Building and Keeping a Daily Drawing Habit

One of the tougher aspects of drawing is not the art itself, but keeping up a regular drawing practice. What good is art skill if you’re not spending the time using and refining it?

Everyone new to art will probably be eager to draw as much as possible, but will realize that it’s very difficult to jump right into. Some people will tell you that you have to commit hours and hours each day to get anywhere as an artist. I think that’s absurd, and can be some of the most harmful advice to new artists.

So, my tip, like some of my others in this series, is to start small. Maybe you want to draw some little doodles three times a week. Maybe you prefer to practice perspective or construction every other day. That’s pretty good. You should start with something that you feel like is reasonable with your current schedule, because guess what – you can always change your drawing goals as you go.

Once you get your habit going, you might be curious how you can get to a ~daaaaiiiiiilyyyy~ drawing habit. The simple answer is to slowly build up your pace until you’re drawing every day. But! You’re probably going to hit some struggles when you try to keep this up. Let’s talk about those, and then I’ll tell you my personal strategies.

First, it’s okay to miss a day every once in a while. Don’t get mad if you just forgot; we’re all human. If you wake up one morning and realize “oh no, I forgot to draw yesterday”, don’t worry about it! Be kind and forgiving to yourself. Because if you beat yourself up over missing a day, you’ll feel even worse about starting back up. You’re not guilty of anything, so go grab your sketchbook and get going again.

“So being forgetful is okay, cool. But what about when I’m just too busy,” you say? Well, that’s okay too if you’re actually busy with work or you’re out with friends. But if you’re reminded to draw and you’re just watching TV, or playing games, or browsing around on YouTube… then try to get yourself to go draw, even if it’s just for a few minutes. If you are busy, and you do need to snooze your drawing reminder until later in the day, that’s still OK, but try to think about what you might draw later on.

Let’s face reality here: life can get in the way sometimes, whether that’s a situation out of your control or you’re just out of energy for the day. Shooting for drawing seven days a week is a nice goal, but six… might actually be better! With six, you’re giving yourself a break day to slow yourself down, and you’re building in the room to freely forget a day and not worry about it. If you’re using a habit tracking app like Daylio, you can likely set up a goal to be “six days per week” instead of “every day”, and still keep up a streak counter if you want to track it.

In fact, if you’ve ever used something like Duolingo, you’re probably familiar with a learning streak and the idea of “streak freezes” that let you forget a day every now and then, and still keep that motivating streak going. But learning art doesn’t have a threatening owl to remind you to finish your Esperanto lessons. That’s why you build it into your habit by setting a six day goal.

Now, me? Here’s what I try. I’ve generally kept up a daily drawing habit for a couple years, and until fairly recently that was a 7-days-a-week goal. But on the advice of a friend, I moved that to 6 days a week and it’s helped me immensely. I don’t “phone in” drawings nearly as much, because I know that I can have an off-day if it’s just not right. And each day, I try to draw in the morning, even if I’m not totally “ready” to draw for the day. Because I know that as soon as I start drawing I’ll be less grumbly about it. I also know that if I punt my drawings until late at night, it’ll never be as good as it could have been, because I’ll be tired.

But what do I draw each day? Well, if I’m not working on an ongoing piece, it varies. Typically I like to draw gesture studies, or people, each day. Or I might draw hands, because hands are hard to draw and I want the challenge. Or, I’ll sit down and open up a lesson from whatever drawing course I’m taking at the moment and follow along for a bit. For me, I don’t pressure myself to post art online every day. I just want to get some practice in, whether that’s with formal art courses or just practicing dynamic poses. It all builds up skill, and that keeps me motivated.

So remember: build up your habit slowly, and once you get going, let yourself make mistakes. Just as you will mess up your drawings, you will occasionally mess up your habits. Be forgiving to yourself and keep drawing. You can do it – so what are you going to draw today?