Staring at a blank piece of paper is honestly the worst part of being creative. You want to make something cool, but your brain just freezes up. It happens to everyone. Whether you're a literal pro or someone who hasn't picked up a pencil since third grade, the struggle to find pictures that you can draw without wanting to rip the paper in half is very real. We often think we need to jump straight into complex portraits or hyper-realistic landscapes. We don't. That’s a fast track to burnout.
Art is about momentum.
Think about it like going to the gym. You don't walk in and try to bench press 300 pounds on day one. You'd break something. Drawing is a physical and cognitive skill that requires a "warm-up" period where you give yourself permission to be simple.
The Psychological Barrier of Complexity
Most people quit drawing because they set the bar too high. They see a masterpiece on Instagram and think, "I should be able to do that." But those artists didn't start there. They started with simple shapes. If you're looking for pictures that you can draw right now, you need to ignore the urge to be "impressive" and focus on being "finished." Finishing a small, silly doodle of a coffee mug provides a way bigger dopamine hit than starting a massive dragon and abandoning it halfway through.
James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, talks a lot about making things "easy to start." This applies to art perfectly. If the barrier to entry is too high, you'll just scroll on your phone instead.
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Why the Humble Doodle Matters
Doodling isn't just "killing time." It's actually a form of visual thinking. Researchers like Sunni Brown, author of The Doodle Revolution, have shown that doodling helps with information retention and problem-solving. When you look for easy pictures that you can draw, you're essentially building a visual vocabulary.
- Geometric Animals: Take a circle. Give it ears. Now it’s a bear. Or a cat. Or a very confused hamster.
- Botanical Line Art: Leaves are just elongated ovals. Seriously. You can make an entire "aesthetic" journal page just by drawing different sized ovals on a wiggly line.
- Daily Objects: Look at your desk. A stapler is just a bunch of rectangles. A lamp is a triangle on a stick.
Pictures That You Can Draw When You Have Zero Inspiration
Sometimes the brain is just empty. Totally blank. When that happens, you need a go-to list of subjects that require almost zero creative "heavy lifting."
The "Single Line" Challenge
One of the coolest types of pictures that you can draw involves never lifting your pen from the paper. This is called continuous line drawing. It’s a classic art school exercise used to develop hand-eye coordination. Try drawing your own hand or a pair of glasses using just one long, looping line. It’s going to look messy. It’s going to look weird. That’s the point. It takes the pressure off "perfection" because the rules of the exercise literally make perfection impossible.
Minimalist Landscapes
You don't need to be Bob Ross. You don't need "happy little trees" with a thousand individual needles. A minimalist landscape can be three wavy lines representing mountains and a circle for the sun. This is actually a huge trend in modern interior decor and digital illustration. By focusing on the silhouette, you learn about composition without getting bogged down in the nightmare that is shading and texture.
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Overcoming the "Bad Drawing" Phobia
Let’s be real: most of what you draw at first will be kind of bad. And that is totally fine.
Actually, it's necessary.
There is a concept in the art world called "The Gap," famously described by Ira Glass. It’s the space between your taste (which is high) and your skills (which are currently developing). You know what looks good, but your hands can't make it yet. The only way to close that gap is to produce a high volume of work. That means drawing a lot of "easy" stuff until the hard stuff becomes easy.
Specific Ideas for Your Sketchbook
- Cloud Formations: Clouds are the ultimate low-stress subject. They have no fixed shape. If you mess up a cloud, it just looks like a different cloud.
- Coffee Cups: Steam, a ceramic handle, maybe a little saucer. It’s cozy and repetitive.
- Basic House Plants: A snake plant is basically just long, pointy tongues sticking out of a pot. A cactus is a green blob with dots. You can do this.
- Eyes (But Just One): Everyone goes through an "eye phase." It’s a rite of passage. Don't worry about making them symmetrical; just draw one.
The Science of Hand-Eye Coordination
When you are looking for pictures that you can draw, you are training your brain to translate 3D space onto a 2D surface. This involves the parietal lobe of your brain. Every time you successfully draw a cube or a sphere, you're strengthening those neural pathways.
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Betty Edwards, in her seminal book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, argues that drawing is a "global skill" like reading or driving. Once you learn the component parts—perceiving edges, spaces, relationships, and light—you can draw anything. But you have to start with the edges. You have to start with the simple stuff.
Why You Should Use a Pen, Not a Pencil
This sounds counterintuitive. Pencils have erasers. Erasers are safe. But erasers are also a trap. They encourage you to obsess over every single stroke. When you use a pen to create pictures that you can draw, you're forced to live with your "mistakes." You learn to incorporate them. You realize that a wobbly line isn't the end of the world. It actually adds character. It makes the art look like it was made by a human, not a printer.
Actionable Steps to Start Drawing Today
Don't wait for "the right mood." The mood is a lie.
- Set a timer for 5 minutes. Tell yourself you'll stop when it beeps. Usually, once you start, you'll want to keep going.
- Limit your tools. Pick one pen and one notebook. Don't worry about fancy markers or expensive paper yet.
- Find a "Low-Stakes" Subject. Pick something from the list above—a cloud, a leaf, a mug.
- Focus on the Outline. Forget about shadows for now. Just try to capture the basic shape of the object.
- Do it again tomorrow. Consistency beats talent every single time.
The goal isn't to create a museum-grade masterpiece on your first try. The goal is to get your hand moving and your eyes looking at the world a little more closely. Whether it’s a simple doodle on a sticky note or a dedicated page in a sketchbook, these pictures that you can draw are the building blocks of a much larger creative journey. Start small, stay messy, and just keep the pen moving.