What is kawaii art?

Giant eyes, rounded shapes, and simplistic features are hallmarks of one of the cutest forms of art. It's known as "kawaii", coming from the Japanese word for cute, and has been adopted into a subculture that can be found worldwide. Scalable graphics lend themselves perfectly to the style being graphic and bold.

Kawaii   (かわいい, pronounced [kaɰaiꜜi]; "lovable", "cute", or "adorable") is the culture of cuteness in Japan. It can refer to items, humans and nonhumans that are charming, vulnerable, shy, and childlike. Examples include cute handwriting, certain genres of manga, and characters like Hello Kitty and Pikachu.

Can you create your own Kawaii style characters?

They can be anything you like!!-fruit, vegetables, animals, everyday objects, trees, plants, flowers, cakes……! Whatever takes your fancy -you name it, you can kawaii it!!

Have a look through the drawing examples and if you can, research some Kawaii drawings on the internet or in any Kawaii colouring books you may have or even look at your Squishies if you have some!

Use a pencil and draw a simplified version of your object, creature or thing that you would like to recreate Kawaii style.

Enlarge the head part, take a look at the basic head shapes if necessary.

Look at the expression examples to see what face you would like your Kawaii character to have.

Draw the face lower down on your character-see examples. Arms, legs and extra features, eg car wheels are small and short.

Stack some Kawaii characters together?

At first draw your designs in pencil, then go over your outline in black felt tip (or something similar like ball point pen if you have to improvise.)

Draw several on A4 paper to fill the page, perhaps 4?

If you have a photocopier, copy your sheet of designs and use a pastel colour palette to colour your Kawaii photocopy sheet in flat colour (no details) using felt tips or pencil crayons.

If not, see if you can trace your designs so you also have a sheet to colour.

When we get back to school we can create a Keller class Kawaii colouring wall.

I can’t wait to see all your brilliant designs-HAVE FUN!!