Think of What to Draw
Drawing can be an enjoyable activity, but finding inspiration may seem like a difficult task. If you're having trouble thinking of what to draw, try practicing some basic art drills, looking around your environment for ideas, or looking internally at your feelings and interests. There are many different possibilities -- all you need to do is pick one and let your creativity flow.
Steps
- Doodle. One of the best ways to get your creative juices flowing is to let go of expectations and see where the moment takes you. Even if you just make squiggles, it will get you into the mood of putting pencil to paper. Better still, a shape or texture might pop out at you and suggest something more serious to draw.
- Warm up with a two- or three-minute "gesture sketch" of an object or person in sight. This could be a self-portrait if you turn on your webcam and look at the screen or set up a mirror. Use an egg timer and try to draw what you see within a few minutes. This is a great warm-up because you don't expect it to come out well or finished, but may surprise yourself at how much you can get down in such a short time. It's also easier to get friends to pose for two-minute gestures than having them pose for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time.
- Play with colors. If you draw with colors, try mixing various ones together and see what happens. What colors attract or intrigue you? What do they remind you of? Open a box of colored pencils, pastels, crayons, or oil pastels so that you can see all the colors in spectrum order. Alternatively, try palette generating tools online. Allow yourself to free-associate the colors with objects, moods, and scenes.
- Try something easy that you've drawn many times before. Sometimes going back to basics can help you get past a freeze if you're losing confidence in your drawing ability. If you practiced drawing eyes for weeks, draw some more with variations. If you like drawing flowers, start with a flower and then build a scene around it. Starting with something safe will not only help you build confidence, but will also remind you that it took practice to get good at that thing – just as it will take practice to master a new technique.
- Introspect. What is important to you? What do you feel right now? How might that translate into an image?
- Look around. What is in your surroundings right now? Is it special or ordinary? If you want to start with something easy, set up a still-life arrangement with objects that are basically cubes, cylinders, or spheres (ex. an opaque cup, a box, a book, a tennis ball). Sketch them rapidly and shade them to look three-dimensional. Though it may seem straightforward, this task will force you to address shape, texture, depth, and proportion simultaneously and should prove a far greater challenge than you expected.
- Draw from a photograph. If there's nothing around to draw and you have enough still-life images/pictures of the junk in your room, go looking for photographs that might be interesting to draw.
- Try looking at a photograph of something you like, and try to redraw it on paper.
- Draw things you like. Are you especially fond of gardens? Dogs? You may be looking at your subject in detail, so choose something you want to explore.
- Do something else. If you sit there staring at a page and nothing is coming to mind, find something else to do for a while. Often, a change of focus will help with creativity. Paradoxically, washing dishes or house cleaning and chores are good for stimulating creativity; they occupy your left brain with organizing and tidying up, freeing your right brain to daydream and develop an itch to draw. This works for writing too.
- Set yourself a challenge. Is there something you always wanted to draw well but never thought you could? Now might be the time to tackle it and see if your latest attempt is better than the last. Find photo references, look in the mirror for a self-portrait, or set out the interesting object you always wanted to draw well like a clear glass under a lamp and study it. Sketch it loosely first to establish the basic shape and proportions and balance it on the page, then start shading and detailing.
- Copy a master drawing or painting. Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring," Leonardo da Vinci's self-portrait, one of Turner's landscapes, or any other painting or drawing by a classical master can inspire you to strengthen your skills. Search for examples online or read art history sites to choose a master to draw from. This is a good break if you've been struggling with something like composition or depth and want to understand how great artists of the past achieved their results.
- Clean and organize your art supplies. Sometimes, it's hard to get started if you can't find the materials you need. Handling your art supplies while putting them away in their places will also start giving you ideas of things you can do with them. If you have accumulated a lot of different supplies for different mediums, this may be the block in itself: too much interesting clutter, too many attractive distractions.
- Supplies may not be inviting or easy to use if they're dirty. Pastels jumbled up in a box all look gray. Watercolor pans may look brown and muddy from other colors mixed into them from the last painting session. Dozens of colored pencils out of order may look like a confusing mess and make it hard for you to choose the exact reddish brown you want.
- Choose one medium and one surface or sketchbook based on what's most interesting to you while putting the rest away. Organize everything else back where it belongs and settle down to get started.
- Read, listen to music, dance, or do some other creative activity. What shape, color, and texture do these activities have? What picture (concrete or abstract) do they form? Answer these questions and try to draw the picture that the activities form.
- Watch clouds, a fire, the texture of a wall, the holes in the ceiling, or the stars in the sky. What patterns do you think you see? What would you have to do to replicate/suggest these everyday textures? Do they remind you of another image that you’d prefer to draw?
- Draw people. Faces come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, of course, but hands, feet, and body shapes can be interesting, too. Try actions, postures, and scenes if you don't feel like doing a portrait.
- Try animals. They can be familiar ones, such as the family cat, bird, or dog, or they can be animals in nature.
- Try plants. Botanical illustration has a long history. Careful botanical illustration was used for identification and classification before photography became widespread. If you're not going for realism, you could also do an artistic interpretation of a plant.
- Consult a book. You can read a book about drawing for ideas and practice subjects, or you can read any unrelated book, fiction or nonfiction, to get your mind moving in a new direction. For fantastical imagery, pick up a sci-fi or fantasy book that takes place in an imaginary world.
- Sleep on it. Sometimes creative bursts come in dreams or in the chaotic thoughts and half dreams you experience just as you fall asleep. Keep a notebook by the bed for these ideas. If inspiration does not strike, at least, you will be well-rested.
- Draw abstracts, patterns, and shapes. Arrange shapes into a composition that you find interesting and dynamic and then experiment with the coloring. To do something that is relaxing on the one hand but has carefully rendered, intricate details on the other, work out elegant border designs and patterns or try to replicate Celtic knotwork.
- Look back through old sketchbooks for ideas. Something you drew a long time ago may not have come out the way you wanted; if you can see what went wrong with it, you're halfway to doing it better. That can be the inspiration itself, reminding you of how much you've grown. You might also find gems you didn't realize had come out so well. Those can be inspiring too.
- Build habits around your drawing and painting process. Do you always listen to music while painting, or always listen to certain music? Do you like to light a stick of incense before starting? Maybe it would help if you always clear your drafting table and clean your pens before you start. Build up a short, simple ritual of activities you do in the same order every time you start that set conditions a little different from everything else in life. It doesn't matter what you choose to make your environment more art-friendly; the most important thing is that these rituals become reminders, helping you establish triggers for your creative habits.
- Try daily drawing or daily painting and blog it, or keep an art journal. Even a two-minute gesture sketch every day is a good way to build a habit and keep up a rhythm of creativity. In the busiest life, it's possible to make time for a two- or five-minute activity. When you post your results online, you’ll plug yourself into a social reward system. Friends will comment on and usually compliment your work. The longer you do this, the better your daily art will become, meaning that the swell of social support will get bigger and bigger.
- Look up a place you've always wanted to visit or see. Know what the place looks like and try to copy it on paper. Maybe, try to find a picture of that place on the Internet or even a book. Try to notice the details before copying it on paper.
Tips
- Keep a sketch book around so that you can make at least a rough sketch when inspiration strikes.
- It's okay to draw anything you want, any way you want. It doesn't have to be special or important, and it certainly doesn't have to be "right," whatever that means. If you really don't like the result, you can always draw something else.
- Draw in your own style and find inspiration in whatever makes you feel like drawing.
- It's also okay to draw the same thing over and over if you like it or you're not satisfied with how it came out. That can result in a lot of artistic growth along the way or a beautiful series as you change the angle you draw it from, record the changes in a rose from day to day or try different mediums and techniques.
- Express yourself through drawing. Use line variety to show your feelings, or the delicacy of an object. It can really help and it can be seen in your drawings how much care you put in.
- You have to express yourself through the drawings so if you are feeling sad draw someone crying or something delicate or if you are angry draw a lion or something fierce.
- Don't be afraid to try something new or make something up as you go. Many ideas come from out of the blue. It can help you become a better drawer.
- Daydream about drawing while riding elevators, standing in line, or otherwise stuck with nothing to do. This will actually improve your drawing skills, especially if you imagine it in detail line by line. Imagine yourself doing it perfectly and you might surprise yourself the next time you do it for real!
- Try first thing in the morning. Sometimes the mind is most flexible before all the filters are fully awake.
- It's okay to draw things that you have never drawn before. Variety is good practice and it keeps things interesting.
- Draw from a real subject whenever possible, especially if you are going for accuracy. The shape, color, and texture are best captured from the real thing. In some cases, a photograph is a better source, such as if the subject is transitory (a particular sunset, traffic) or not something easily viewed (a sea turtle). Photographs are good for two things: detail and proportions. They are not very good for color or value - light colors overexpose to white and dark colors get far too dark, so judging a photo against similar things you've seen in person is the best way to get color and value accurate. When it's your own photo, it will spark the memory of the moment you snapped it.
- When you challenge yourself, it helps to do small preliminary sketches to establish the layout so that you don’t get bogged down in the details.
- When you wake up remember the first thing you see so you can draw it later if you are bored.
- Always have a notebook close so you can jot down any new ideas.
- Relax! Breathe in and out, this will help you concentrate and think of something to draw.
- Think of what you love the most or look over old sketch pads.
- Sketch lightly in pencil at first so you can erase any mistakes in your drawing.
- Ask a family member or friend to give you an idea as to what you should draw, or you could look at one of their drawings for inspiration.
- Drawing is what comes from the heart,you can draw whatever you feel like at that moment. Also drawing is a way to express your feelings. Don't be scared to draw any thing because someone might laugh at you its there opinion not yours so I hope you keep it up and don't let any one bring you down.
- If you can remember your dreams you can draw inspiration from them.
Warnings
- Don't copy a photo too exactly. Photos are good for proportions and details on some things, but they have a lot of distortions too. Light colors may overexpose until they're all white. Trees and other dark elements may turn black or nearly black. Color may be dramatically different from reality. Unless you are doing photorealism, copying the degree of detail and hard-edged focus on everything in the photo is going to create a disturbing drawing. Try to simplify what's there and detail only what's the most important. Detail the eyes on a portrait, for example, but draw the hair as a loose mass of tone or color rather than trying to depict every strand perfectly.
- While there's nothing wrong with drawing from a photograph to practice, keep in mind that you may not be able to publish the result if you don't hold the copyright or have permission. Find sources of photos where you can get permission. Some art communities have shared photo libraries from members. Wikipedia photos are often on Wikimedia Commons; read the terms and honor the terms as listed by crediting the photographer or not selling the resulting derivative works. Better yet, use your own photos.
- However, if you know the copyright holder's information, feel free to ask him/her permission to use his/her images.
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