If you already have experience as an artist or illustrator, you won’t be surprised by the connection between creativity, mental stimulation, and drawing. Structured drawing exercises can help you boost mental sharpness and your ability to focus all while improving your drawing skills. 

These exercises will provide you with drawing ideas for both beginners and more advanced students, offer you a relaxing break for your busy week and teach you quick drawing tips you can use for other projects. You can use each exercise as general creative inspiration or as the starting point in your creative journey with Skillshare, which is a rich creative resource for artists of all levels.


Remember Your Day With Watercolor and Pen

A white page is filled with a dozen different drawings illustrating someone’s day. July 25, 2017 is written at the bottom and the drawings include images like pizza, cookies and avocado toast.
Use a day in your life to inspire this drawing challenge.

Class: 5-Minute Creativity: Sketch Your Day in Watercolor and Pen by Samantha Dion Baker

Document your day with a roadmap sketch made with watercolor and pen. By starting in one corner with your first activity of the day, you’ll record bits and pieces of your day from morning until night with little drawings that will slowly fill up your page. In this drawing exercise, you're combining the powerful mental benefits of journaling and painting, which both help with self-reflection and improved mood.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Samantha starts her work of art with a drawing of two peaches and a little note explaining where she got them. She then adds more drawings and descriptions from left to right until anyone can easily get a glimpse into her day on July twenty-fifth. 
  2. You’ll need a piece of paper and your preferred drawing or painting tools to get started. 
  3. If you’re still learning how to draw, focus on simple shapes and line drawings. 

Top Tip from the Teacher: When you create something out of a fleeting, busy day it helps you celebrate the little moments. A drawing exercise like this one will show you how special it is to capture those memories as a whole.

Make a Continuous Line Drawing

The photo is split into two parts. The left side shows a red mug filled with writing utensils and a pair of scissors sitting on a wooden countertop. The mug reads “Keep calm you’re only 30.” The right side shows a pen drawing of the mug and writing utensils on a white background. 
Caption: Continuous line drawings like this one can help new illustrators understand spacing and sizing.
Continuous line drawings can help new illustrators understand spacing and sizing.

Class: Everyone Can Draw! 5 Drawing Exercises for Non-Drawers by Fatih Mıstaçoğlu

This drawing challenge will help fine-tune your ability to focus, all while teaching you a new drawing technique: continuous line drawing. You’ll make a continuous line drawing by drawing your subject without picking your pen off of the paper until you’re finished. 

Key Takeaways:

  1. Start in the top left corner of the object you’re drawing and then go trace your object’s every line and edge until it’s finished. 
  2. You’ll need a pen and paper to get started. 
  3. If you’re new to drawing, start with a simple object like an empty coffee mug or water bottle.

Top Tip from the Teacher: Continuous line drawing shows you how important hand-eye coordination is when learning to draw. It’ll help you realize that telling your hands to draw isn’t much different than telling them to throw a ball or chop onions. Your hand-eye only gets better with practice so keep pushing forward because there are no shortcuts or magic solutions.

Speed Draw the Five Primary Emotions

The image has a white background and a title that reads “5 Primary Emotions.” On the white background is an illustrated face that looks surprised with raised eyebrows and an open mouth. 
Understanding how to draw emotions is key for character illustration. 

Class: Character Illustration: From Feelings to Faces by Christine Nishiyama

You’re going to speed-draw the five primary emotions—joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear—on the same face template. You’ll finish the challenge with a whole set of emotional characters. This drawing challenge will help you actively analyze your feelings, which can give you a heightened cognitive state.

Step-By-Step Instructions:

  1. Print out the blank faces template or draw your own on a piece of paper.
  2. Spend seventy-five seconds creating five emotional faces. 
  3. If you’re looking for more advanced drawing ideas, you can try drawing complex emotions like grief, jealousy or guilt. 

Top Tip from the Teacher:
Focus on the eyes, eyebrows, mouth, and cheeks when you're drawing. It’s helpful to think about a face as these four key features when trying to portray a certain emotion. 

Draw A Glass Of Water With Graphite Pencil

A photo of a glass of water sitting on a plain white background is visible in the top right corner of a drawing of the same glass of water on white paper. 
Drawing water can teach new illustrators how to draw shadows, reflections and light. 

Class: Draw A Glass Of Water With Graphite Pencil: Create A 3D Illusion by Emily Armstrong

Create the illusion of glass and reflections with just a graphite pencil while drawing a glass of water. You’ll need to focus and persevere to finish this water drawing, which can help boost fine motor skills and improve concentration. 

Key Takeaways:

  1. You’ll start by sketching the general proportions of the glass, shading and then adding key elements like its rim, middle section, base and shadow. 
  2. Grab a pencil and paper to get started. A white ink pen and blending stump are optional but suggested for intermediate to advanced artists. 
  3. Beginner artists can start by tracing the template instead of hand sketching from scratch.  

Top Tip from the Teacher: While drawing, you’ll need to forget that this is a glass of water. It’ll make things easier to lose the idea of glass as being transparent and reflective and instead focus on seeing the interlocking light and dark values. 

Create a Botanical Mandala-Inspired Illustration

An illustration on a white piece of paper sits on a pink background surrounded by various items including two writing utensils, washi tape and flowers. The illustration is black a white and features a variety of flowers in a circle. 
For this black-and-white illustration exercise, you’ll need only a pencil and a fine-tipped marker or pen. 

Class: Mindful Mandalas: Botanical Doodling For Self-Care by Mel Rye

Get ready to draw mandalas inspired by real botanical references. Drawing mandalas helps promote a sense of calm and connect you to the present. You’ll explore three different mandalas each with their own unique compositional structures and botanical inspiration. 

Step-by-Step Instructions:

  1. Gather inspiration and create a wide range of doodles, drawings and shapes that you’ll use in your final botanical mandala. 
  2. Grab a pencil, pen and paper. 
  3. Choose simple botanical references like ferns or daisies. 

Top Tip from the Teacher:
Creating mandalas is a great activity for anyone who is feeling creatively blocked or burnt out and wants some simple guidance to start working through their feelings creatively.

Try Your Hand at Zentangle Art

A black-and-white illustration sits in an open book filled with other illustrations, which are slightly out of frame. The main black-and-white illustration is abstract and features stripes and leaf-like teardrop shapes. 
Both simple to learn and relaxing, zentangle illustrations are abstract images made of simple shapes. 

Class: Zentangle Art - An Introduction to an Easy & Relaxing Drawing Method for Mindfulness & Fun by Ridhi Rajpal

Zentangle art is a relaxing and energizing drawing method where you draw structured, intertwined patterns. By combining simple patterns, you’ll end up with an intricate and abstract final work of art. The first step of the Zentangle method is gratitude and appreciation, which can help you get in a positive mindset right off the bat.

Key Takeaways:

  1. You’ll start with your gratitude exercise and then draw, shade and tangle until you have your final piece. 
  2. To begin, you’ll need paper and a pen. 
  3. More advanced artists can try infusing their work with other art influences or their own personal style. 

Top Tip from the Teacher:
The founders of Zentangle believe that every person is an artist. Ridhi also believes that with the right approach, anyone can tap into their inner artistic potential and create something beautiful.

Drawing Upside Down

Procreate is open to a canvas that features two rectangles. Inside the rectangle to the left is an upside down black and white line drawing of a pickup truck. Inside the rectangle to the right is an upside down black and white sketch of the same pickup truck. 
Some artists can better observe shapes and spaces when drawing upside down. 

Class: Learn to Draw: Daily Practices to Improve Your Drawing Skills by Gabrielle Brickey

Drawing upside down will help you learn the fundamentals of drawing by discovering how to see your object as simple shapes, angles and negative space. You’ll also stimulate your creative side by helping your brain switch into the right-brain mode. 

Step-by-Step Instructions:

  1. Find a reference or use Gabrielle’s truck and turn it upside down and then try to replicate its lines and spacing. 
  2. Gabrielle uses an iPad and Procreate but you can just use paper and a pen. 
  3. If you’re just starting out, try to replicate a simple line-art drawing like a house or chair. 

Top Tip from the Teacher:
Gabrielle remembers what it was like to struggle through a drawing, but these techniques have helped her see illustration in a whole new light. She knows they can help anyone—even those who don’t think they can draw. 

Learn About Observation and Ideation Modes

Procreate is open to a canvas that features four black and white sketches of a chair with tennis balls on its legs. Each sketch is a different size and has been drawn from a different angle.
Drawing the same object from multiple different angles might help you better understand it.  

Class: Drawing Toward Illustration: Connect How You Draw with How You Illustrate by Tom Froese

By exploring different ways to draw the same chair, you’ll gain confidence in your ability to draw, develop more creative freedom and give your brain a boost of focus and relaxation.  

Key Takeaways:

  1. You’ll start by drawing in observational mode and then switch to ideation mode, which will help you explore your drawing through different angles and styles. 
  2. Tom draws in Procreate but you can use paper and a pen. 
  3. If you’re a beginner, you can spend more time in observational mode before you switch to ideation mode. 

Top Tip from the Teacher: When you draw from the heart and switch to ideation mode, you’ll be able to better develop a consistent style and add a level of realism to your work. 


Grow Your Drawing Skills with Skillshare

Each of these drawing exercises can help boost creativity and mental sharpness while improving overall drawing skills. For more guidance on your drawing journey, explore Skillshare for different art classes and activities. 

Written By
Calli Zarpas

Calli Zarpas

Producer & Writer by occupation. Ceramicist & Newsletter Editor by avocation.

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