Squiggles: A Really Giant Drawing and Painting Book
About.com Rating
Don’t mistake Squiggles by Taro Gomi for a coloring book. Instead, Squiggles: A Really Giant Drawing and Painting Book is a creativity book, designed to awaken the imagination and creativity of those who are exposed to it. The book is divided into a dozen sections. On each page, there are very simple drawings, mostly done in wide gray lines, with lots of white space in and around the drawings for the artist/reader to use.
Squiggles – An Overview
Squiggles has more than 200 pages. The book begins with a section titled, “Let’s design T-shirts!” Each page has a simple drawing of a child in a T-shirt. Some of the pages in this section of Squiggles include simple instructions, such as, “On this one, draw something that breathes fire,” while others leave it up to the artist/reader to decide what to draw on the T-shirt.- The ”Let’s play in the mountains!” section prompts the artist/reader to create and illustrate an adventure story involving a journey through mountains, desert, and beyond.
- ”Let’s make faces!” encourages the artist/reader to draw or paint the faces of friends on the faceless heads provided by Taro Gomi.
- ”Let’s paint what’s in the sea” takes the artist/reader on an ocean voyage.
- ”These people need to get dressed” emphasizes clothes and costumes with unfinished pictures of children.
- ”What’s for dinner? Paint something delicious” features pages of empty bowls and plates waiting to be filled by the artist/reader.
- ”Let’s paint the sky” features morning, noon, and night and different weather conditions.
- ”Let’s draw some hats!” provides opportunities to draw hats for children, adults, and animals.
- ”Time for a trip!” features all kinds of modes of transportation.
- ”Give all these stores great signs” encourages the artist/reader to make shopping easier by drawing or painting signs on the building pictured.
- ”Let’s paint faces!” emphasizes a wide variety of feelings.
- In the last section - “What’s in these vases?” – Taro Gomi invites the artist/reader to create lots of bouquets.
