Photo by Rachael Gorjestani
There you are, hanging out with your sketchbook, ready to get all arty, and suddenly your brain freezes.
Your gnarled fingers clamp down on your pencil, and you let out an awkwardly loud screech of angst. You need ideas.
I’ve got yer sketchbook ideas, fella. All the sketchbook ideas you could possibly want (well 50 of them, at least.)
Plus, an extra bonus section for tips on how to switch up your sketchbook to make it even more exciting and fun.
These ideas will appeal to current sketchbook-lovers as well as those just getting started, and you weirdo art students and teachers will find all sorts of easy drawing ideas that you can make more complicated to challenge yourselves further.
Let’s jump on into the sketchbook ideas, including a printable drawing ideas list download you can access.
Further down the page, you can find tips for breathing some new life into your sketchbook if you’re in a rut or tend to approach every page the same way. (Guilty)
(If you still can’t decide on your perfect sketchbook, this will help you choose.)
50 Sketchbook Ideas
- 3 animals wearing clothes
- a long, full page of a worm
- Practice drawing your thumb in different positions
- Blind contour drawing of your bed
- Draw your dinner
- Cut a rectangle out of a piece of paper, tape it to a window, and draw only what is inside of the rectangle
- Set up an impromptu still life using 5 things in your pantry or cabinets
- Trace around your hand and then go in and try to make it look like something other than a hand drawing
- Draw a mug with someone or something peeking out of the top
- Make up some underwater creatures
- Fill a page with only a section of an animal
- Turn your initials into a drawing of some sort of food
- Separate your entire page with 6 lines, then fill in the spaces with different patterns
- Draw something using only dots
- Clouds
- Underwear
- Draw a self-portrait using a pencil, and smudge it with your fingers so it’s as blurry as you can make it
- Big huge cartoon eyes
- Draw the outline of something without using lines. You have to just use the edge of a pencil to shade around where the object outline would be
- Draw a skeleton the best you can, just from memory
- Stacks and stacks of cars
- Draw the simple house shape you used to draw as a kid, but then fill it in with tons of details
- Half your face, half someone else’s – it can be a magazine face
- Draw something (object or still life) using all cross-hatching
- Fill your page with stars, then color in all the negative space
- Cut out eyes, noses, and mouths from a magazine, tape them onto your page, and copy them
- Draw a basic face shape on your page, then separate it into lots of geometric shapes to color in or draw patterns in
- Write your name in the center of the page, then draw things, people, ideas, whatever that you love around your name
- Splatter ink, watercolor, tea, what-have-you on your page and turn it into something cool
- Cut shapes out from magazines and use them to ‘draw’ something on a sketchbook page
- Find an image of an old master painting, and copy it into your sketchbook
- Make a simple line drawing, then write all over the top of it- try to ‘draw’ the words with beautiful lines
- Find some texture that you like and do a few close-up studies of it in your sketchbook
- Use liquid ink or a Sharpie to draw a black animal silhouette then use a white gel pen to draw its skeleton over the black
- Draw all the flowers you can think of without looking at any reference pictures (or flowers). Make ’em up if you wish
- Make a page full of copied logos
- Start with a tiny circle in the center of your page, then draw outward, filling your page with tiny drawings
- Hands, hands, and more hands
- Fill the page with a grid and draw as many insects as you can think of (or makeup)
- Draw the cover of your favorite book or album art
- 2 circles- shade one to look like a ball, and the other to look like a hole
- Draw an object, but personify it by giving it a face
- Spoons and forks
- Inside corner of a room
- Outside corner of a building
- Marbles
- Crumpled paper – bonus points for shining a light on it from the side so you have dramatic lighting
- A glass of water with or without ice
- Scribble, scribble, scribble
- Tree and fill in the trunk area with a really unusual pattern
Printable Drawing Ideas List
Click here to download a printable version of this list.
Tips for Making Your Sketchbook More Fun
Try to limit yourself to shorter sketches on some of your pages, especially if you tend to approach each sketchbook page like it needs to be a masterpiece! You can set a timer for 5 minutes for a few pages, and limit yourself to filling 5 pages each in 5 minutes time. (You can always go back in later and add more.)
Try your hand at different media. Sometimes it’s fun to sketch the same thing on 3 different pages, in 3 different materials: try a pencil, pen, crayon.
Switch up your style sometimes. Usually, draw Manga? Try setting up a small still life or doing a self-portrait as realistically as you can.
Always draw landscapes? Draw a few pages of your beloved sleepy dog. (You don’t need to show anyone these pages if you hate them.)
Change your position. Try standing up and drawing with your sketchbook propped up on the wall, and drawing with your non-dominant hand.
We tend to get comfortable and closed up while sitting with our sketchbook nestled up close to us, and just making these physical adjustments sometimes can make us approach our sketching session with fresh eyes.
Warm-up your hands and brain by making some big, stupid scribbles on a piece of paper for a minute or two before you tackle the sketchbook.
Take 10 deep breaths or meditate for a few minutes before you begin. You want to approach your sketchbook with a sense of presence and actually enjoy what you’re doing.
By all means, go check out my list of 100 drawing ideas for kids, because you’ll no doubt find some more great sketchbook ideas there you’ll want to try.
Thank you, just what I needed.
Fantastic! I hope you enjoy them and make lots of art.
I really really really like your ideas – have been following you for a while. Keep em coming!
I have been teaching art for 27 years and sometimes it is nice to see fresh ideas – or ideas in a new way. Thanks!
I am so glad to hear this- I have a million zillion ideas, so I’ll just keep on shoveling them on out. 🙂 Also, I am so impressed that you’ve been teaching art for 27 years. #artteachersrock
Ohhh such good ideas spout from your massive brain. Thank you for recording them on paper for us to be inspired by. I want to draw a worm, a section of an animal and underwear. Maybe all at once…
I will obviously and most certainly be needing to see what you draw, so don’t forget to show me. Especially if you mix them all up. Why would you NOT want to draw those three things together, anyway? 🙂
Hi I’m so inspired and I’m 9 years old
Yay! Great to hear that. I can see you’re a Harry Potter fan, too. 🙂
I don’t really find these tips very helpful. I am the type that does not really like weird things and these tips are weird to me! Keep trying it will get better!?♀️
how do we send you artwork? by email?
Sure! Or if you are on Instagram, tag me @Craftwhack. My email is [email protected]. Can’t wait to see!
These ideas are really great for both beginners and professional artists i really loved them n m gonna try them aswell thanks for those tips
Great! I’m glad you like them, and feel free to tag me on Instagram if you share any! @Craftwhack
I’m fascinated by your ideas! I love art but am so afraid to try. I am 62 years old and when I was 12 my 7th grade art teacher recommended to my mother that she have me take music instead of art because I would never survive in his class. Jerk. I made it to college on a music scholarship playing four different instruments and singing. I guess he did me a favor but I can still hear his voice in my head. If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. Especially to a child.
how do you draw marbles because that is what I would like to draw can you teach me please.
how do you draw marbles
Hey these ideas were awesomely weird! I loved them all! Keep on doing this. Soon, my huge sketchbook will be filled in no time! Good Job!
Nice ideas..
These are great ones