Do you know of the artist Ed Emberley? He’s an illustrator and may be best known for his children’s books.

In our house, he’s most famous for his books that teach kids how to draw a variety of images using basic shapes. I think that these are some of the most fun and useful “how to draw” books that I’ve seen for kids.

Emberley does a great job of breaking an image down to its most simple shapes, and he presents every single step in the process. The drawings are simple enough that even a beginning student won’t get discouraged. Any kid with an interest in drawing can pick up the books and follow along without the adult assistance.

This past winter, Luc had a moment of inspiration, sat down and drew every image in Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals. The final result is this amazing 8 x 15 in sheet of paper filled with creatures.

Luc particularly liked the bird page, drawing those again and again. I turned one of his sketches with three birds in a row into mugs. To round out the image, Alex drew a worm that we placed in front of the birds. You know, for that whole “early bird catches the worm” theme, perfect inspiration for your morning hot coco or espresso.

These are the “espresso” size mugs from Zazzle. In our opinion, they’re a touch too big to be an espresso mug, BUT they’re my favorite size mug for using with kids. So we gifted these to cousins and friends last Christmas.

If you’d like to get your own Early Bird mug, we’re selling them here.