Clip Art

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Barbara J. Feldman

Although plenty of it exists, finding free clip art can be a frustrating experience because so many clip art sites simply point to other sites, which in turn send you off to yet more sites. Today's picks, however, are guaranteed to deliver. When using them, be sure to remember the two golden rules of free clip art.

1) Do not steal bandwidth by pointing to images on other people's sites. Upload all images to your own web server.

2) Read and obey the terms of use for each site. Some sites may grant you unlimited use, but most include restrictions.

Awesome Clipart for Kids

5 stars

Awesome Clipart is the creation of fifteen-year old Tom Brown and his family. It features clip art, icons, original fonts for the PC, and printable coloring pages, all organized by topic and holiday. Awesome also offers three printable word puzzle generators: word search, crossword and cryptogram. After inputting your word list and choosing your graphics, creating a puzzle takes three mouse clicks. First "Make the Puzzle," then "Show Worksheet," and "Show Answer Key."

Classroom Clipart

4 stars

Classroom Clipart is a huge catalog of 23,000 royalty-free illustrations and photographs. It is organized into thirty categories, but because many topics span multiple categories, the best way to find what you need is their keyword search. Although the collection is the same for both free and paid members, the free photographs include a copyright notice. Paid members can access photos without them.

Discovery School Clipart Gallery

5 stars

With original art in both color and black and white, and topics geared especially for students and teachers, Discovery School Clipart Gallery is sure to please. Although there is no search function, the collection of several hundred illustrations is organized into nineteen topics and is easy to peruse. If you're looking for art to spruce up a web page, don't miss the animations. For tips on using clip art with Word or Discovery School's Puzzlemaker, follow the How To link near the bottom of the page.

Kids Domain Clip Art

4 stars

The number one reason to visit Kids Domain Clip Art is their terrific selection of holiday and seasonal clip art, but they also have pages for sports, computers, animals, and birthdays. In addition to their own art, each category includes links to other clip art sites. For animated animals, check out the Adoptable Rainforest Animals and Lil Chicks, each with their own adoption certificate!

The Kidz Page: Free Clip Art

3 stars

From Alphabet to Toys, over 1200 colorful images and animations are organized into sixteen categories at The Kidz Page. With only four or five illustrations per page, it is a bit time consuming to scroll through each category, but I found the original art worth the effort. For webmasters, there is a horizontal menu across the top of page with great backgrounds, buttons, bullets and accents. Background images are downloaded differently than regular clip art, so be sure to follow the instructions.