How to Get More Creative With Drawing (45 Creative Ideas)

Drawing isn’t just about skill—it’s a way to unleash your creativity. Whether you’re a seasoned artist or a beginner, sometimes we all need a fresh approach to spark our imagination. Creativity is not just something you’re born with. Everyone can enhance their creative flair, especially with the right guidance. In this article, “How to Get More Creative With Drawing,” we’re offering 45 easy and fun ways to draw more creatively.

Creativity in drawing can be cultivated and enhanced through various approaches and exercises. Creativity is like a muscle; the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. Don’t get disheartened if you feel stuck at times. Every artist, no matter how experienced, encounters creative blocks. The key is to keep experimenting and pushing your boundaries. Here are some strategies to help you infuse more creativity into your drawing:

Change Your Environment: Drawing in a new setting can provide fresh inspiration. Whether it’s a park, a cafe, or a different room in your house, a change of scenery can work wonders.
Doodle Daily: Don’t wait for inspiration to strike. Grab any piece of paper – even a napkin – and start doodling. These spontaneous sketches can lead to bigger ideas or simply help you loosen up.
Limit Your Materials: Challenge yourself by using only one or two types of drawing tools. This can push you to think outside the box and experiment with what you have.
Movement Drawing: Draw while in motion, like on a bus or during a walk. The inherent instability can lead to interesting line work.
Draw Blind: Try blind contour drawing where you don’t look at your paper while drawing an object or person. This exercise helps improve hand-eye coordination and makes you focus on the process rather than the outcome.
Embrace Abstraction: Instead of aiming for realistic depictions, allow yourself to explore abstract forms, play with colors, lines, and textures.
Memory Drawing: Without a reference, draw a scene or object purely from memory. It might not be accurate, but the resulting distortions can be creatively intriguing.
Mindful Drawing: Practice being present while you draw. This approach can help you connect deeply with your subject, noticing nuances you might miss otherwise.
Nature’s Patterns: Study patterns in nature, like the veins of leaves or the swirls in a shell. Incorporate these intricate designs into your work.
Collaborate: Work on a drawing with a friend or another artist. The process of merging two different styles can lead to unexpected and creative outcomes.
Use Prompts: There are many drawing prompt lists available online. These can guide your drawing sessions and challenge you to explore themes or subjects you wouldn’t typically consider.
Randomize Selection: Use dice or random number generators to decide what to draw, which colors to use, or even which part of the paper to start on. Embrace the unpredictability.
Reinterpret Old Artworks: Take an old drawing of yours and recreate it with a fresh perspective or style. This exercise can showcase your growth and lead to innovative iterations.
Sensory Deprivation: Draw in a dark room or while blindfolded, focusing on the tactile feeling of the drawing process rather than the outcome.
Engage with Other Art Forms: Read a book, listen to music, or watch a dance performance. Drawing inspiration from other art forms can introduce new rhythms, moods, and themes into your work.
Use Your Non-Dominant Hand: This might feel strange at first, but drawing with your non-dominant hand can give your work a unique, free-form style.
Draw Upside Down: Turning your reference image upside down can help you focus on shapes and lines rather than the overall object, allowing you to see things differently.
Continuous Drawing: Without lifting your pencil from the paper, draw a scene or object. This technique helps create fluid lines and encourages you to think creatively about connecting different elements.
Set Timed Challenges: Give yourself 10 minutes to draw something specific. This pressure can push you to think quickly and creatively.
Set Constraints: Challenge yourself by setting specific constraints such as time limits, using only geometric shapes, or employing a specific color palette.
Create a Story: Before you draw, think of a narrative. When your drawing has a story, it often has more depth and intrigue.
Study and Remix: Look at the works of artists you admire and try to reinterpret them in your style. This isn’t about copying, but about understanding their techniques and adding your unique touch.
Challenge Yourself with New Subjects: If you usually draw landscapes, try portraits. Pushing yourself to draw unfamiliar subjects can
Music Inspiration: Listen to a piece of music and draw what it makes you feel, or try to translate the rhythms and melodies into visual forms.
Historical Dive: Study art from different historical periods or cultures. Try emulating their techniques or styles, but with a modern twist.
Combine Genres: Mix different genres, like surrealism with portraiture or abstract with landscape, to create unique compositions.
Draw with Constraints: Use unconventional tools, like twigs dipped in ink, sponges with paint, or even drawing with coffee.
Inspiration from Dreams: Immediately upon waking, sketch a scene or symbol from your dream, capturing its otherworldly essence.
Altered States: Try drawing under different conditions—when you’re extremely tired, giddy, or in any heightened emotional state—to see how emotions shape creativity.
Play with Perspectives: Draw from unusual vantage points, like looking up from the ground, aerial views, or extreme close-ups.
Texture Rubbing: Place your paper over different textures (like coins, grates, leaves) and rub with a pencil or crayon, then incorporate those textures into a composition.
Grid Technique: Divide your paper into grids and draw a continuous image, but with each grid segment in a different style or mood.
Gesture Drawing: Spend just a few seconds to a couple of minutes capturing the essence or movement of a subject, without focusing on details.
Rotate Canvas: Every few minutes, rotate your paper or canvas 90 degrees to challenge your orientation and perception.
Travel Sketching: If you can, travel to new places, even if it’s just a new neighborhood, and sketch unfamiliar surroundings.
Time Capsule Drawing: Draw something representing today, then store it away. In a year (or more), revisit and redraw with added elements representing that future time.
Add 3D Elements: Integrate three-dimensional objects, like beads, threads, or cut-outs, into your drawings for a mixed media approach.
Role Reversal: Draw shadows as solid objects and solid objects as voids or outlines, reversing the traditional perception of materiality.
Layering Technique: Create drawings on transparent sheets and layer them, rearranging to explore different compositions.
Collaborative Story Drawing: Start with a scene or character and pass it to another person to continue, creating a visual narrative collaboratively.
Random Word Prompt: Open a book and pick the first word you see. Let that be your drawing prompt for the day.
Animate Your Art: If you have basic animation skills, try animating a part of your drawing to bring it to life.
Reflection Drawing: Use reflective surfaces, like mirrors or water, as inspiration. They can distort or transform a familiar scene into something intriguing.
Environment Response: Draw the same subject under different environmental conditions—like during rain, snow, or wind—to observe how they interact.
Interactive Digital Tools: If you have access to digital drawing tools, play with interactive brushes, layer blending modes, and effects to get unusual results.

How to be more creative in drawing

When aiming to be more creative with your drawings, your mindset and how you approach the act of drawing can be just as important as the techniques you employ. Here are some concepts and considerations to keep in mind to foster creativity:

Openness to Experience

Be receptive to new ideas, emotions, and experiences. This openness can provide a wealth of inspiration and can be reflected in your drawings. Being open to new experiences means letting go of preconceived notions and being receptive to the unexpected. This mindset can introduce fresh perspectives and nuances into your drawings, allowing for richer and more varied content.

Curiosity

Question the world around you. Ask “What if?” regularly and let your drawings be a manifestation of your inquisitiveness. A curious mind seeks to understand and explore. It’s about looking beyond the surface, wondering about the world and its intricacies. By fostering curiosity, your drawings can become investigations, discoveries, or expressions of wonder.

Embrace Mistakes

Instead of viewing errors as failures, consider them unexpected detours on your creative journey. They often lead to unique and innovative outcomes. Every mistake is a learning opportunity. Instead of discarding “failed” drawings, analyze them. What went wrong? How did it deviate from your initial vision? Sometimes, these deviations lead to surprising and delightful results.

Avoid Overthinking

Analysis paralysis can stifle creativity. Sometimes, it’s best to let go of the need for perfection and just start drawing. Overanalyzing can hinder the flow of creativity. By focusing too much on getting every detail perfect, you might lose sight of the overall emotion or message you wish to convey. Trust your instincts and let your hand move freely.

Challenge Assumptions

If you always draw a tree in green, ask yourself why. Questioning default assumptions can lead to novel interpretations. Many artists find themselves in routines, often drawing subjects in a certain “accepted” way. By challenging these default patterns, you invite innovation and fresh perspectives into your artwork.

Stay Playful

Adopting a playful attitude toward drawing can help you experiment without the fear of making mistakes. Think of drawing as play rather than work. When drawing becomes a playful act, it’s free from strict expectations. This levity can lead to experimentation, and experimenting often leads to novel techniques and styles.

Seek Feedback

Share your work with others and be open to their perspectives. Different viewpoints can offer fresh ideas or directions you hadn’t considered. Constructive criticism can be an invaluable resource. Other people might see things you missed or offer a different interpretation that can enrich your work. It’s a way to grow and refine your skills.

Cultivate Mindfulness

Being present and truly observing your surroundings can provide deeper insights and inspiration for your drawings. Mindfulness is about being truly present in the moment. By immersing yourself in the act of drawing and observing your subject with full attention, you capture nuances and details that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Limit Self-Judgment

Instead of being your harshest critic, be your biggest cheerleader. When you’re less critical of your efforts, you allow yourself more freedom to experiment. Being overly critical can stifle creativity. It’s important to recognize that every artist has a unique voice and journey. Celebrate your progress and the unique qualities you bring to your work.

Set Aside Comparison

Your creative journey is uniquely yours. Comparing your work to others can be limiting. Admire other artists, but remember to value your distinct voice. While it’s natural to compare ourselves to others, this can sometimes create feelings of inadequacy. Remember, every artist has their own style and journey. Celebrate your unique path and voice.

Dedicate Time

Allocate specific periods for free drawing without a predetermined goal. These sessions can become incubators for creativity. Creativity flourishes when given space. By setting aside dedicated time for free drawing, you provide an environment where your imagination can roam without restrictions.

Stay Inspired

Continuously expose yourself to different art forms, cultures, books, movies, nature, and more. Diverse experiences can ignite creative sparks. Regularly seek out new sources of inspiration. This could be in the form of art exhibitions, nature walks, or even daily life observations. Varied stimuli can lead to a rich reservoir of ideas to draw from.

Break Routines

If you always draw in the morning, try drawing the evening. If you always start with outlines, start with shading. Breaking habits can lead to fresh insights. Habitual actions can become automatic, robbing them of thought and intention. By shaking up your routines, you reintroduce conscious decision-making into your drawing process, leading to fresh outcomes.

Visualize Endlessly

Before putting pencil to paper, spend time visualizing. Let your mind wander and imagine the myriad ways a concept could be represented. Spend quiet moments imagining before acting. This mental rehearsal can explore various avenues before committing to paper, allowing you to approach your drawing with clarity and intent.

Embrace Ambiguity

Not everything needs a clear definition or boundary. Let some of your drawings be open to interpretation, creating mystery and intrigue. Art doesn’t always have to provide answers; sometimes it raises questions. Drawings that are open-ended can engage viewers, prompting them to think, interpret, and feel deeply.

Value the Process

Remember that the journey of creating can be as valuable, if not more so, than the final product. Relish the act of drawing itself. The journey of creating is filled with emotions, discoveries, and insights. By valuing the process as much as the outcome, you gain a deeper appreciation for drawing as an expressive and transformative act.

Each of these points, when deeply considered and applied, can profoundly shape your creative process and the evolution of your drawing journey. If you want some ideas of what to draw as a beginner you can read: Creative drawing ideas for beginners