How to Keep and Organize Your Child's Artwork

If a child draws three pictures a day, that’s more than 1,000 a year. Add everything that comes home from preschool. Keep it all, and in a few years a closet is full.

Throwing them away feels wrong. Keeping them all isn’t possible. Some families get stuck right here. This post covers ways to keep and organize children’s artwork, first for paper and then for drawings made in an app.

Photograph paper drawings first

The first thing you can do is photograph a drawing soon after it’s made. Even if the paper has to go someday, the photo stays.

A few tips for taking the photo:

• Shoot from directly above, near a bright window. Shooting at an angle distorts the shape. Turning on the camera Grid on an iPhone or iPad makes it easier to keep things straight.
• Keep shadows out. Stand so your own shadow doesn’t fall on the picture. Bright shade gives truer color than direct sunlight.
• Include your child. A photo of your child holding the picture shows at a glance how old they were.
• Write the date on the back. For drawings you keep on paper, write the date and the title your child gave it on the back. It makes looking back more fun.

Choosing what to keep

After photographing, choose which drawings to keep on paper. One way is to decide the space first. For example, “one box per year,” and when the box overflows, choose again.

If you can, choose together with your child. Adults tend to keep the drawings that look skillful. Children pick for reasons adults can’t see, and surprising pictures survive.

As a rough guide, here are some drawings to keep:

• “Firsts,” like the first face or the first time writing their name
• Drawings your child asked you to keep
• Drawings whose story you still remember

Display, then let go

Letting go of a picture right after it’s drawn is hard for both child and parent. You can display it first. Put it in a set place on the fridge or wall, and swap it out when a new one arrives. If you photograph it when you swap it, there’s a record before it goes.

Some people suggest letting go when the child isn’t watching. For a drawing the child cares about, another way is to ask first. “I took a photo of it. Is it OK if the paper goes now?” Children often say yes more easily than you’d expect.

Sending drawings to grandparents is another way to let them go.

Organizing the photos

Photos tend to get buried in the camera roll. In the Photos app on iPhone and iPad, you can make an album just for your child’s artwork (Apple’s guide to albums). Albums by year, or by age, are easy to look back on. Photos keep the date they were taken, so sorting by date turns the album into a record of growth.

For grandparents who live far away, a Shared Album is handy. People you invite can view the photos and videos, comment, and add their own (Apple’s guide to Shared Albums).

Some families turn a year’s worth into a photo book once enough have piled up. It takes far less room than a box of paper.

Keeping Kinder Paint artwork

Kinder Paint is a drawing app for iPhone and iPad for children aged 2 to 6. I make it.

Drawings made in Kinder Paint stay in the app’s Gallery as canvases, and they are saved automatically while your child draws. But canvases are stored only on the device and are never sent to a server. If you delete the app or switch devices, the canvases don’t come along. Save the ones you want to keep to Photos.

Saving to Photos. On the drawing screen, tap the save button (the floppy disk icon) to save the picture to Photos. The first time, iOS asks whether to allow the app to add to Photos. If you don’t allow it, the app shows that the artwork couldn’t be saved. In that case, open the Settings app, find Kinder Paint, and allow access to Photos.

Drawings saved to Photos can go into the same album as photos of paper drawings. Paper and app drawings from the same period end up side by side.

Manga canvas. When saving, you can choose This page or All pages. For all pages, you can combine them as 4-panel (vertical), 4-panel (horizontal) or Square (2×2).

Paint Academy. When a tracing lesson is finished, you can Save Image or Save Video of the drawing process. A video of the picture being drawn is something paper can’t keep.

The free plan saves up to three canvases. When it’s full, save the ones you want to Photos, delete an older canvas, and there’s room for a new drawing. Unlimited canvases, the Manga and Dot canvases, Paint Academy, and exports without the app logo come with the paid Kinder Paint Pro (600 yen a month or 3,000 yen a year on the Japanese App Store). There are no ads and no account.

When you look back at saved drawings with your child, How to Praise a Child’s Drawing may help. Everyday ideas are in Kinder Paint Tips.