Drawing Games Ideas for Kids : Doodling Pencil and Paper Boredom Busters

Today we will show you a handful of drawing games that anybody can do with a friend and a piece of paper and pencil. Here are some fun ideas for a rainy day when you need some boredom busters.

Drawing Games Ideas for Kids : Doodling Pencil and Paper Boredom Busters

Many people, when a drawing game is suggested, ask to be excused on the grounds that they can’t draw. But in none of the games that are described in this article is any real drawing ability needed. The object of each game below is to just have fun, not to draw well. Besides, when somebody makes a bad drawing, it is more likely to lead to good-natured laughter than a good drawing.

 

FIVE DOTS DRAWING GAME

All children will like this drawing game. You take a piece of paper and make five dots on it, wherever you like—scattered about far apart, close together (but not too close), or even in a straight line. The other player’s task is to fit in a drawing of a person with one of these dots at his head, two at his hands, and two at his feet, as in the examples below.

Drawing Games in Our New Book

This book is over 200 pages long and it is filled with drawing games and activities. Here is the page for that.

OUTLINES DRAWING GAME

Another form of ” Five Dots ” is ” Outlines.” Instead of dots a line, straight, zigzag, or curved, is made at random on the paper. Papers are then exchanged with friends and this line must be fitted naturally into a picture, as in the examples below.

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Smudgeographs

While on the subject of novel albums the ” Smudgeograph ” might be mentioned. The smudgeograph is the effect produced by writing one’s signature with plenty of ink, and while the ink is still very wet, folding the paper down the middle of the name, lengthwise, and pressing the two sides firmly together. The result is a curious symmetrically-shaped figure. Some people prefer smudgeographs to ordinary signatures in a visitors’ book.

Drawing Tricks

Six drawing tricks are illustrated below.

One (1) is the picture of a soldier and a dog leaving a room, drawn with three strokes of the pencil. Another (3) is a sailor, drawn with two squares, two circles, and two triangles. Another (5), Henry VIII., drawn with a square and nine straight lines. Another (6), invented by Mr. Morrow, an Eskimo with a harpoon, drawn with eleven circles and a straight line. The remaining figures are a cheerful pig and a pig (4), and a cat (2), simply drawn.

Composite Animals

In this game the first player writes the name of an animal at the top of the paper and folds it over. The next writes another,  and so on until you have four, or even five. You then unfold the papers and draw animals containing some feature of each of those named.

Invented Animals

A variation of this game is for the players to draw and describe a new creature. On one occasion when this game was  played every one went for funny names. The best animal produced was the Hairy Coco, the description of which stated, among other things, that it was fourteen feet long and had fourteen long feet. Below see an example of one of the animals created…

Heads, Bodies, and Tails

For this game sheets of paper are handed around and each player draws at the top of his sheet a head. It does not matter in the least whether it is a human being’s or a fish’s head, a quadruped’s, a bird’s, or an insect’s. The paper is then turned down, two little marks are made to show where the neck and body should join, and the paper is passed on for the body to be supplied. Here again it does not matter what kind of body is chosen. The paper is then folded again, marks are made to show where the legs (or tail) ought to begin, and the paper is passed on again. After the legs are drawn the picture is finished.

Picture to Order

Each player sits, pencil in hand, before a blank sheet of paper, his object being to make a picture containing things chosen by the first player before him. The first player then names the thing that he wants in the picture. Perhaps it is a tree. He therefore says, ” Draw a tree,” when all the players, himself included, draws a tree. Perhaps the next says, ” Draw a boy climbing the tree ‘ ; the next, ” Draw a balloon caught in the top branches ” ; the next, ” Draw two little girls looking up at the balloon ” ; and so on, until the picture is full enough. The chief interest of this game resides in the difficulty of finding a place for everything that has to be put in the picture. A comparison of the drawings afterwards is usually amusing.

Pictures and Titles

Each player draws on the upper half of the paper an historical scene, whether from proper history or from family history, and makes up a title, writing it along the bottom of the paper and folding it over. The drawings are then passed on and each player writes above the artist’s fold (or on another sheet of paper) what he thinks they are meant to represent, and folds the paper over what he has written. In the accompanying example the title at the bottom of the paper is what the artist himself wrote ; the others are the other players’ guesses.

Various Descriptions of the Drawing Above

The Abbot of Christchurch, near Bournemouth, surveys the scaffolding of the abbey.

An old man coming back to the home of his childhood, looks across the river, where a duck is swimming, to the dilapidated cathedral and town which represent the stately piles he remembered.

The building of the Ark.

The Artist’s Description

The Last Man surveying the ruins of the Crystal Palace.

Hieroglyphics Game

As a change from ordinary letter-writing, ” Hieroglyphics ” are amusing and interesting to make. The best explanation is an example, such as is given on pp. 46 and 47, the subject being two verses from a favourite nursery song.

I hope that you enjoyed this list of drawing games.

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