15 Minutes a Day Drawing Exercises to Build a Creative Habit (2024)

Warm-up with Quick Sketches: Begin your daily drawing session with a warm-up exercise. Set a timer for 5 minutes and challenge yourself to sketch as many quick, gestural drawings as possible. These rapid sketches will help you loosen up, improve hand-eye coordination, and capture the essence of your subject. Just draw objects that you see around you. Your breakfast plate, someone you live with or your book shelf.

Explore Different Perspectives: Choose a simple object, like a cup or a fruit, and draw it from multiple angles. Practice capturing the object's form and volume from different perspectives. This exercise will enhance your understanding of spatial relationships and improve your ability to depict objects realistically.

Play with Negative Space: Focus on the negative space surrounding an object rather than the object itself. By drawing the spaces in between and around objects, you'll sharpen your observation skills and develop a better understanding of proportions and composition.

Experiment with Value: Practice shading and creating value gradients. Choose a subject and observe the light and dark areas. Use different shading techniques like cross-hatching, stippling, or blending to add depth and dimension to your drawings. Experimenting with values will enhance your ability to create realistic and expressive artwork.

Draw Everyday Objects Upside Down: Challenge your perception by turning everyday objects upside down and sketching them. This exercise helps you to see shapes, lines, and proportions more objectively, as your brain is forced to let go of preconceived notions and focus on the visual details.

Try Blind Contour Drawing: Engage your observational skills with blind contour drawing. Without looking at your paper, trace the outline of an object using one continuous line. This exercise enhances hand-eye coordination and encourages you to truly observe the contours and details of your subject.

Capture Expressions and Gestures: Practice sketching people in motion or capturing facial expressions. Observe people around you, whether in a park or a coffee shop, and quickly sketch their gestures and emotions. This exercise will help you improve your ability to depict human figures and add life to your artwork.

Create a Doodle Diary: Maintain a doodle diary where you draw a small, quick sketch every day. Capture a moment, an object, or an idea that sparks your interest. It's a great way to document your experiences and foster a daily creative habit.

Draw from Imagination: Let your imagination run wild! Set a timer for 15 minutes and create a drawing based purely on your imagination. This exercise enhances your creative thinking, expands your visual repertoire, and allows you to explore new concepts and ideas.

Focus on Details: Choose an everyday object and zoom in on a small section. Draw the intricate details of that section, paying close attention to texture, patterns, and shapes. This exercise trains your eye to observe fine details and improves your ability to render them accurately.

Experiment with Different Mediums: Don't limit yourself to just pencil and paper. Explore different drawing mediums like charcoal, ink, coloured pencils, or watercolours. Experimenting with various materials adds variety to your practice and helps you discover new artistic possibilities.

Incorporate Nature into Your Sketches: Step outside and sketch elements of nature, such as flowers, leaves.