You’re staring at a blank white screen or a fresh sheet of paper. It’s intimidating. Most people think they need to start with a hyper-realistic portrait of their grandmother or a complex cityscape to "really" be an artist. That’s a lie. Honestly, it’s the fastest way to burn out and throw your pencil across the room in frustration.
Learning to draw is about muscle memory and spatial awareness. You don’t get that by failing at a complex dragon for six hours. You get it by mastering things easy to draw—those simple, everyday shapes that build the foundation of everything else. Think of it like weightlifting. You don’t walk into the gym and try to bench press 400 pounds on day one. You start with the bar. In art, the "bar" is a coffee mug or a cartoon cloud.
The Psychology of Simple Sketches
There is a real psychological barrier called "blank page syndrome." When the stakes are high, your brain freezes. By choosing objects that are objectively simple, you lower the stakes. You give yourself permission to be "bad" because, hey, it’s just a doodle of a banana, right?
But here’s the kicker: that banana is actually a lesson in foreshortening and organic curves.
Art educator Betty Edwards, author of the seminal book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, argues that drawing is less about hand-eye coordination and more about seeing. When you pick things easy to draw, you stop trying to draw the "idea" of the object and start drawing the actual lines you see. It’s a meditative process. It’s basically a cheat code for your brain.
Why Most People Overcomplicate Easy Sketches
We have this weird habit of making things harder than they need to be. Beginners often try to add shading, texture, and complex lighting to their first sketches. Stop doing that.
Focus on the silhouette. If you can’t get the outline of a simple pear right, a thousand hours of shading won’t save it. It’ll just be a very well-rendered, misshapen blob. Look at the work of minimalist artists or even high-end logo designers. They strip everything down to the most basic geometric forms. That’s where the power lies.
Nature is Your Best Friend (And It’s Forgiving)
Nature is messy. This is great news for you. If you draw a building and your line is slightly tilted, the whole thing looks like it’s collapsing. If you draw a leaf and the line is a bit wonky? It just looks like a different kind of leaf.
Leaves and Trees
Start with a basic teardrop shape. Add a line down the middle. Now, add some veins. You’ve just drawn a leaf. It took ten seconds. Now try a pine tree. It’s literally just a series of overlapping triangles. Professional illustrators often use these "shorthand" versions of nature when storyboarding or conceptualizing because they communicate the idea instantly without the fuss.
Clouds and Weather
Clouds are basically just clumps of circles. Don't worry about making them perfect. Real clouds aren't perfect. Use light, loopy motions. If you’re feeling fancy, add a few straight lines underneath to represent rain. It's a classic iconographic style that looks clean and intentional.
Household Objects That Are Secretly Masterclasses
Your house is full of things easy to draw that will teach you more than a month of art school theory. Take a look at your desk right now.
A coffee mug is a cylinder. That’s it. It’s two ovals connected by two straight lines with a "C" shaped handle. If you can draw a coffee mug from five different angles, you’ve mastered the fundamentals of perspective. Most people struggle with the "ellipse"—that flattened circle at the top. Practice that. It’s harder than it looks but once it clicks, you can draw almost anything.
Think about a lightbulb. It's a circle on top of a square. A book? That's just a rectangular prism.
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The Power of Food Illustration
Food is a massive trend in the art world, especially in the "cozy art" community on platforms like Pinterest and Instagram. Why? Because food is recognizable and usually made of very basic shapes.
- Slices of Pizza: A triangle with a slightly curved top. Add some circles for pepperoni. You’re done.
- Sushi Rolls: Small cylinders with a circle inside. It’s a great exercise in drawing small, controlled shapes.
- Watermelon: A big semi-circle. It’s iconic, colorful, and impossible to mess up.
There's a reason why artists like Wayne Thiebaud became famous for painting cakes and pies. There is a geometric honesty to food that makes it incredibly satisfying to render.
Why You Should Stop Using an Eraser
This sounds counterintuitive, especially when looking for things easy to draw. You want it to look good, right?
Actually, using a pen instead of a pencil forces you to be deliberate. When you can't erase, you start looking more closely before you put the nib to the paper. You accept the "mistakes" and often find that those stray lines add character. This is a technique used in "Urban Sketching," where artists capture scenes in real-time. They don't have time for perfection, and the results are often more vibrant and "human" than polished studio work.
Animals Don't Have to be Scary
Drawing a realistic horse is a nightmare. Even professional artists struggle with horse anatomy. But drawing a cat sitting from behind? That’s just a large oval (the body) and a small circle (the head) with two triangles for ears.
The "Blob" Method
Try drawing a random, curvy blob first. Then, look at it. Does it look like a bird? Add a beak and a dot for an eye. Does it look like a pig? Add a snout. This is a common exercise used in character design to generate new ideas. It removes the "fear of the first line" because the first line is just a mess anyway.
Insects and Creepy Crawlies
Ladybugs are just half-circles. Spiders are a circle with eight bent lines. These are great for filling up the edges of a sketchbook page. They don't require much thought, which makes them perfect for doodling while you're on a boring Zoom call or waiting for the bus.
Developing Your Own Style Through Simplicity
The most famous "easy" drawings in history aren't just easy—they're iconic. Think about the "Snoopy" character by Charles Schulz. Schulz didn't use complex anatomy. He used simple, clean lines. Yet, Snoopy is one of the most recognizable characters in human history.
When you focus on simple things, your personal "line weight" and "style" start to emerge. Do you prefer sharp, jagged lines? Or are your drawings soft and rounded? You won't find this out by tracing complex photos. You find it out by drawing a thousand simple stars, hearts, and stick figures.
The "Icon" Approach
Try to draw things as if they were icons on a phone. How would you draw a "house" so that anyone in the world would recognize it? Usually, it's a square with a triangle on top. This is called "visual shorthand."
Mastering visual shorthand is the secret weapon of graphic novelists and storyboard artists. They need to convey information quickly. If you can draw a "simple" car that looks like a car, you’re ahead of 90% of people who get bogged down in the details of the hubcaps and the reflection in the windshield.
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Practical Steps to Start Today
Don't go buy an expensive $50 sketchbook. You won't use it because you'll be afraid to "ruin" it. Buy a cheap ream of printer paper or a basic $5 notebook.
The 5-Minute Daily Habit
Set a timer for five minutes every morning. Pick one object on your desk. Draw it three times. The first time, take the full five minutes. The second time, do it in one minute. The third time, do it in ten seconds. This exercise teaches you what details are actually necessary to make the object recognizable.
Focus on "The Gap"
The American public radio personality Ira Glass often talked about "The Gap." This is the space between your taste (which is good) and your skills (which are currently developing). You know what a good drawing looks like, and you know yours isn't there yet. The only way to bridge that gap is through volume.
Draw the easy stuff. Draw it a lot.
- Switch your medium: If you usually use a pencil, try a thick Sharpie. It forces you to simplify even further.
- Change your scale: Try drawing a tiny bicycle the size of a coin, then try drawing one that fills the whole page.
- Use references, but don't copy: Look at a real apple, but don't try to make a photo-realistic copy. Try to capture its "appleness" in five lines or less.
Drawing isn't a gift you're born with; it's a mechanical skill you develop. By sticking to simple subjects, you remove the frustration and keep the fun. And honestly, if art isn't fun, what's the point?
Your Next Move
Grab a ballpoint pen and the nearest piece of junk mail. Look at your own hand. Don't try to draw the fingernails or the wrinkles. Just draw the basic shape of your palm and the fingers as simple blocks. Do it right now. It won't be perfect, but it's a start. Tomorrow, try a salt shaker. The day after, a pair of scissors. Keep the subjects simple, keep your sessions short, and watch how quickly your "muscle memory" begins to take over. Over time, those easy shapes will naturally evolve into the complex art you once thought was impossible.