It may seem strange, but the best way to conquer the question of “What should I draw?” is to start drawing something, anything. Just move your pencil on the page and see what happens.
This one something that stood in my way for a long time. I wanted to draw something cool, meaningful even, but I had no ideas. But I wasn’t drawing, and the longer I wasn’t drawing, the more difficult it became to come up with ideas and draw something. Inertia and creative block go hand-in-hand, and the best way to break through it is make a mark, then another mark.
OK, but what should I draw then?
So maybe you need something more specific than just putting that pencil to the paper and seeing what happens. Then there are two different approaches I think are helpful to get that drawing momentum going.
Firstly, tutorials and learning…
No matter how long you’ve been drawing, your skills can always be sharpened. There are so many new techniques to learn and different ways of drawing the same thing. Doing a tutorial or an online course will tell you what to draw, and the outcome is very specific. This is hugely helpful if you don’t know what you WANT to draw yet. And of course, you are improving your own ability so that when you do know what you want to draw for you, you’ll be able to execute it that much better.
Check out things like the Proko YouTube channel for tips on tackling different parts of human anatomy, or grab yourself an annual subscription to Schoolism.
Right now (June 2021) Schoolism has their seasonal sale where a subscription to 50+ different courses and workouts is only $200! Learn from accomplished artists working in the the entertainment arts industries. Everything from the fundamentals of drawing, to storyboarding, traditional and digital painting, digital sculpture and more. I’m on my second subscriptions at the moment. More information here: https://schoolism.com/
Secondly, prompts and monthly challenges
Monthly drawing challenges like MerMay, March Of Robots, Swordtember, and Inktober are great ways to challenge your idea generation, especially if you are prone to drawing the same old thing or don’t know what to draw. It gets you asking questions about the subject. If one prompt is Happy Dog, you might have to sit there asking how the heck you draw a dog smiling, or what things make a dog happy. And asking questions, fellow traveler, are the key to progress in any discipline.
It also forces you to make decisions a bit faster when you have one day or one hour to do your drawing because tomorrow you have a different prompt to tackle… a new problem to solve.
So why not jump over to the Old Inktober Prompt lists and work your way through one or two of them to get the ball rolling.
Another great approach from Jake Parker (the man behind the Inktober challenge) is to design one hundred somethings. I’ll leave it to him to explain the idea in this video ->
On that note about one hundred somethings… One of my absolute favourite artists today is Ahmed Aldoori. He’s got this 100 Heads in 10 days challenge. If ever you feel like you keep drawing faces that always look quite similar, then this challenge is for you. When you have to do this many in a short time, you’re going to have to find some variety.
Wrapping up…
If you’ve been sitting there wondering what to draw today, I hope this post was helpful to get you pushing pixels, graphite, whatever your weapons of choice are. My advice is to just get moving. It doesn’t matter if the drawing doesn’t look good. Do a bad drawing on purpose even; get it out of your system. Then grab another page and get serious.
Don’t sit idle waiting for ideas to come to you. Draw. Make some deposits into that creative bank account, then the ideas will happen.
