“What should I draw today?” – you might ask yourself sometimes when you want to draw but you have no inspiration. Don’t worry! I’ve got you covered.
In this blog post, I will share 50 easy drawing ideas to boost your creativity. You can choose to draw them in any style from realistic, cartoon, to abstract.
The key thing to become better at drawing is to keep practicing it. If you have a pencil and paper with you, let’s start drawing some drawing ideas introduced below!
Nature is a great source of art inspiration. You will always have ideas to sketch because there are so many flowers and plants with different shapes, patterns, and colors. If you feel bored indoors, bring a sketchbook to a park, a garden, a coffee shop, or go hiking.
Below are some drawing ideas for you to get started if you don’t have a chance to go out today:
- Roses
- Sunflowers
- Daisy
- Ferns
- Palm trees
- Grape vines
- Cactus
- Lotus
Check out my step-by-step tutorial for how to draw a rose.
Animals and Pets
Animals and pets are some of my favorite topics to draw on. When I draw animals, I feel like I just created a new friend. Some animals are familiar to us such as cats and dogs. Some others might be a bit challenging to draw because we don’t see them often, such as giraffes or crocodiles.
Try to draw these animals. You can look up on Google or Pinterest for reference photos if you don’t know what they look like.
- Cats
- Dogs
- Frogs
- Birds
- Chicken
- Butterflies
- Elephants
- Bears
- Monkeys
Food and Drinks
Are you a fan of food and drinks? It would be interesting to draw your favorite food or what you have just ordered when you are at a coffee shop. You can create a food and drink menu that includes all of your favorites, or create flashcards with food and drinks when you try to learn a new language. Here are some drawing ideas:
- Cupcake
- Pancake
- Ice-cream
- Donuts
- Pizza
- Chicken drumstick
- Coconut juice
- A cup of coffee
- Sushi set
Sketching People and Faces
Portraits are my favorite topic to draw and paint because different people have different facial structures, expressions, and life stories. I can learn about different cultures through their outfits and see how different they look.
You can choose to draw just faces or the whole bodies with gestures and poses. Here are some drawing ideas:
- Adult faces (man & woman faces)
- Kid faces
- Old people portraits
- Facial features
- People doing daily activities
- Athletes
- Artists
Check out my step-by-step guidelines for how to draw a person’s face and how to draw facial features if you don’t know where to start.
Landscape Drawing Ideas
Drawing landscapes could be a great thing to do when you go on a vacation. With a small sketchbook, a pencil, colored pencils, or an ink pen, you can capture the beauty of the landscapes. It is a good way to practice perspective sketching. Next time, when you go out, try to draw the following sceneries:
- Beach and ocean
- Cities and buildings. Different countries will have different architectures, which is amazing.
- Sunsets
- Mountainous areas. Draw the mountain with green trees or with snow.
- Flower gardens
- Forests
- Deserts
Ideas for Drawing Objects (Still-life)
Objects can be references for sketching. There are a lot of things around us that we can draw such as:
- A tea set
- Stationery such as notebooks, pens, pencils, schoolbags, rulers
- Art supplies such as paint brushes, paint tubes, palettes, easels
- Books such as a single book, a stack of books, or a bookshelf full of books
- Cars
- Bicycles
- Electronic devices such as mobile phones, laptops, microwaves
If you don’t want to draw the objects realistically, try the cartoon style. You can also characterize the objects by adding eyes, a mouth, hands, and legs for them, then create a story about the objects.
Abstract Drawing Ideas
What if you don’t want to draw anything specifically? The abstract drawing ideas might be the ones you are looking for. The abstract drawing style allows you to wander in your imagination. You don’t need to draw a perfect object or learn about proportions or perspectives to draw things abstractly. Below are some drawing ideas to try:
- Geometric patterns
- Space and planets in the abstract style
- Simple shapes such as circles, triangles, squares, or hexagons.
- Icons such as app icons, icons for web and app, or icons that illustrate animals.
You can play around by coloring different shapes with different colors or adding some symbols such as the ones in ancient times.
Cartoon Drawing Ideas
Do you love watching cartoons? I’m a big fan of them! Everything seems so cute in the cartoon world. The great thing about cartoon drawing is that we can create our fantasy world with our imagined characters. It feels like we were kids again.
If you need some inspiration for cartoon drawing ideas, here are my suggestions:
- Cartoon characters
- Freestyle doodling
- Character fanart such as the White Princess, Harry Porter
You can expand your imagination by designing a subject such as a tree or a teapot in different ways without worrying too much about whether they look real or not. Below is an example of different designs I created for a teapot.
Another way to trigger your creativity is to draw 12 or more circles, and then draw anything you can think of using the circles. Limit your time to 1-5 minutes to make it more fun. You will be surprised at how creative you are.
Conclusion
Drawing ideas are everywhere around us, from nature, and objects, to pets and people. I hope this blog post gave you some inspiration to start drawing. You can also use mixed media such as watercolor with ink drawings to create amazing artwork. Check out my 20 ideas for watercolor painting to get started.
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