Great Gifts for a Budding Young Artist

Crayola Telescoping Crayon Tower

Let's face it, for a young artist, nothing is better than a box of 64 crayons. Except, of course, a bigger box. The Crayola Telescoping Crayon Tower contains 150 crayons of every imaginable shade and hue inside a sturdy plastic container that can either be stored flat or raised in three sections to form a tower. The tower also contains a plastic crayon sharpener for convenience. This is great for your child's home art studio.

Young Rembrandts Art Lessons

Young Rembrandts offers art lessons in schools and around communities for young artists. Young Rembrandts lessons focus on teaching students how to draw by walking them through drawing a picture using numerous techniques. The end results can be stunning. My daughter has taken Young Rembrandts lessons for a year now and we already see a difference in her artistic abilities.

Playdoh

For many of us, the simple smell of Playdoh and those little yellow jars can trigger fond memories. This modeling compound is a great way for your little ones to let out their inner Rodin. It's reusable, has many cool accessories, can be used to create just about anything, and since it is non-toxic if they happen to take a bite or two, you can feel safe knowing that you won't have to worry about a trip to the ER or your child having constipation for life. For more on how Playdoh works, click here.

Fisher-Price Kid Tough Digital Camera

If you child is fascinated by your expensive digital camera, or simply enjoys capturing images of the world around them, buy your Ansel Adams the Fisher-Price Kid Tough Digital Camera. It's oversized, making it easy to hold in little hands, and is very simple to use. It works on 4 AA batteries and can take an SD memory card for additional storage beyond its 8MB internal memory. While the pictures are low resolution and nothing to write home about, they're perfectly acceptable for most children, and easily transferred to the home computer. If your kid starts to ask you about Robert Mapplethorpe; however, you may want to take the camera away.

Legos and Duplos

Legos are the logical step up from building blocks. With a Lego set, your child can become the next Frank Lloyd Wright or Henry Ford, making 3D artistic creations whose boundaries are only their imagination. For sheer creativity, nothing can beat a Lego assortment or starter set, but it is always fun to mix in a character set or two to mix it up.

Scrapbooking Materials

Do you enjoy scrapbooking? Chances are that your child will to. Get them some safety scissors, some cutouts, and some photos and have them create pages of their own. With a simple binder and paper, your child can create their own record of their life to compliment yours, and it is a fun way to share time together.

Fisher-Price Digital Arts and Crafts Studio

The Fisher-Price Digital Arts and Crafts Studio is a computer keyboard sized toy that hooks into the USB port of your computer. It is essentially a durable stylus drawing pad with selectors for various activities built into the software. Your child can create crafts, coloring pages, and create art to print out on your color printer.