If you’re bored and can’t decide what to draw, start with something you can see, something you remember, or something you can change. A mug, your childhood bedroom, and a cat with an unusually serious job all give you somewhere to begin.
Choose whichever sounds enjoyable today. You can work on a scrap of paper, fill part of a sketchbook page, or spend a whole afternoon following an idea. These eight starting points give you subjects to try and ways to make them your own.
1. Draw Something Within Arm’s Reach
Look around and pick an object with a shape you like: a crumpled receipt, a pair of headphones, a spoon resting across a bowl. Everyday objects come with details you can discover as you draw.
Start with the outer shape, then choose one feature to concentrate on. For headphones, that could be the curve of the band. For a receipt, try the folds and the shadow underneath. Leave the tiny lettering until later, or suggest it with a few marks.
If you’d like an exercise to follow, the National Gallery of Art’s lesson on drawing everyday objects explores several ways to draw familiar subjects using different kinds of lines.
2. Give One Small Piece of Nature a Whole Page
A single leaf can keep you occupied longer than you expect. Look at its uneven edge, the way the stem joins it, and the smaller veins branching away from the centre.
Other good subjects include a curled seed pod, a piece of bark, a houseplant shoot, or a stone with a stripe through it. Draw the object larger than life so there’s room to explore its details.
Try making two versions beside each other: one showing the whole shape and another showing a small section close up. If you use a photograph, choose one where the feature you want to study is clearly visible.
If the outline feels too straightforward, make a texture sampler beside it. Try short strokes for rough bark, small dots for a speckled stone, or a few carefully spaced lines for the folds in a petal. Label the marks you like so you can try them elsewhere.
3. Choose a Reference and Change One Detail
Sometimes having a subject chosen for you is enough to get things moving. Browse Things to Draw for a reference that catches your attention, then decide what you’d enjoy doing with it.
You might draw it as it appears, concentrate on one part, or change a single feature. A mushroom could have a patterned cap. A bicycle might carry an enormous basket of flowers. A simple cup could become a collection of six differently shaped handles.
Keep the first change manageable. Once you’ve drawn the main subject, you can decide whether to add another detail. This gives you something definite to begin with while leaving plenty of room for your own ideas.
4. Combine Two Things That Don’t Belong Together
Write down a few animals, objects, and places on separate scraps of paper. Pick two and work out how they might share a drawing. A snail and a teapot could become a creature with a porcelain shell. A lighthouse and a tree could give you a lookout tower hidden among branches.
Games can supply combinations, too. LifeRejoice’s Little Alchemy 2 rainbow guide includes discoveries such as unicorns and chameleons. Borrow a subject and imagine where it lives or what it’s doing.
Give the combination one practical detail: a door, a handle, somewhere to sleep. Figuring out how an invented thing works can suggest what to draw next.
5. Sketch a Place From Memory
Think of somewhere you know well: a grandparent’s kitchen, your old classroom, a favourite café, or the view from a bus stop you used every day.
Begin with the feature you remember most clearly. It might be a crooked cupboard, a row of coat hooks, or the way a lamp hung over one table. Add the surrounding shapes as they come back to you.
There will probably be gaps. Leave them empty or make a note of what you can’t quite place. If you have a photograph, compare it with your sketch afterwards. You may discover that the smallest details were the ones that stayed with you.
You could also draw the place as a map. Mark the entrance, the window you liked sitting beside, and the route to the kitchen. Add short labels where a memory needs explaining. This works especially well when you remember the layout more clearly than the furniture.
6. Build a Tiny Imaginary Place
Draw somewhere you’d like to explore: a bookshop under a bridge, a house inside a tree stump, or a castle standing on a narrow island.
If you’ve been playing along with LifeRejoice’s guide to making a castle in Little Alchemy 2, use the castle as your drawing prompt. Decide who lives there and how they get through the front door. Those two questions can help you choose its size, setting, and unusual features.
Keep the buildings simple at first. Draw the larger shapes, then add details such as a wonky chimney, washing on a line, or a ladder leading somewhere mysterious. A tiny figure beside the entrance can help suggest the scale.
7. Give an Animal an Everyday Problem
A fox waiting for a late train, a frog carrying too many shopping bags, or a dinosaur trying to fit into a lift can make a satisfying little drawing.
Choose the situation first, then decide which details will explain it. The fox might need a watch and an impatient expression. The frog’s bags could be almost as big as its body. One recognisable prop can do a lot of the storytelling.
If you fancy the dinosaur but want help getting started, the Natural History Museum has a cartoon T. rex drawing guide built around simple shapes. Once you have a creature on the page, you can invent its predicament.
Keep any background modest. A sign, a doorway, or a strip of pavement may be enough.
8. Turn a Small Mishap Into a Three-Panel Comic
Draw three boxes and think of a tiny event with a beginning, a change, and a reaction. A biscuit falls into a cup. A cat discovers an empty food bowl. Someone carefully builds a sandwich and drops it.
Use the first panel to establish what’s happening, the second for the mishap, and the third for the response. Keep the camera angle similar across all three if that makes things easier.
Stick figures are perfectly useful here. The drawing needs to communicate the moment, and a raised eyebrow or a slumped pair of shoulders might be all you need. Try leaving out dialogue on your first attempt and see whether the pictures tell the story.
If you’re still undecided, choose the nearest object and draw it for five minutes. You’ll soon have something on the page to respond to: a shape you want to improve, a detail worth enlarging, or an idea for a completely different drawing.
Before you stop, jot your next subject in the margin. Even “the other headphone” will do. The next time you’re bored, you’ll have a small invitation waiting for you.