Do Your Drawing Warm-Ups before They Do You

Before you go draw today, be sure to do your warm-ups! …Please?

Some days when you sit down to draw, fully motivated, sketchbook in one hand, pencil in the other, something doesn’t go quite right. Your lines don’t feel smooth. Your perspective feels off. And despite being able to draw yesterday, you find that you’ve made a mess on the page and suddenly your motivation has crashed down to zero. So what happened? Well, there’s a very real process of warming your brain and muscles up to drawing for the day. Much like practicing music, or playing a sport, or even working your day job, it’s going to take you a little bit each time to find your sweet spot where you can work. On the physical side, you’re actually warming your arm up to make those smooth marks and lines, and mentally, you’re reinforcing how perspectives and 3D forms work.

In fact, whether you want to or not, you are ALWAYS doing warm-ups. That part where I was just talking about your drawing session not going well? Surprise! You were stuck in your warm-up period unwittingly. Maybe you’re continuing an existing drawing and think you can just keep going. Or you have some idea in your head that you want to jump right into. That’s great, but… when you try to skip your warm-ups, you’re just burning your warm-up period right into your art. It’s going to make you frustrated and you’re going to feel like your quality is slipping more than usual. And chances are, you’re going to take even longer to warm-up because you’re not focusing on practice, you’re trying to ignore it.

If you’ve ever watched others stream art online, you might have seen them doing their own warm-up marks or doodles. So what kinds can you do? If you have some drawing experience, try some simple studies or draw from reference. Nothing too detailed, just a few minutes, maybe a couple sketches. Following along with an art course? Warm up by following along with a lesson and you’ll learn something at the same time! If you’re truly a beginner, try just drawing some smooth lines on your page, repeatedly. Remember to draw with your shoulder, and if that sounds unfamiliar, take a look at this past video. All of this stuff can be used not just for warm-ups, but also helping figure out what you want to draw for the day — I’ve got another video on that here.

Just five to ten minutes is all it takes, really! I hear you saying, “But I don’t have time for that!” Yes you do — and remember: you WILL be doing that warm-up period whether you want to or not. Whether you choose to make that time useful is up to you. Plus, if you accidentally made something fun during your warm-up period, you can save it for later and turn it into a bigger doodle! But for now, keep it quick and focused. So before you draw today, go warm up! Your art and your sanity will thank you.