautiful hanging. The book and drawings have a light and airy feeling which I think would be perfect for Spring.

This book has been an inspiration for Valentines day. We will be incorporating the instruction for the Love-heart fairies into our own Valentines day cards.

Recommended: Yes