What to draw when you're bored

Ideas  8 min read · updated September 2026

"What should I draw" is a trap question, because the answer you're looking for is usually "something that will definitely turn out good," and no list can promise that. So this list is sorted by something more useful: how much energy you actually have right now.

Scroll to the section that matches your mood, pick one, done. Or skip all of it and hit the random drawing generator, which will do the choosing for you in about half a second.

Barely functioning (2–5 minutes, zero skill needed)

1. Your hand, just the outline, then fill it with patterns.
2. Whatever mug or bottle is nearest to you.
3. A face made out of only triangles.
4. Five different eyes in a row, no faces attached.
5. The same cat drawn five times, getting worse each time on purpose.
6. Your own signature, but as a monster.
7. Clouds. Just cloud shapes. Surprisingly hard, surprisingly relaxing.
8. A tiny scene inside a bottle.
9. Doodle a border around the edge of the page and leave the middle empty.
10. Your phone charger, cable tangle included.

Normal tired (10–20 minutes)

1. An animal wearing your current outfit.
2. Your room, but one thing in it is wrong and nobody's noticed.
3. A character described only by what's in their pockets.
4. The last meal you ate, drawn as an ad poster.
5. A plant that's clearly unwell.
6. Two objects from your desk fused into one object.
7. A door, and whatever is behind it slightly visible.
8. Somebody asleep on public transport.
9. A shoe from three angles.
10. Your favourite song as a shape and colour, no words.
11. A bird that acts like a cat.
12. The view out of your window in three lines.

Actually up for it (30–60 minutes)

1. A market stall selling something that shouldn't be sold.
2. Your own character, full body, with a weapon made from kitchen stuff.
3. A room that tells you everything about the person who lives in it.
4. Two characters mid-argument, no speech bubbles allowed.
5. A vehicle built for one very specific job.
6. A creature that evolved to live in your bathroom.
7. A city street in the rain at night.
8. Someone's hands doing something skilful — tying a knot, rolling dough.
9. A god of something boring. God of lost socks. God of slow wifi.
10. The same character at three different ages.
11. A stage with the performance about to start, nobody on it yet.
12. A map of a place from a dream.

Want to get better, not just pass time

These ones are less fun and more useful. Practice, basically, but disguised.

1. Thirty one-minute gestures from anything moving — a show, a window, a video.
2. A single object under three different light directions.
3. Copy a photo, then draw it again from memory.
4. Boxes. Twenty of them, rotated, freehand. Painful, excellent for you.
5. The same face in five expressions, same angle.
6. A hand in five poses, holding nothing.
7. One drawing where you only use three values: white, mid grey, black.
8. A background with no characters in it at all.
9. Redraw your oldest drawing from a year ago.
10. Copy a master painting's composition as pure shapes.
11. Draw something reflective — a spoon, a phone screen.

Ideas that work when you're bored in public

Waiting rooms, bus rides, boring lectures, family events where you've run out of conversation:

• Shoe portraits. Draw the shoes of everyone nearby. Nobody notices you staring at feet.
• Hairstyle studies. The back of the head in front of you is free reference.
• Overheard sentence, drawn literally. Whatever weird thing you hear, illustrate it exactly.
• One-line contour. Draw a whole person without lifting the pen. It'll be awful, that's the point.
• Fill a margin. Vines, chains, city skylines, whatever grows sideways.

How to make a bored drawing feel worth keeping

Two small habits change how boredom drawings land. First, date the corner — a page of nothing special from March becomes weirdly nice to find in December. Second, add one deliberate choice to the doodle: pick one colour, or one rule, or one weird angle. It takes two seconds and turns a random scribble into something that looks like it meant to happen.

If you want the practice to add up instead of just filling time, the post on building a daily drawing habit covers how to chain these little sessions together without it becoming a chore.

Questions people ask

What should I draw if I'm bad at drawing?

Simple-shape objects you can see in front of you: mugs, fruit, shoes, boxes, your own hand. Observation is easier than imagination because the answer is right there. There's a full beginner path in the post on easy drawing ideas for beginners.

How do I stop drawing the same thing every time?

Force the subject to be random. Turn off your favourite category in the generator for a week and only draw from the ones you'd never pick. It feels bad for three days and then your range is noticeably wider.

Is doodling a waste of time?

Not really. Doodling keeps your hand loose and your relationship with drawing casual, which is what stops long breaks from happening. Just don't expect doodles alone to build skill — for that you need the boring practice section above.

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