I often struggle with deciding what to draw. Sometimes even prompts don’t work when faced with artist's block, or I am struggling with coming up with ideas on what to draw. What are some strategies you recommend to help come up with things to draw?
More specifically, I like to draw people and landscapes mostly, so how do I decide what type of person or what kind of landscape (e.g. the physical appearance or attributes of a person, or the type of terrain, weather or scenery for landscapes) to draw?
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3Welcome to Arts & Crafts. Your question is really too broad as-is for people to provide useful answers. You can draw virtually anything--any physical object in the universe, imaginary objects, simple graphics, etc., and use any medium. You need to give us some hints to provide some level of focus on what would be relevant to you and your objectives.– fixer1234Commented Nov 30, 2019 at 18:01
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It does seem really too broad... yet Marian has a great answer. Vote to reopen.– rebusBCommented Dec 14, 2019 at 19:43
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1@rebusB I agree that Marian's answer is good, but the quality of questions does not depend on that of the answers. On the other hand, I do think the question 'How do I deal with artist's block?', although broad, is an interesting and important one, and I'll edit the question to reflect that - if Owen agrees with the change.– Joachim ♦Commented Mar 27, 2020 at 22:58
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@Joachim - artists block is a specific, if diffuse, problem that artists face. I would say that the edits that added the second paragraph actually made it more confusing/opinion based. But that is a much better title for the question.– rebusBCommented Apr 30, 2020 at 23:42
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It is closed now, but I would answer: draw what moves you. You say you like landscapes and people, then draw those. Do not worry about specifics like the weather, draw all kinds of weather, draw all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. The decision of what to draw comes from inside you, though others may inspire with their suggestions and ideas. But there are no rules... be free!– rebusBCommented Apr 30, 2020 at 23:47
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1 Answer
Depends on what your problem is:
If you have too many ideas and cannot commit to one, I would recommend sketching out thumbnails to then decide which one.
If you feel like none of your ideas are good enough, I would recommend doing something simple to warm up. Draw the room around you or do some still life or draw a character doing something dumb.
If you feel like you are forcing yourself to draw, just do something else. Play a game or go for a walk. Nobody's forcing you do draw (unless somebody is, and that's a different situation), so just chill.
What I do to prevent this situation: I keep a written list of ideas of things to draw when I got nothing else to draw. It has all my ideas from "eyeball people" to "3pp woods backligting sunset Wirt & Greg." I also have a list of challenges and things to get better at. But if I don't feel like doing any of these lists, I do something else.
