Cognitive Drawing
Where memory meets mastery, Cognitive Drawing trains your teen to draw from recall—not just reference—building sharper sketching skills through brain-based repetition, structured lessons, and anatomy without awkwardness.
$26.95
Quantity:
2026 Eleventh-Grade Curriculum Kit
What if drawing practice focused less on copying what you see and more on remembering what you drew afterward? Cognitive Drawing is built around the testing effect—a research-supported learning strategy that strengthens memory through recall, checking, and repetition—using those principles to teach drawing skills that stick.
Developed by a former Hollywood artist, Cognitive Drawing teaches students to draw from memory rather than relying entirely on reference images. Students repeatedly observe, recall, sketch, evaluate, and repeat, strengthening both artistic skill and long-term retention.
The course focuses primarily on male figure drawing and anatomy using a bodybuilder model to teach proportion, structure, muscle groups, and form. While the emphasis is on anatomy, the memory-based techniques can transfer to future drawing projects and artistic study.
Inside the course, students will find:
- Ninety days of structured drawing lessons
- Approximately thirty minutes of work per lesson
- Instruction focused on figure drawing, anatomy, structure, and proportion
- Premium sketchbook-quality paper designed for pencil work
- A progression built around observation, recall, correction, and repetition The book avoids nudity while still providing serious anatomy instruction and structured artistic training.
Whether your teen is pursuing art more seriously or simply wants stronger drawing skills, Cognitive Drawing offers a structured approach that combines artistic practice with memory training. Completion counts as approximately ¼ high school art credit.
How to Use Cognitive Drawing
- Choose a pace that fits your schedule. Complete 2–3 lessons each week to spread the program across a school year, or work through approximately one lesson each school day to finish in about 90 days.
- Set aside about 30 minutes for each lesson and complete the lessons in order, since each exercise builds on previously learned drawing and memory skills.
- Follow the process exactly as written: observe, draw, compare, correct, and repeat. The goal is not simply creating a finished drawing—it’s strengthening your ability to remember and reconstruct what you see.
- Work through lessons sequentially rather than skipping around
- Focus on improvement rather than perfect drawings
- Repetition is built into the method intentionally
In the 2026 kits this course earns high school credit under more than one heading:
0.25 credits of Mixed Media Art III
Art · 11th grade · Classic and Non-Religious kits
0.25 credits of Mixed Media Art III
Art · 11th grade · Classic and Non-Religious kits
Earned with Mose's Detective Agency and the Hand-Poured Cement Workshop from the 11th grade Elite kit.
Publisher: Coffee Table Comics
Author: Jason Brubaker
Age Recommendation: 8+
Grade Recommendation: 3rd+
Faith-Based: No
Consumable: Yes
Pages: 160
Lessons/Projects: 90
Format: Softcover
”Each day, the Cognitive Drawing workbook presents a comic book style instruction that’s both informative and fun to read (yay for hidden reading practice).”
Read the review.
It’s step by step so it’s easy to follow and even easier to see progress, which makes it immediately more accessible to kids who need to see their progress."
Read the review.
”One of the best features of this book is that you can jump right in and start with no prep. There are no long, complicated instructions to follow.”
Read the review.
review by Educational Roots
”I believe this Cognitive Drawing method is really good for kids who are struggling with their memory or have learning disabilities and things like that because it helps improve those skills.”
Read the review.
”The results are impressive. This self-paced book contains 90 lessons.”
Read the review.
Educational Roots
Find answers to the most frequently asked questions about this product below:
Cognitive Drawing counts as a quarter credit of Mixed Media Art III on a high school transcript. It can also earn another quarter credit of Mixed Media Art III. That credit is earned with Mose's Detective Agency and the Hand-Poured Cement Workshop from the 11th grade Elite kit. To turn its grade into a GPA, use our free homeschool GPA calculator: it works out each letter grade from your student's scores, figures the GPA by year and for all of high school, and prints a grade record for the transcript.
Customers earn Doodle Dollars for reviewing products they've purchased, and some promotions add an entry in a prize drawing. Rewards never depend on the rating given.
- September 23, 2026
Steph H.
My 11th grade son received Cognitive Drawing in his kit this year. The instructions in the book are clear and easy to follow, so it is a great resource for independent learning (which I appreciate as my drawing skills are not stellar). He has just started, but has already improved his drawing skills. One of his brothers has his eye on this book as he enjoys illustrating comics.
- August 13, 2023
Looks challenging but thorough
Frances J.
I ordered this for our 7th grade student as a way to work on art on-the-go (without needing a lot of supplies or setup.) He is very excited and a little intimated to start this book. The book is very nicely put together - I like the extra flaps on the front and back for covering work and protecting pages. I think this will be a fun challenge for him!
- September 22, 2022
Mom
Amanda
I have an tenth grader that can’t wait to draw in his Cognitive Drawing workbook! The first few lessons he was a bit frustrated that he wasn’t as good as he thought but on day 4 his confidence in his abilities showed. The attention to detail as he draws is such a great skill to develop and the book helps tremendously! Great for an array of ages. Well put together and explains things well. My kid can’t wait to apply what he learns to his comic book sketches!
