How does one find creative drawing ideas for beginners? We tend to have all the supplies around the house or readily available but we struggle to start. Starting with something easy and nonthreatening is the way to go! Easy drawing ideas are the way to get started!
Try some simple drawing prompts to get you started. Also you should remember that practice makes perfect! So if you don’t do well to begin with, keep trying! You can literally draw what you see! There is so much around you that you can use for inspiration. If you’re sitting in the living room with your sketchpad and pencil/eraser.
Check out the room you are in and try drawing:
- The couch – The tv – The cat/dog
- A book on the coffee table
- Your feet – A plant – The lamp
Start simple and sketch one thing
I breakdown the image into shapes. Let’s look at a snowman for example. Its three circles, in different sizes, one on top of the other. A triangle for the nose, solid circles for the “two eyes made out of coal”, and twigs for arms.
This is simple and lets you break down your image into steps.
Try this with your younger kiddos! Help them see the shapes in each image and start there.
Step by step drawing is, in my opinion, the way to get started in learning how to draw complex things. For example this website has a cute 9 step way to draw a turtle.
Check this guy out and give it a try. It does just what I mentioned and starts with an oval for the head, two lines for the neck and a larger oval connected to the neck on the other side.
See their images for a better visual guide.
Scribble art
This is another way to work on hand eye coordination as well as coloring skills and texture work. Grab a pencil or pen and make large circles and loops all over your paper. For added fun, close your eyes while you do it! Draw the lines first all over the page. I make one very long continuous line and stop when I feel the page is well covered. This image was done on a drawing program on my ipad called Procreate, but you can really use any program you can find for writing or drawing.
Once I had all the scribbles done, I then started filling the colors into each section. I made sure not to let the same color touch one another. But really you can do it whatever way you wish.
This art form gives us a chance to free ourselves of expectations and perfection and to just play. As we grow up we don’t often allow ourselves time to play anymore. We watch others younger than us playing and laughing and sometimes we smile and wish to join in. But we don’t. Why not?
So after that some free drawing of what you see as well as scribbling we have more to do!
This website has some cool prompts for practicing drawing different topics. They have a cool list of seasonal prompts one can try. Check these out.
HALLOWEEN DRAWING IDEAS:
- A bat flying in the sky
- Your idea of a haunted house
- A massive spider web (you decide how big)
- Pumpkins with scary faces
- A group of witches brewing a boiling cauldron
- A spooky ghost that could live in your town
- A glamorous vampire and their vampire hunter nemesis
- Zombies walking through the city
- An old graveyard that is coming alive
THANKSGIVING DRAWING IDEAS:
- A cornucopia of different fall foods (like pumpkins and corn)
- Your favorite Thanksgiving dinner dish
- Colorful fall leaves falling from the trees
- A portrait of a turkey
- Something that you’re thankful for
CHRISTMAS DRAWING IDEAS:
- A Christmas tree decorated by you
- A portrait of Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus
- All of Santa’s reindeer playing in the snow
- The biggest snowman that you can imagine
- Santa’s sleigh with Christmas lights
- Your family as gingerbread people
- A snow globe containing a beautiful winter scene
- Your Christmas stocking (filled with goodies)
- A yard filled with candy canes
As you get even more comfortable with the process here are some ways to grab your imagination and let it out!
COOL DRAWING IDEAS INSPIRED BY THE IMAGINATION:
- Combine two subjects that don’t go together into one scene
- Draw a new fish tank for a fish
- Imagine a wolf made of branches
- Cover a sheet of paper with an array of flowers
- Design the exterior of your dream house
- Build your own castle
- Fill a silhouette portrait with geometric designs
- Make your own pattern
- Draw a still life in the Cubist style
- Illustrate a vivid dream you or someone else has had
- Imagine life underwater
- Picture a home in outer space…
- … and the ship that will take you there…
- … and the creatures you’ll meet
- Render your favorite memory
- Everything in the world is topsy-turvey (up is down, down is up)
- Animal dressed like a human
- Give an object a face
- A neighborhood of treehouses
- An unlikely pair of friends
- A mad tea party
- A forklift lifting spaghetti and meatballs
- Aerial view of your favorite place
- Superheroes in real life
- Mashup of two characters in pop culture
- M.C. Escher-style interior
- Your world in LEGOs
- A drawing of a drawing
- Swap the scale of two subjects
- It’s raining… (not water)
- Your dream house
- Illustrate the phrase “it’s a small world”
- Illustrate the phrase “your head in the clouds”
- Imagine a city in outer space
- A llama wearing a top hat
- Many mandalas in different shapes and patterns
- Illustrate part of your favorite song
- Reimagine a famous pattern like paisley
- Illustrate an idiom in a literal way
- Imagine an album cover for a fictitious band (or real band)
- Randomly select three words and draw what they mean together
- Your favorite video game character
- A cityscape in the lenses of sunglasses
- An animal holding a balloon
- Make up your own flower—for an added challenge, make it a whole bouquet
- Combine multiple animals into one creature
- Give an object a face
- Make up a music band and draw their album cover
- Draw a new album cover for an existing musician
So I think you’ve got a pretty good start here. Let’s see what kind of artistic trouble you can get into with these prompts and styles. Happy Arting!