Prompt #45 - I don’t know what to draw

What to draw when you don’t know what

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

The blank page, an insurmountable obstacle to many of us. I have two main modes when it comes to wanting to draw: 1) I have an idea, but I can’t find the time to sit down and put it to paper. 2) I have some time, but have no idea what to draw.

This week, I found myself in the latter. I’m spending the week visiting my parents with my daughter. I had a bit of time to myself, and felt like getting out my sketchbook, but my mind was blank.

In good news, we don’t need to be innovative or extremely creative to enjoy the process of sketching something. We can simply pick something from our surroundings, sit down, get into the moment, turn off the noise, and reduce our world to our pen, paper, and the thing in front of us.

The Activity: Sketch a Still Life

Step 1 - Set up your scene

Take a look around you house and choose some items you find interesting. This can be anything at all, but of course the simpler the form and shape, the easier it will be to sketch. Fruit, of course, is an all time favourite object of still life artists over the centuries. But it’s not a must. You can also go for a roll of toilet paper, and a bag of Cheese Dorritos. (Check out one of my favourite aritsts for amazing paintings of modern every day things).

Place the objects on a table in front of you. Arrange them in a way you find pleasing to the eye. It better be pleasing, because you’ll spend a good amount of time staring at it.

Photo by Mike Dorner on Unsplash

Step 2 - Place your objects on the paper

Starting with a pencil, very lightly start sketching the rough shapes of your objects. Do not be precise, it doesn’t have to look like the actual thing. Lines, large circles, squares, squiggles. At this stage, you only want to place the different objects on your page. What’s in front of what, how high is your toilet paper in comparison to your book, and so on.

Step 3 - Refine the outlines

Now that you have your rough shapes on the paper, you can focus on each individual item in more detail. How does the outline look, what are some other main lines you want to include? You get to choose the level of detail you want to include. If you feel motivated to draw each individual button of your TV remote, that’s cool. But it’s also cool to just draw some circles or squiggles to imply where the buttons would be.

Photo by Fernando Andrade on Unsplash

Step 4 - Add shading and/or colour (optional)

If you’re happy with your outlines, you can stop right there. Or you can keep going and turn some of the darker areas darker, while keeping the lighter bits light. Or you can get your crayons or watercolours and go nuts.

Since we’re drawing real objects, it’s very easy to get frustrated if you start feeling that it doesn’t “look right”. Try to let go of that. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. Nobody will see it, unless you show it to them. Just focus on how good it feels to be in the moment, and to look at something much closer than you have before.

My Example

I set up my scene on the kitchen table, using some bananas, some fake flowers, and a glass. I knew I wanted to draw in colour, so I went for objects with different colours, as well as different shapes and heights.

Then I started drawing. A rectangle for the glass, some ovals and squiggly shapes for the bananas, some lines with ovals on top for the flowers.

While working on the outlines, I got very caught up in trying to make them “look right”. Colouring got me over that really fast though, because my daughter wanted to get involved. At 2 years old, of course, she has no respect for lines, or any of the made up rules of drawing we subject ourselves to.

Trying to practice more of what I preach, I tried to let go and let her do some of the colouring. I managed to let go. A little bit. But not much. When the red of the flowers started going on the stem, I cracked and took back over.

It ended up looking very nice, if I may say so myself. But I think next time I’ll try to properly let go of the final result and let my daughter do all the colouring. She is currently in her “red phase”, so it’s bound to be interesting.

Love, Lorena