A child who loves art has one of the most naturally self-directed interests there is. These are the YouTube channels that feed it properly.
Art and drawing are among the very best things a child can engage with on a screen – they’re active rather than passive, they build real skills, and they create something that exists beyond the viewing session. A child who watches a drawing tutorial and then immediately picks up a pencil is using YouTube exactly as it should be used.
The channels below are organised by age and approach, covering everything from guided step-by-step drawing for young beginners to technique-based instruction for older children who are serious about developing their skills – and one brilliant channel about art history and ideas for those whose interest extends beyond making to understanding.
For younger artists (ages 5-9)
Art for Kids Hub
The gold standard for children’s drawing tutorials on YouTube. Art for Kids Hub is run by a dad who draws alongside one of his children in every video, which sets the tone perfectly – it’s collaborative, warm, and genuinely encouraging. Step-by-step tutorials cover animals, cartoon characters, seasonal subjects, and everyday objects, broken down into simple stages that keep even very young children engaged and producing results they’re proud of. The channel has been running for over a decade and has accumulated an extraordinary library – whatever your child wants to draw, there’s almost certainly a tutorial for it. Best from around age 5, and one of the few channels where a parent drawing alongside a child is a genuinely natural experience.
Draw So Cute
Hosted by Winnie, Draw So Cute specialises in the kawaii-influenced cute characters and objects that dominate children’s drawing culture – big eyes, rounded shapes, pastel colours. The tutorials are clear, beginner-friendly, and consistently produce satisfying results. For children who love the aesthetic of cute illustration and want to develop a personal drawing style within it, this is the most directly relevant channel available. Best from around age 6.
Muffalo Potato
A charmingly inventive channel run by animator John Massé, who teaches drawing by starting with letters and numbers as the building blocks of characters and objects. The approach is genuinely distinctive – a child who learns to see letters as shapes to build from develops a different kind of visual thinking than one who simply copies outlines. Calm, funny, and creative. Particularly good for children who find blank-paper drawing daunting but respond well to having a clear starting point.
For developing artists (ages 8-12)
Mr Otter Art Studio
Step-by-step art lessons for kids, families and classrooms, covering watercolour and pencil drawing through to mixed media projects, using simple supplies and teaching useful techniques in a fun and encouraging way. Mr Otter moves beyond drawing into proper art technique – shading, perspective, colour mixing, watercolour washes – in a way that genuinely develops skills rather than just producing finished pieces. For a child who has outgrown the step-by-step drawing format and wants to understand how art actually works, this is the natural next step. Accessible from around age 8, and increasingly rewarding as children get older.
Red Ted Art
Broader than a drawing channel – Red Ted Art covers paper crafts, clay modelling, painting, and DIY projects alongside drawing tutorials, with a consistent emphasis on using simple, affordable materials. Hosted by Maggy Woodley, the channel has a warm, encouraging energy and a particular strength in seasonal and themed projects that children can make as gifts or decorations. For children whose art interest is as much about making things as about drawing specifically, Red Ted Art is the most versatile option in this age group.
For older children and serious young artists (ages 10+)
Proko
A professional art education channel covering figure drawing, anatomy, portrait drawing, and the fundamentals of observational drawing at a level of rigour that most children’s art channels don’t come close to. Stan Prokopenko – Proko – is a working artist and teacher whose explanations of proportion, gesture, and structure are among the clearest available anywhere. Best for children aged 10 and above who are genuinely serious about developing their drawing ability and ready for instruction that treats them as capable of real technical improvement.
The Art Assignment (PBS)
A PBS series hosted by art historian Sarah Urist Green, covering art movements, individual artists, and the ideas behind them in short, beautifully produced films. Less about making art and more about understanding it – what conceptual art is and why it matters, how abstract expressionism developed, what a particular photograph is really doing. For a child whose love of art extends to curiosity about art history and theory, The Art Assignment is extraordinary. Accessible from around age 11, and the kind of content that completely changes how a young person looks at art for the rest of their life.
A note on art and the algorithm
Art is one of the most benign categories on YouTube in terms of algorithmic drift – drawing tutorials tend to stay close to drawing tutorials. The bigger risk for this category is time: a child who starts with a ten-minute drawing tutorial can easily spend an hour watching tutorials without producing anything, which rather misses the point.
The most useful thing a parent can do is treat these channels as a starting point rather than a destination – watch a tutorial, then close the screen and draw. The channels above are all ones worth having in an approved list. As with all mindful screen use, what matters most is what happens when the video ends.
Give your young artist the best of YouTube
Streamu lets parents whitelist specific YouTube channels for their children – so an art-loving child has access to Art for Kids Hub, Mr Otter, and the full range of genuinely educational art content, without the algorithm pulling them somewhere else.
Join a growing community of conscious parents taking back control.
Leave a Reply