10 ways to kick start the drawing habit!

"...there were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee. You're so vain..."
Don't you love Carly Simon?

As an illustrator, I often think to myself “I never seem to draw anymore”. Which is, I’m sure you’ll agree, a pretty sad statement for an illustrator to make! But I’ve found it’s not uncommon. So many artist, illustrators, photographers and all sorts of creative people say the same kind of things everyday. It’s not that we don’t want to be creative, it’s just that life can really get the better of us. We have families to look after, houses to keep clean and very often ‘real’ jobs to attend to to keep up with the expenses of modern life. Or sometimes, we just seem to lose our edge. 

A while back I did the ‘100 day drawing project’ to kickstart my daily drawing habit. It was a good experience, but 100 days is a long time and ultimately, I lost momentum and never finished (see my progress here). Now, while I’m a big believe in setting crazy unrealistic goals, I also believe in celebrating the small successes. I may not have completed the task, but I did lots of drawing along the way and thus, I’m going to deem it a success!

But my next drawing task will be a little less demanding. I’ve decided to make a list of ideas to get me and you drawing! I’m sure the list could be easily adapted to fit any of the creative arts, like photography, painting, writing etc. Remember, they don’t need to be fancy, detailed or even any good! It’s just a fun exercise to inspire you to pick up that pencil (or whatever) and experiment and create. To get those creative juices flowing again!

So here’s my list...

1. Draw what’s on your desk in front of you (if you're desk is as messy as mine, feel free to select items at random!).  

2. Draw your pet (or someone else’s if you don’t have one).

3. Draw the contents of your refrigerator (this doubles up as a good way to get inspired to clean out your fridge - yay!)

4. Draw the dream you had last night (or the last one you can remember. I dreamed I found a fig tree laden with ripe figs in my garden last night - I wish that were true!).

5. Draw a picture inspired by your favourite song (or just pick a line like I did in the picture in this post).

6. Draw your letterbox. (If you’re letterbox is particularly uninteresting, or if you don’t even have one, look here for inspiration.)

7. Draw your morning cup of coffee (or tea if you’re one of those tea drinkers!).

8. Draw your favourite outfit (get some inspiration here)

9. Draw an iconic building in the town where you live (or the town where you were born, perhaps?).

10. Draw your favourite drawing tools and pay homage them. Because let’s face, they are awesome and we’d be lost without them. (For me, this would be my trusty black sharpie pen.)

Want to join in??

I’m going to do all these drawings in the coming week so if you feel like joining in, please post a link to your site so I can check out your drawings too! I'll be posting mine next week so come back for a look!

Happy drawing everyone!

Jen x