As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Some kids are always drawing. They draw on the backs of worksheets, on the steamed-up car window, on their own hands when there’s no paper nearby. Others come alive the minute there’s clay on the table or a paintbrush in their hand. If you’re shopping for a child like that, you already know that the right art gift can keep them happily busy for hours, and the wrong one ends up in the back of a closet.

This guide is full of gifts for kids who love art, roughly ages 4 to 12: drawing books, craft and sculpting kits, quality kid-friendly supplies, art games, and a few bigger pieces for setting up a real art space at home. There are about 50 ideas in three budgets (stocking stuffers, mid-range gifts and big splurges), and I’ve tried to choose things that are different from the materials in my art supplies gift guide, so the two guides work together.

As an art teacher, I’ve watched so many kids open a fresh box of materials, and I’ve learned that what makes a great art gift isn’t the size of the box. It’s whether the gift matches the child, gives them something real to discover, and leaves room for their own ideas.

How to Choose an Art Gift for a Kid Who Loves Art

Think about their age and their hands. Children around 4 to 6 are still building hand strength, so chunky crayons, paint sticks, washable markers and big paper give them success without frustration. From about 7 to 9, kids are ready for more control: colored pencils that blend, watercolor, beginner sewing and clay kits. By 10 to 12, many kids want their art to look “real,” so step-by-step drawing books, portrait kits, lettering and even a first digital drawing tablet can be just right. Check the age label on each listing, too; I’ve noted it where a product’s age range really matters.

Mix open-ended gifts with step-by-step ones. Open-ended gifts (a sketchbook, paint sticks, clay, a box of collage materials) let kids invent. Step-by-step gifts (drawing books, kits with instructions) build skills and confidence, especially for kids who worry they “can’t draw.” The best combination is often one of each: a how-to-draw book and a fresh sketchbook to go with it.

Give them a place to make art. A small, dedicated art space makes a bigger difference than any single supply. It doesn’t have to be fancy. A corner of the kitchen table, a caddy of supplies they can reach on their own, a roll of paper and a spot on the wall or fridge to display finished work is enough. When supplies are visible and easy to put away, kids make art far more often.

Include an idea along with the gift. New supplies are even more exciting with a project to try right away. My Free Art Lesson Library is full of seasonal art lessons and printables that pair beautifully with the gifts below, so a new set of markers or paint can turn into a real art project on day one.

---

Stocking Stuffers for Kids Who Love Art

Small gifts that still feel special, from markers and paint sticks to the picture books I’d want on every young artist’s shelf.

Drawing and coloring

Mr. Sketch Scented Markers, 12 Count: The chisel-tip scented markers so many of us remember from our own classrooms. Kids love them for bold coloring, and the chisel tip makes a thick or thin line depending on how they hold it.

Crayola Silly Scents Washable Markers, 12 Count: Scented, washable markers for the younger end of this age range. Pair them with a fresh sketchbook and they’ll be busy all afternoon.

Crayola Glitter Markers, 6 Count: A little sparkle for cards, holiday drawings and anything that needs to shine. Small enough for a stocking and always a hit.

STABILO woody 3 in 1, 18 Colors: Chunky pencils that work as a colored pencil, a wax crayon and a watercolor in one, with a sharpener and brush included. Draw with them, then add a wet brush and watch the color turn to paint.

Melissa & Doug Scratch Art Rainbow Mini Notes: Small black cards that reveal rainbow color when you scratch into them with the wooden stylus. Perfect for car rides and quiet time, and a sneaky way to practice line and pattern.

Soucolor 9×12 Hardcover Spiral Sketchbook: A sturdy spiral sketchbook with a hard cover, so it can travel and still lie flat. Giving a child their own sketchbook says, quietly, that their ideas are worth keeping.

Painting and sparkle

OOLY Chunkies Tempera Paint Sticks, Set of 12: Solid tempera paint in a twist-up stick, chunky enough for small hands. They give that bright painted look without water cups, brushes or a big cleanup.

Crayola Washable Window Markers, 10 Count: Washable markers made for drawing on windows. A fun way to decorate for the holidays, and a big, upright surface makes drawing feel brand new.

Crayola Glitter Dots Sparkle Fills: Glitter with less mess, which every grown-up will appreciate. Lovely for adding sparkle to collage, cards and ornaments.

Paint by Sticker Kids: Pets: Kids build ten pictures one numbered sticker at a time, and the finished pages look like little mosaics. A calm, focused activity for kids who love detail.

Books that build confidence

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds: The story of Vashti, who doesn’t believe she can draw until her teacher asks her to sign her name on a single dot. I can’t think of a better book to tuck in with art supplies.

Peter H. Reynolds Creatrilogy Box Set (The Dot, Ish, Sky Color): Three picture books about creative courage in one box. Ish, in particular, is a gentle answer for the perfectionist kid who crumples up their paper.

Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg: A lift-the-flap book about turning spills, tears and smudges into something new. It’s the mindset I want every young artist to have.

Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals: A classic that shows kids how to build animals from simple shapes and lines. Kids who say “I can’t draw” often surprise themselves with this one.

How to Draw 101 Baby Animals: A step-by-step drawing book for children ages 5 and up, with each animal broken into small, easy stages. Great for independent drawing time at home.

---

Mid-Range Art Gifts for Kids

These are the gifts that keep a creative kid busy through the whole winter break: kits with a clear project to finish, drawing books that build real skills, and a few toys that happen to be art in disguise.

Craft and activity kits

Klutz Make Your Own Mini Erasers: Kids sculpt their own tiny erasers shaped like food and little characters. It’s real sculpting on a very small scale, and it’s labeled for ages 8 and up.

Klutz Make Glitter Clay Charms: A clay charm kit for making small sparkly charms, labeled for ages 8 and up. Kids who love miniatures will be completely absorbed.

Klutz Sew Mini Treats: A beginner sewing kit for making small stitched treats, with the book walking kids through each step. Sewing is wonderful for patience and fine motor skills.

Klutz Tiny Ceramics Studio: A kit for making tiny ceramic-style pieces. A lovely pick for kids who’ve outgrown play dough and want to make something that lasts.

Glow in the Dark Rock Painting Kit: Rocks, paints and brushes for painting little rock creatures, with glow-in-the-dark paint for extra fun. Painted rocks make great gifts to give away, too.

Melissa & Doug Created by Me! Paint and Decorate Your Own Wooden Vehicles: Wooden vehicles to paint and decorate, labeled for ages 4 and up. A great first “paint a real object” project for younger kids.

Drawing kits and books

Faber-Castell Do Art Colored Pencils Art Kit: A guided colored pencil kit with good-quality pencils. A nice step up for kids who are ready for more than coloring pages.

Faber-Castell Watercolor Pencil Art Kit for Beginners: Labeled for ages 9 and up, with watercolor pencils and a step-by-step guide. Draw first, then add water to blend, which feels like magic to tweens.

Faber-Castell World Colors How to Draw Faces Kit: A portrait-drawing kit with a range of skin tone colors, so kids can draw the people they love as they really are.

Draw with Art for Kids Hub: Animals: From the family behind the Art for Kids Hub videos, a drawing book full of friendly, step-by-step animals. Great for kids who already love drawing along with Rob.

Art Lab for Kids by Susan Schwake: 52 creative adventures in drawing, painting, printmaking, paper and mixed media. This is the book I’d hand to any parent who wants to do real art at home.

642 Tiny Things to Draw: A small book of quirky drawing prompts with space to draw right on the page. Perfect for older kids who doodle in the margins of everything.

Draw Every Little Thing: Learn to draw more than 100 everyday items, from food to fashion. A good fit for tweens who want their sketchbook pages to look “real”.

Klutz Lettering in Crazy Cool Quirky Style: A hand-lettering book and kit, labeled for ages 8 and up, that shows kids how to turn plain words into decorated letters. Tweens love it for cards, posters and journals.

Toys that make art

Crayola Marker Maker Kit: Kids build their own set of markers, labeled for ages 6 and up. Making the tools is half the fun.

Crayola Marker Airbrush Spray Art Kit: Pop washable markers into the airbrush and spray color through stencils. A fun way to explore layering and negative space.

Crayola Scribble Scrubbie Peculiar Pets: Little pets that kids color with washable markers, then wash and color again. Pure fun for the younger end of this age range.

Crayola Spin & Spiral Art Station: A spin art machine for making bright, swirly designs. A good one for kids who love the process more than the product.

Spirograph Deluxe Set: The classic gear-and-pen set for drawing spirals and loops. It’s quietly mathematical, endlessly satisfying and wonderful for focus.

Pictionary Air 2: Family Pictionary where you draw in the air, labeled for ages 8 and up. A fun way to get the whole family drawing, including the grown-ups who say they can’t.

---

Big Splurge Art Gifts for Kids

For the child whose art habit is here to stay, or for a family that wants to give one big gift that everyone uses. Easels, art tables and good storage turn “art time” into something that happens every day, not just when a grown-up sets it up.

Easels and art spaces

Melissa & Doug Deluxe Wooden Standing Art Easel: A sturdy wooden standing easel, labeled for ages 3 and up. Painting standing up at an easel is a completely different (and wonderful) experience for kids.

Melissa & Doug Deluxe Double-Sided Magnetic Tabletop Easel: A tabletop easel with a chalkboard, a dry-erase board and a paper roll. It sets up on any table and tucks away, which is perfect for smaller homes.

Step2 Great Creations Art Center: A double-sided easel and art desk with a built-in bench and supply storage. A real art corner in one piece for a playroom.

BOLUO Kids Art Table and Chair Set with Storage: A kid-sized craft table with storage drawers, so supplies live right where kids work. A dedicated spot makes it so much easier to make art every day.

Learning Resources Create-a-Space Storage Center: A tabletop caddy with removable containers for markers, crayons, scissors and glue. It keeps supplies visible and within reach, which is half the battle.

Hapinest Rotating Art Supply Organizer: A spinning organizer for crayons, markers and pencils. Kids can see everything at a glance and put it all back on their own.

YASONIC 3-Tier Metal Rolling Cart: A rolling cart that becomes a mobile art station: paper on the bottom, paints in the middle, drawing tools on top. Roll it to the kitchen table, then roll it away.

Bigger creative gifts

Crayola Ultimate Light Board: A light-up drawing board, labeled for ages 6 and up. It feels like a special gift, and kids love seeing their drawings glow.

Kid Made Modern Arts and Craft Kit: A big box of mixed craft materials, labeled for ages 8 and up, for open-ended making. Best for kids who like to invent their own projects.

LEGO DOTS Adhesive Patches Mega Pack: Colorful LEGO tiles for designing mosaic patches, labeled for ages 6 and up. It’s design and pattern thinking in disguise.

Sculpey III Polymer Clay Sampler, 30 Colors: Thirty bars of oven-bake clay, labeled for ages 8 and up, for tiny animals, charms and food. An adult should handle the oven.

Faber-Castell Watercolor Pencils, 60 Colors: A generous tin of watercolor pencils with a brush, eraser and sharpener. A lovely upgrade for an older artist who is ready to blend and layer.

Desuccus Kids Digital Camera: A kids’ digital camera with a memory card included. Photography is an art form, too, and kids see the world differently when they’re looking for something to capture.

XPPen Deco 01 V3 Drawing Tablet: A drawing tablet that connects to a computer, for tweens curious about digital art. Paper first, always, but this is a great next step for a kid who’s already drawing every day.

Wacom One Small Drawing Tablet: A compact pen tablet from a well-known digital art brand. If digital drawing is on the wish list, this and the XPPen are both good places to start.

---

From My Own Bookshelf

If you’d like to give a whole stack of art ideas, these two are mine. Every page is drawn by hand, and they pair beautifully with almost any gift above.

31 Easy Art Projects for Kids: Step-by-Step Art Lessons and Activities by Ms Artastic: Thirty-one art projects in full color, each with an example of the finished artwork and my step-by-step written guide. Tuck it in with a set of paint sticks or watercolor pencils and you’ve given a whole month of art.

Color All Year: Seasons and Holidays by Ms Artastic: My hand-drawn coloring book that moves through the seasons and holidays. A cozy companion to new markers or colored pencils for kids who love to color.

Turn New Supplies into Real Art Time

A gift opens the door, and a good project helps a child walk through it. If your young artist loves animals, my sloth rainforest art lesson is a sweet one to start with, and the poison dart frog art lesson is a bright, glowing project for kids who love pastel. For drawing practice, the summer cartoon grid drawing worksheets give kids a simple way to draw cartoon characters square by square, and older kids who love fantasy art usually adore the dragon eye line art lesson.

And by the way, if you’re a homeschool parent or teacher who wants art to keep going long after the holidays, the Artastic Collective is my complete art curriculum, with step-by-step lessons for kindergarten through grade 9 along with hundreds of other art lessons, so those new paints and pencils get used all year.

Looking for more ideas? You might like my earlier guides to arts and crafts gifts for early elementary kids and arts and crafts gifts for big kids ages 8 to 12, the best Christmas gifts for art-loving kids, and my tips for teaching art to mixed ages if you’ve got siblings creating side by side.

Happy Creating

Whatever you choose, the real gift is the message that comes with it: I see that you’re an artist. Kids hear that loud and clear when someone hands them real tools and makes a little space for them to create. I hope this guide helps you find something that sparks hours of happy making this season.

And when you’re ready for a project to try with those new supplies, you’ll find plenty of single art lessons in my shop, including the kid favorites below.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

---

Not Looking for a Whole Curriculum? Grab These Art Lessons on Their Own

These kid-favorite art lessons are available individually in my shop, and they’re a lovely way to put new markers, pastels and paint to work. Tap a cover to see what’s included.