90+ Creative Drawing Ideas for Artists Who Need Fresh Ideas

Are you tired of the same old boring list of drawing ideas telling you to draw a cat or sketch a house? 

It’s time for something different – something that will help you learn how to draw, inspire you to draw something new, and provide real advice on where to focus when drawing. 

We’ve got you covered. 

These drawing ideas are different, creative, fantastic, hidden gems in the wall of knowledge about drawing you’re about to experience. It’s the hard stuff, the real information that’s too in-depth for a listicle, but what every real artist needs if they want to draw something spectacular. 

Traditional Drawing Ideas

That’s not to say there isn’t a place for the tutorials, the guidelines, and the easy answers. There absolutely is. Sometimes you need to see a sketch of a cat in stages to understand how to draw a cat. And sometimes you just need some inspiration from other artists or a list of fresh ideas. 

At the end of this post, you’ll find drawing tutorials sourced from Pinterest along with a massive list of random drawing ideas for those with artist’s block. Whether you’re looking for sketchbook ideas, inspiration, or how-to-draws – we’ve got you covered. 

Dive in for over 100 drawing ideas that will enhance your skill as an artist!

Drawing Ideas to Overcome Artist’s Block

We’re going to answer the age-old question “What should I draw,” with a unique perspective to help you overcome the artist’s block which drove you to search for ideas in the first place. 

If you’re struggling with feelings of insecurity or not sure how to take your work to the next level, these ideas can help. 

Use a Blank Slate

It’s kind of a derp moment when you have to be reminded as an artist to start over with a blank canvas, but cut us some slack, we have busy little minds ok? Deal.

But when I say use a blank slate, I mean start completely over. Take everything off the walls, or start working in a different room. I’ve even tossed all my old work in the trash (though you don’t need to take it that far). 

Let go of all the work holding you back and start fresh. From now on, you’re not making anything unless it has something better than everything you’ve done before.

Focus on Creativity

If you’re feeling insecure, you probably found some random artist on social media with impressive technical skills. She made ultra-photorealistic drawings of a goldfish bursting with color using the latest computerized drawing program. The drawings are sharp, realistic, and make you think you should toss in the towel. 

But wait. Is that what you want?

If you want to produce photorealistic images of fish, why not invest in a nice camera instead of learning to draw? 

Don’t get me wrong, technical skills are crucial to finding your place as an artist, but art is about far more. 

Art is creativity. It’s seeing the world full of wonder and color, and then finding ways to showcase your interpretation of what you see. Lean into your creative mind, the one that drove you to pursue art in the first place, and draw a fish that’s uniquely yours. 

Discover What Brings Things to Life

If you want to level up your artwork, you must study your subject. 

Buy a goldfish. Hear me out.

You can find the most high-resolution, macro-tastic, color-licious, photoshopped down to the perfect shade of deepsea lipstick and coral reef eyeshadow, scales polished to airbrushed- Catch Magazine: Swimsuitless Mermaid Edition– perfection photo of a goldfish and you still won’t be able to capture the graceful way a goldfish drifts around its transparent enclosure.

Tl;dr: A live fish is worth a thousand pictures of random fish.

A thousand pictures might give the viewer enough insight to grasp the personality of a particular goldfish, but how can that possibly compare to noticing that, when you sit down at your easel, Captain Ticklefins XXVII always comes over and waves with one flipper until you remember his tasty-flakes. Or that he hides in the shadow at sunset until the last bit of shadow, and then he swims out into the light, terrified and one moment later confused by the absence of monsters.

Trying to capture that, Je Ne Sais Quoi present in life is the real challenge, and if you can do it, you will have taken your art to the next level. 

Quick Draw

If you buy a goldfish and try to paint it, you’ll discover the impossibility of the task. The fish constantly moves around the tank, swimming in circles so fast you can’t capture a single second to draw. 

Draw it anyway. 

Learn to draw things you only glimpse for a moment. Rely on your visual memory to fill in the blanks. In doing so, you will improve your skills both in drawing and in recalling what you see (a useful trick for artists!). 

The Art of Motion

There’s far more to visual memory when attempting to capture motion in your art. While staring at the fish, looking for a perfect frame for your sketch, your brain will start to absorb information about it. You’ll learn how its form moves in rhythm to propel it forward. 

You’ll understand how and why it needs to take on certain shapes to change direction, arrest momentum, or respond to outside stimuli. The knowledge will help you capture those subtleties in your work, allowing you to draw a happy fish at dinnertime, or a fish mid-turn.

Draw Emotion

To truly excel as an artist, draw something that triggers your emotions. Whenever you see something that makes you laugh, cry, or rage, grab your sketchbook and use those feelings to sketch a masterpiece. 

Capture the essence of the thing that invoked your reaction. 

Learn from Nature

By now, you probably realized that the best way to improve as an artist is to stop putting so much value on other people’s goldfish paintings. Instead, compare your paintings to actual goldfish. 

The same holds true for anything you wish to draw. Don’t study someone else’s work to understand how to draw a cat, tree, or toad. Look at the real-life version of it, learn how it moves, and consider the emotions it invokes. 

Creative Drawing Ideas for Artists at Any Level

I want you to learn to draw from an artist’s perspective, with value and shadow. If you can master that, you can draw anything.

The above drawing ideas should help you break through artist’s block, but these five offer something different. They’ll help you learn how to define light and shadow, drawing with an eye for value that’s crucial to bringing your subject to light. 

Garbage Drills

Take three things of similar shape that you find lying around the house. Group them in such a way that their shapes align or agree with each other. 

Use graphite to draw the objects in two shades. Use one for the dark values and one for the light. Next, sketch them as you normally would, and see if the second drawing experience feels different. 

The exercise helps you simplify your drawing experience while observing your subject for longer. When you finally start your second sketch, you’ll have a familiarity with the objects, so it’s easier to define the light and shadow. 

Draw With Your Eraser

When I sit down with a blank page and try to draw something, my first draft is like something you’d get if you zipped up a wild raccoon in your backpack with all your drafting tools, and let your little sister drag it behind the training wheels of the bicycle she got four years ago which is way too small for her now.

But somewhere in there is the thing I was trying to sketch, and if I just push back some of the static with my eraser, it looks more like Leonardo DaVinci being dragged across the neighbor’s lawn instead of a raccoon.

You won’t get things perfect the first, second, or tenth time. But as you erase your mistakes and try again, you’ll learn where you went wrong, and how to avoid them in the future. 

Capture the Ethereal 

Artists developed a unique way of looking at the world, not because they’re special, but because they must. 

When most people look at a tree, they see a tree. But I see 50 naughty shades of green, all mingling in a gorgeous display of nature. I see those shades because I want to take in every detail, while people who aren’t trying to draw simply see a tree and move on. 

What would you see if you weren’t holding a pencil right now?

But some beginners get too technical with it. They want to draw every leaf, twig, and squirrel they can see. 

Let go of that. Instead, look at the tree like a mirror. What qualities remind you of yourself, or someone you know? Perhaps it has a delicate grace, battle scars, or aged wisdom. 

Consider the surrounding scene. Does it trigger a sense of beauty, nostalgia, or spiritual awareness?

If you can identify any of those ethereal concepts in your scene, you’re connecting with it on a psychological level. Your job is to capture that, drawing the unnamable aura that attracts you to it in the first place. That’s what will make your work stand out. 

Draw the Idea, Not the Image

Art isn’t only about what’s on display. 

Why are you drawing Transformers hanging out with Barbie in her convertible underneath the kitchen table? It’s not just about the toys – it represents childhood innocence, nostalgia, and a bygone era. 

Lean into representation, especially if you struggle with the idea that you must perfect technical skills. 

Observe patterns and make order from chaos (or vice versa!). Stop focusing on the sticks in a tree, and draw a carefully woven collection of materials constructed for the sole purpose of protecting something small and fragile instead. You’re not drawing a nest, you’re drawing a home. It represents love, safety, and protection. 

A Classic Example

Van Gogh’s Sunflowers serve as a perfect example. Look at a few pictures of real sunflowers, then view his iconic painting. Although you can clearly see his image represents sunflowers, it represents so much more. 

They’re so sun-like, bright, and open, yet their blooms lean over in an almost human-like gesture of sorrow or self-pity. 

Van Gogh’s sunflowers are so masterful because you can tell how much he identified with their emotional likeness. Is it sad or cute? Or interesting? Or none of the above?

It gives you a new appreciation when you see one of his paintings with the blooms looking up instead of down. What do you suppose that meant, in the language of the artist? 

Consider What Art is Supposed to Be

A friend once told me, “I like art that makes me feel uncomfortable.” Weird right? 

It challenges what art is supposed to be, at least according to one person. I mean, isn’t all art supposed to give me a tickly giggly feeling all over? Isn’t art supposed to be beautiful or representational or something?

Art doesn’t have to be anything. It can be a perfect photorealistic man on the street or a single black splatter on a canvas. 

As the artist, you get to decide what your art is and represents. You don’t need to follow anyone’s rules. 

30+ Easy Drawing Ideas for Beginners

The moment you’ve all been waiting for, the great list of drawing subjects, things you’ve never considered, enticing new subjects with onion-like layers of meaning and reflection upon the human condition …

As promised, for those looking for inspiration, here are 30 easy drawing ideas sourced from Pinterest to help you get started. 

Not only are these ideas of things you can draw, but the small tutorials are intended to help you get started. 

Head to our article on fun things to draw when you’re bored for more simple sketching ideas!

Drawing Humans

Although it’s difficult to draw people, mastering the correct form of human body parts becomes a fun challenge. 

Beginners can start by sketching individual parts, like the eyes, nose, and mouth, before putting everything together for a full human face or body. 

Here are some drawing ideas for various facial features, and below you’ll find ideas for figure drawing and how to sketch humans. 

Eyes

 

Noses

Mouth

 

Faces

Heads

Women

 

Men

 

Poses

 

Drawing Animals

Drawing animals is also a great place for beginners to start. Cats, dogs, birds, and even mythical creatures are always at the top of the list of fun things to draw. 

Here are a few ideas for drawing common animals.

Dogs

Cats

 

Horses

Raccoons

 

Birds

 

Dragons

 

Mythical Creatures

 

 

Plants

Plants come in a variety of shapes and sizes, creating a wide range of interesting things to draw. If you are a beginner, you can focus on drawing leaves, and if you are more experienced, you can try to draw full plants of different species.

 

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Homes and Furnishings

After you get comfortable drawing people and animals, try drawing the things they live in and use. Drawing houses, homes, apartments, and other dwellings, and the furnishings that go with them, will help you learn to draw a full scene.

Houses

Furniture

Still Life Sketching

Creating a still life is often the first step for painters, but those learning to draw can benefit from sketching a still life as well. 

These drawing ideas for still lifes can help a beginner learn to draw common, everyday items.

These examples can help you set up a still life, but you can also use the advice from above to set up your own and create an epic masterpiece.

 

60 Drawing Ideas for your Sketchbook

1. The view from your window
2. A snowman
3. The contents of your refrigerator
4. A dolphin
5. The trees outside
6. The intersection near your home
7. Your junk drawer
8. Your favorite stuffed animal
9. A beloved pet
10. A messy desk
11. Your bedroom
12. A self-portrait
13. The exterior of your home
14. A bar stool
15. a power drill
16. A mug of hot coffee
17. A lighthouse on a rocky cliff
18. Your favorite fictional character
19. A grand piano
20. Your bedroom, but clean it this time
21. A cozy nook
22. Gentleman playing chess
23. A grandfather clock
24. A video game character
25. A microscope
26. The most comfortable chair in the world
27. Your medicine cabinet
28. A sailboat
29. The Eiffel tower
30. Dinner cooking on the stovetop
31. A window with the curtains closed
32. A Pirate
33. A fireplace
34. A woman wearing an evening dress
35. A person writing at a desk
36. Relaxing with a cup of cocoa
37. A person sleeping
38. A school classroom
39. Your closet
40. A train station
41. Your childhood home
42. A vase with flowers beginning to bloom
43. A bookcase
44. A table setting for a romantic dinner
45. A penguin
46. A tea kettle
47. The wallet or purse you use most regularly
48. A remote control
49. An old radiator
50. The idea of a UFO from the 1950s
51. A candle in a holder that’s lit and halfway melted
52. An elderly woman drinking tea
53. A picket fence
54. A runway model
55. A bowl of fruit
56. Your most prized possession
57. The statue of David
58. A nightstand lamp
59. A person completing a long jump
60. A baby’s crib

Start Drawing!

Whatever your skill level, wherever you are in the artist’s journey, the important thing is that you start. Maybe, for now, you want to stick with the easy art tutorials from Pinterest. There’s nothing wrong with that! Get the basics down, figure out how form and function come together when drawing a face, sharpen your skills. 

Then, come back and try some of the drawing ideas for advanced artists. Put random items together to explore their shapes. Let nature be your guide. Really look at the scene to figure out what’s beautiful about it, and draw that. 

Try these things, and you’ll become an amazing artist in no time.