Draw, Draw Again: 3 Exercises To Get Into Better Drawing Shape

We all know the key to exercise is consistency, repetition, and practice. So, it stands to reason that the same repetition would help us get better at drawing.

Like the way that cooking the same meal over and over again makes it easier to make.

Or the way that playing the same guitar chords over and over again makes them easier to form on the fretboard.

It’s true, though, that the payoff for each of these can be more satisfying than for finishing a drawing.

With exercise, you get the whole body satisfaction of a good workout. With cooking, you get to snack along the way (unless you’re a professional chef, of course). With music, you get to jam along to music.

Drawing can be a lonelier road, full of drawing, erasing, and adjusting before finally feeling close to finished. Getting to the end of a drawing is a real accomplishment, even if it’s not one that always makes us want to start back from the beginning right away.

With that, it might be better to take a different approach to drawing. So today, we’re focusing on smaller drills that will help us get into better drawing shape.

Enjoy Repeating These 3 Drawing Exercises Again And Again

1. The 15-Minute Workout - This session comes courtesy of Crave Painting. Like a HIIT warmup, your short drawing exercise is broken down into several minute-long intervals. You’ll start first by choosing among one of a number of types of strokes. Focus first on that stroke, then a second different style. Then combine them. Follow that with a focus on one shape, then one texture, and then one quick sketch. The fun of these 15 minutes is that while they do follow a rigid format, there’s flexibility and creativity allowed within each section.
   
   
2. The Five-Minute Burn - From Draw Paint Academy comes this workout-inspired sprint. Rather than reaching for the ceilings on your burpees, the goal here is to take an uninterrupted five-minute period to capture everything in front of you in as much detail as possible. The struggle is in the focus. Don’t let yourself get distracted. And don’t get too caught up in one single item. Make sure to set the whole scene, get an appropriate amount of detail, and then stop when the time is up. Refer back to your sessions from last week or last month to see how you’ve improved.
   
   
3. Get Your Lines In Line - You can paint outside the lines once you’ve done your warm-ups. And after looking through these 10 exercises for confident lines and accurate hatching by the Virtual Instructor, you may want a break. Still, mastering these technical fundamentals will open you up to even more creative expression in the future. Consider trying an exercise a day as part of your warm-up, focusing on one exercise a day to build a broader foundation.
   

Often what inspires us to get drawing is creating something special or capturing the moment in front of us. That same spark can burn us, though, when we don’t feel like we’re able to do the image justice.

By committing to exercises like these in small daily doses, you’ll be pushing yourself and your craft, one line at a time.