A Creature Fixes Empty Sketchbook Pages

An empty page. It’s scary! No matter how long you’ve been drawing, looking at that nothingness is a huge hurdle. “Just draw,” they say. Easier said than done. The space for creativity feels unguided, yet sometimes you’re looking for that first bit of structure to grab onto.

Hey! My name’s Kanjon and I like to explore the mysteries of how we think when approaching creative unknowns like drawing: a skill that anyone can learn. There’s usually a few secrets hiding right in front of us. Today’s is relevant for experts and even complete beginners, and can fit into almost any creative flow and style of working. It works well for figuring out details of an idea, starting from nothing, or as a study practice method. And it only takes 15 minutes.

We’re going to look at it like a warm-up exercise. It looks like this: three small boxes across the top of the page, sticky-note sized. Right below those, two more. Nothing perfect, this is throw-away scratch space. Those of you familiar with the process of thumbnailing, a practice I constantly recommend, might see where this is going already. I’ve been calling this a “storyboarding warmup”, because it looks a lot like storyboards used in animation. But we’re not animating a film, we’re animating the process of drawing, giving our brains a wake-up stretch.

Scribble those boxes down onto your page. As you do, think about why you’re drawing today. Are you wanting to draw a specific idea? Getting in some study practice? Open-ended exploration, nothing in mind? Write it down above those boxes, just a couple words.

Time for box one. Draw the first thing that comes to mind. If it’s an idea you had or a subject to study, you probably already have something ready. If you’re empty on ideas, start with a character, yours or from pop culture, or maybe a landscape, or something right in front of you. Nothing complicated. You have TWO MINUTES. Set a timer: really! Scribble quickly, messily, feel out the shapes you’re making and STOP when the timer is done. You’re storyboarding: it’s not meant to be perfect.

Box two! Again! If you have another idea, related or not, go for it. Or you can draw the same thing again but move characters around. You might change the environment, location, weather, mood, whatever. But force yourself to change things. Two more minutes, another scribbly box.

Box three! AGAIN! Another fresh idea, or something that popped into your head while you were just drawing. Or change your last box again. Think about what is happening in your scene: what are characters doing? Why? How do they react? Two minutes, go.

Whew! You now have three mini sketches. Maybe there’s one you really like, maybe you don’t like any of them, but at least one of them’s going to stick out in your mind. Maybe you wanted to try drawing it with another pose, or explore more about what’s going on in a scene because you ran out of time. Whatever drawing that is, one two or three, put a star next to it.

Now that you’ve woken up your creativity a little bit, we can narrow down. The drawing you starred? You’re going to draw it two more times, two minutes each. Stay with me. Each time you can make a few tweaks in pose, placement, or expression, but we’re not forcing it. Just drawing it more to feel it out, but still messily in a small box with a time limit.

You’ve now drawn for ten minutes, making three different drawings, and also three very similar drawings. Which one do you like after all of this? Pick it, circle it. Spend a moment and think about what you like, and what you’d want to practice before doing more. If you just wanted some daily doodling time, hey, you’re done, you did it. But usually, this is the part where you might be itching to explore that scene even more, if so…

Time for a REFERENCE BREAK! Now’s a fantastic moment for a confidence booster and experience gain with a study. What did you doodle in your scene that you think you need more practice on? A facial expression? Anatomy? Plants? Landscapes? Other art styles? Go search the internet for some photos, pick one, and give it a short study off to the side. No creativity here, just see thing, draw thing. Limit yourself to 5 minutes. You’re not drawing the scenes from before, just the picture you found. You will learn something from this, even if you really mess it up. Learning how something isn’t supposed to look is a huge part of drawing practice. Well done!

AND NOW… You’ve explored some ideas, you’ve drawn a mini-sketch at least three times, now you have some confidence to draw it full size, to make that final sketch with conviction. This whole ordeal might sound like a lot, but look at what we did: it’s pretty simple! And guess what, I made all of this up, you’re not being graded on it, so if you decide to draw three things then jump right into a sketch, change time limits, draw upside down, more power to you. The whole point of this is to get that creative spark going and honing in an idea, so if a thought jumps out at you midway through, follow it! I like this strategy a lot because it uses my distraction as a powerful weapon, and at the same time I’ve almost accidentally warmed up.

If this idea resonates with you, draw a little diagram of it on your sketchbook’s inside cover as a reminder. This is a great place to put other drawing ideas when you’re struggling, or things you want to study. Ultimately let this activity adapt to you. If you don’t like a part of it, toss it out, and if you want to add in your own personal spin, do it. Make it yours, as long as it serves you and helps you chase that passion. Go get em.