Drawing Motivation: Your Daily Study List

It’s the afternoon, you’re done with work, you’ve grabbed a snack, and it’s time… to DRAW. You look over at your sketchbook. There it is… so easy to start. But what will you draw? You have no open ideas, no commissions pending, nothing comes to mind. You start to browse socials, see cool art, and before you know it it’s an hour later and you haven’t picked up the pencil yet.

No one’s perfect at this. I make this kind of mistake a lot! Depending on your personality, there might be different ways you can help avoid this kind of situation. You might have some things that work for you, sometimes, but what about something new? Here’s one I’ve been trying lately: I build a study list.

A study list, hmm? That sounds tedious. Yeah, it does: so let’s make it simple. We want to ultimately get to the art, right? Organizing our work should only happen if it helps us get to that art. I want you to start small: think the size of a sticky note. You’re going to put down ideas of what to draw that you can use on those days when you’re feeling lost.

What do you put on it? Try to avoid anything that will distract you by making you look too much up to find references. You want stuff ready to go. Here’s my suggestions – and if you want to, feel free to pause the video now to go grab a note or index card. Or just listen along, I’m not your mom.

One. Do you have reference images downloaded already? Keep those handy and jump right to them. Write down “My downloaded refs” on your sticky note. Two. Hands! You’ve got them right in front of you. You’re drawing with one, and you can look at the other. Hands are pretty hard to draw, and if you can figure that out, you can draw basically anything. Write down “Hands!” Three. Pets! Yours, your neighbors, the birds outside if you’re fast enough. Write down… well, you know how this works.

Four. Whatever is right in front of you. A table. A plate. A mug. Sounds boring, but these tend to make for great perspective practice, and that’s always good to brush up on. When you’re done, take a picture of what you were drawing and compare it with your sketch to see how you did. Five! Go through your phones camera roll. Pull up the latest picture or two, and try to draw something from it. Six! Know how to practice gesture with the human figure? It’s one of those skills that’s a challenge for beginner and advanced artists, and you can go into any level of detail you want. Try loose sketches, or try going for that detail. You’ll probably want reference packs for this ready to go: remember that you don’t want to distract yourself by looking for them for too long.

Seven: Landscapes! Look out your window. Draw it! Or find a photo from a place you’ve been. Draw that! Eight: Other art you’ve been thinking about. Remember the ethics of studying; if you study another artist’s work, it’s not really you who made it, but it can be useful to practice with. Aaaand it’s really easy to distract yourself by searching for art, so only use this if you actually have a piece in mind. I often have art I’ve been thinking about, but forget about studying it when I sit down to draw, and just reminding myself that I can helps a ton. Nine! Had a tough drawing challenge you’ve been looking at? See if that feels exciting to try. Expressions, clothing, whatever you’ve been curious about, start thumbnailing it! It might be pretty rare that you’ll jump to this as your drawing for the day, but sometimes the challenge just feels right.

I’ll stop with those, but hopefully you can see how you can make a list of things pretty quickly. You can look at this when you’re just confused on what to draw for the day. And you do NOT have to use this if you already have something in mind! It could be useful for warm-ups, but if you’re ready to go with art you wanna make, keep that energy and do that instead!

I recommend writing these on a sticky note, or an index card, or on the inside of your sketchbook! Even for you digital-only artists, you can keep this note next to your drawing tablet. If you end up drawing in the same place every time, you could also make a small stack of cards and write an idea on each one, shuffling them for something fresh each day.

We’re never perfect, and that’s why we’re coming up with ideas to make ourselves better. There’s ALWAYS something to draw, and sometimes that’s easy to forget! Wanna go ahead and make that list? Whatcha gonna draw today?