I get asked pretty frequently by people just starting out drawing or by people who come up to me wherever I'm working in my sketchbook, "How do you decide what to draw?" And also I hear from new sketchers, "I don't know what to draw, there's nothing interesting where I live." Well, to me those are the same problem and my answer is, I draw what I find interesting today, draw what I like, draw things that make me happy. But, if I still feel stuck here's a list of things that I do to decide what to draw.
1)I draw whatever is in front of me. So if I'm sitting watching some TV in the evening and I want to do some drawing? Draw the people on TV. (Above are some drawings I did while watching Outlander recently). Or I'm at the coffee shop and I want to draw, so I draw the coffee cup, the people around me, the coffee makers, the muffins in the glass case by the register. I just draw wherever I am. Or if I'm out to dinner, I draw the bread basket, the guy slumped at the bar, the bartender wiping the glasses dry. Whatever is there in front of me, I pick some small element to draw. I usually don't don't try to draw the whole scene. I feel like I'm the editor here and I can choose just one element to draw. Sometimes drawing the whole scene can be overwhelming, so I break it down and choose just a small part of it. If I go to the beach I draw all the shells my kids pick up and bring home (as I did at the top of this post), or if I'm agoing for a walk in the woods, I pick up cool stuff to draw when I get home: a couple weird acorns, a pine cone, some interesting rocks. There's always something that will be fun to draw in whatever place I'm in.
2) I draw stuff I like. I like shoes. So I draw shoes (as above). I like the weird shape of fire hydrants, so I draw them. I like macarons, so I draw them. I like rabbits, I draw them. I like my kids and my husband... They show up pretty frequently in my sketchbooks. I like art supplies, coffee, tea, the juxtaposition of things that are contrasting colors, Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Outlander, I like books, pens, glass bottles, art from many different time periods, things that are visually amusing.... So those are things that I draw.
3) I copy artists that I am inspired by. I love Van Gogh, I've copied my favorite painting by him a few times in oil and in watercolor now. I've copied drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci, Titian, lots of illustrators that I admire. Sometimes I copy in a totally different medium than the artist used just because I like the composition of a painting or the expression of someone in a portrait. Below is a ink drawing of Mrs Graham from the Gainsborough portrait... It's an oil paintin. I copied it in ink. I just liked the side eye expression she had in the painting. Copying works by other artists is a really fun way to relax artistically, it's slightly more involved than coloring in a coloring book, but it pretty much leaves the figuring out composition and lighting etc to another artist and I feel it frees me up to just work on technique.
4) I draw from photos. It's the end of the day, I'm tired but still want to draw, I grab my iPad and search through Pinterest or Flickr or any number of other picture heavy sites for something I want to draw. I don't usually draw it just like the photo. I don't have to copy photorealisticaly (though sometimes that's a fun exercise when I have the time), I just use the photo as a reference and an inspiration. Below I drew an actress from different photos just to draw the same person from different angles with different lighting etc. There's nothing wrong from practicing drawing from a photo. I do it when I'm not feeling inspired by the mess on the kitchen table or the pile of laundry on the sofa. I find a photo that I feel inspired by and draw from that. Sometimes it feels like more fun to draw an elephant or a snail than it does to draw what is right in front of me. So I go with that. It's better to be drawing than to feel artistically stuck.
5) I draw myself and my family. I am always there to draw and it's great practice drawing people. Sometimes I don't feel like doing a self portrait, so I draw m hands or feet. Or I draw my kids. I draw my husband. They are always around and available to draw. It's an interesting challenge drawing people I know well. I get more critical of my drawings if I don't feel like they have come out well when it's a drawing of me or a family member. It pushes me to draw more carefully and observe more carefully, which is always a good thing, I think.
To me the biggest thing about deciding what to draw is to not make excuses if I don't have my sketchbook or I don't know what to draw. I can always draw something. I can always draw with the ballpoint in my pocket on the placemat at the diner. I can draw my kids while I sit at the playground watching them play. Or my shoes while I wait for your tea to steep. There's always something to draw. Sometimes my problem isn't that I don't know what to draw, it's that there are so many things that it's like visual overload and I have a hard time choosing just one thing to put my drawing time and energy into. But if I don't just start a drawing then I waste that time on trying to decide and waiting for "inspiration". I don't always feel super inspired when I start a drawing. Often I don't feel inspired until I get partway through a drawing or painting. Sometimes inspiration isn't the goal. Just making something, observing something, is more the point of a drawing than the inspiration.
So that's my answer to how I decide what to draw.... The short answer is, I look around and find something that I like the look of. Then I draw it.
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