Some Tips and Exercises for Artists!

Yodel, all my fellow artists! As you might remember, I recently published a post for writers who may be struggling with writer’s block, or are stuck in a corner with their story. (You can find that here.) I promised a similar post for you, and I’ve finally come to you with my tips and exercises for my friends with artists’ block!

I’m gonna admit something to you: It is much harder for me, personally, to get out of a drawing/painting rut than it is a writing rut. And there are times I won’t draw for weeks–which, honestly, is fine! Don’t force yourself if you don’t feel like drawing. But there are plenty of exercises I find fun that I would love to share.

Tip #1 – Use your non-dominant hand.

This one is my favorite! I use it more often when I’m painting than when I’m drawing, but it is so fun. I am right-handed, so this, for me, would require holding a pencil/paintbrush with my left hand and using it. You can, if course, do the tiny details with your dominant hand if your non-dominant one is uncontrollably shaky, but I challenge you to draw or paint a picture using your non-dominant hand as much as possible. It may not come out exactly as you want, but it is a great exercise to loosen up, and just experiment and have fun! Besides, the more you use that hand, the stronger it will become. So, who knows–if you use it enough, you may just train yourself into ambidexterity!

Here’s a painting I did with my left hand, from a photo off Pinterest:

Tip #2 – Draw a song

I have so many songs I would like to try this with, but have yet to try it. Pick a song you like–one that inspires you–put it on repeat, and draw what it makes you think of. You could even just doodle mindlessly to the music, seeing where it takes you, which I have tried, and it’s a lot of fun!

Tip #3 – Screencap redraw

This was a popular drawing challenge I kept seeing on the internet awhile back, and I’ve done it a few times myself–it’s so fun. You take a screenshot from a favorite movie, TV show or cartoon–or even a YouTube video–and you draw that scene in your own art style. It’s a great exercise to help you with developing a unique style, or drawing a different angle than what you would normally draw. It’s also great when you feel particularly shoved into a corner.

Here’s an example from YouTube:

Tip #4 – Using poses

This tip is particularly for drawing people–or perhaps animals–but it’s a fun one, and a great way to help you learn human anatomy, clothing physics (those pesky clothing folds!) and dynamic posing. Take one of your own characters (if you don’t have any, you can draw a beloved character, or simply the person in the original picture) and draw them in a pose from a photo. I have an entire Pinterest board for human drawing references–I may use the poses, the color schemes, the lighting, or just recreate that picture (just remember, if you recreate a random picture, there’s a possibility the photo is copyrighted, and you cannot make money off of that–those drawings are for your own enjoyment only.) in my own drawings or paintings. If you would like to use some, here’s my board.

One of my favorite artists, Hirohiko Araki, is notorious for this tactic. He uses dynamic (those are the crazy poses that the fashion world uses often) poses from fashion magazines as the inspiration for many of his famous Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure characters. Look at this!

In fact, his artwork has even been featured in fashion magazines and by chic fashion brands, like Gucci before, which is so cool. (I added a post from a blog that has some pictures. Amazing!) Honestly, this artist is such an inspiration, I suggest checking his work out if you love to draw people.

Here are some paintings and drawings I did using this exercise (the first one actually was inspired by Araki’s art, and the last one I mixed with the screencap redraw challenge, but drew my own characters in place of the characters in the 1940 Rebecca movie):

Tip #5 – Draw a scene from a book

Maybe there’s a line from a book you read that really stood out to you. The situation was so clear in your head, the line was said like a mic-drop moment. Why not capture that feeling, and draw it?

My sister did this with Daphne du Maurier’s famous novel Rebecca, which I shared my review of with you guys recently. She drew the part where Beatrice tells our MC, “You see, you are so very different from Rebecca.” And she did such a good job, too! I won’t share it here, because I’m not sure she would want me to (she’s a little shy when it comes to showing off her artwork.), but take my word for it, it was brilliant.

Tip #6 – Still Life

Even though my favorite thing to draw is people, I find drawing still-life helps me expand my tight-wad, perfectionist mind from time to time. Find something in the same room as you with some interesting shapes or colors, and draw it. I’ve done this when I’ve sat down to use my watercolors and didn’t know what to paint, and it helped me out. And they turned out so much better than I thought, too–I became fully invested as I painted!

Tip #7 – Let your mind go wild

Sometimes, our minds won’t let us draw anything of substance, no matter how we try. But that doesn’t mean we necessarily have to draw nothing. Try drawing some random shapes, lines, squiggles, you name it. Play around with the way you hold your pencil, draw shapes with different media, goof off using color. Just create something completely abstract, and see what it does for you!

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Well, those are all I have for you today. If I think of any more, I will have to do another post, eh? I hope you guys will try some of those exercises out, and have fun with them! You never know what’s gonna happen with art. Be wild with it!