Drawing Ideas for Beginners

Art Tips

Jul 24

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to draw, so today I’m sharing a list of ideas and inspirations with you to give your own ideas a kick start!

Use them as a prompt list for a rainy day, or go through one by one to practise your skills on things you might not normally draw.

Plants + Leaves

You’ll see plants and flowers a lot in my illustrations because they’re simple to draw, they’re so pretty and they’re fun to experiment with.

Try drawing these:

Ferns
Sunflowers
Daffodils
Palm trees
Succulents
Different leaf types

Animals

I draw quite a lot of cats. I don’t own a cat but I think they have an attitude and I like that about them! Pick an animal and give them a personality, an outfit, or put them in a scene.

Try drawing these:

Cat
Dog
Fox
Goldfish
Llama
Butterfly
Snail

People

I used to find people quite hard to draw, but since I’ve settled into a bit of a style and spent some time practising coming up with little characters I feel much better about it!

Try drawing these:

Person with a hat
Person out for a walk
Person cuddling a dog
Person eating ice cream
Person caught in the rain

Food

Although I love food it’s something I don’t draw very often and should start practising to get out of my comfort zone a bit.

Try drawing these:

Spaghetti
Tea
Cake
Ice Cream
Fruit
Macarons

Environments

I like using whole settings as a prompt because sometimes just picking an environment can bring a bunch of ideas with it for characters and situations.

Try drawing these:

Woodlands
Desert
Ocean
Outer space
Beach
Jungle

Once you’ve tried out some of these, try having a brainstorming session and write down your own list of ideas and prompts for when you’re feeling stuck.

When you’re after some more inspiration, come and draw along with me over on YouTube where I share real-time and time-lapse videos of some of my illustrations. Come along to watch for inspiration or draw your own illustration alongside me!