The 10 Best Drawing Ideas and Designs to Get You Inspired

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What to draw? You are not alone with this question. Many other creative people have exactly this problem. You’ve got your drawing material together and now you’re sitting in front of a sheet of paper, but you lack inspiration? Here we can help you! We will show you from which sources you can get ideas for your drawing and hope to inspire you.

Drawing Ideas From a Blank Page

Creativity is not a skill that you can simply activate at the touch of a button. Creative people and artists can tell you a thing or two about this – creativity is something elusive and extremely capricious. Sometimes inspiration strikes you and everything flows, sometimes you scribble away without a real idea or inspiration. It is a misconception that famous artists are or were always full of ideas and inspiration.

Even these skilled creatives have always struggled with a lack of inspiration and setbacks, but have usually developed a strategy to get into the right mode to find things to draw. So the goal should be that you can put yourself in a creative mood with certain tools and thus call up your potential.

General Tips for Finding What to Draw

From our artistic experience, we can give you some important tips, which work well with us and hopefully help you. Just try these out for finding your creativity:

• Make a creative environment: To be creative, you have to feel comfortable. Therefore, make sure that your environment is set up accordingly: the right lighting, pleasant temperatures, a hot drink, candles or your favorite music are good ways to get into the right mood.
• Take your time: Creativity does not work at the push of a button, so take your time to get into the right creative mood.
• No expectations: Try to free yourself from expectations of yourself and your drawing.
• Release mental blockage – The biggest enemy of creativity is a headstrong approach: The antithesis to creativity is often a headstrong approach. So try to let your intuition guide you more.
• Just start – follow your intuition: Last but not least, the most effective way: Just start, scribble away, and if you keep the other points above in mind, inspiration will hit you.

The 10 Best Drawing Ideas and Sources of inspiration

There are so many ideas of things to draw, but often it is difficult to grasp and implement them. The following easy drawing ideas offer you many ideas for drawing and ensure that you will always find new inspirations.

Idea 1: Drawing Photos

Great photos or pictures can be ideal templates for your drawings and help to inspire you. Take a look at your photo albums or rummage through your old picture books. You will find a true variety of easy drawing ideas.

Idea 2: Let Yourself be Inspired by Famous Artists

Learn from the best. True to this motto, you can also get many exciting inspirations from great drawing artists. Their great works are definitely worth a second look. By tracing the works of great artists, you can also discover the secret of the effect of these paintings or drawings. You can then integrate them into your work and develop yourself further. You can find exciting pictures for drawing by masters of their trade on Wikipedia.

Idea 3: Travel

One of the best activities to develop new ideas is travelling or being on the road. You won’t find as many themes – be it architectural monuments, street scenes, nature scenes, or people anywhere else. Remember your last holiday, this will also give you many ideas.

Idea 4: Technical Literature and Fashion Magazines

Fashion illustrations are a very good source if you need cool drawing ideas. They are usually reduced to the bare essentials and can be really inspiring. You should also have a look at technical literature about illustrations.

Idea 5: Visiting Exhibitions

Visit exhibitions or museums from time to time. On the one hand, local artists are happy about more visitors and interest, but you also get many cool drawing ideas. Because it is always interesting to see what other creative people create. Also, different art forms like figurative art can help you to find new inspiration.

If you visit museums, make sure you take a notebook and a pencil with you – most of the time you are allowed to make sketches of the exhibited works and then develop them at home.

Idea 6: Draw Your Surroundings

You’re just sitting in front of a blank piece of paper? Then let your gaze wander – what do you see? Let yourself be inspired by your surroundings because sometimes the best muse is so close. It can be a part of your furniture or a single item on your desk. Or let your gaze wander out the window – what do you see? Nature offers countless ideas for your pencil drawings – from landscapes to plants, animals or buildings.

Idea 7: Simple Drawing Ideas from Idea Portals

Portals like Pinterest or Deviantart are ideal for getting ideas for drawing. Thousands of artists and creative people upload their works on these portals. This does not necessarily mean that you should copy these drawings 1:1. Rather, these new ideas for themes or techniques can give you inspiration.

Idea 8: Learn New Drawing Techniques

Do you already know all the drawing techniques? If not, learning new techniques will automatically give you new skills and ideas for drawing. In our article about learning to draw, you will find many drawing techniques and their explanations.

Idea 9: Mixed Media – Combine Different Art Materials

You can complement your pencil drawings in many different ways with other painting media and thus take them to a new level. This can be extremely inspiring. Even old drawings of yours can be given a final touch. Pencil drawings are often the beginning for other painting techniques such as watercolor painting.

We have written an article about mixed media, which we recommend for you to read. You can combine the following other painting media and techniques perfectly with your pencil drawings:

• Coal
• Watercolors
• Crayons
• Edding/Permanent marker
• Wax crayons
• Oil chalk
• Pastel chalk
• Acrylic colors

Idea 10: Sketchbook for Drawing Ideas

Get a sketch/scribble book in which you can sketch your simple drawing ideas and refer to them later. Similar to a musician who writes down their song lyrics ideas, you can also write down your drawings ideas, inspirations, and themes there. It’s not about perfection, but about capturing your drawings ideas. You can always have your sketchbook with you when you’re on the road to make sketches and notes.

Drawing Ideas and Instructions From Books and eBooks

This is actually the easiest and fastest way to get new ideas for drawing with pencil: Textbooks, collections of ideas, and instructions in written form. These can be either conventional books or eBooks, which you can download and start using right away.

Often these ideas are accompanied by instructions, making them especially suitable for beginners. Experienced illustrators will also always find new ideas and themes. We have put together the best books with ideas for drawing below.

As you can see, there are countless ideas for drawing, you just need to know what to look for. We hope that this article has inspired you on what to draw. We wish you a lot of fun with your further drawing ideas ahead!