How to draw when you don't feel like drawing
You can't skip dinner.
You want to draw.
Just not right now!
Skip it. Do it later.
But there’s one creative act that you can’t skip: making dinner.
Everyone needs to be fed every day, multiple times! Preparing dinner is a unique chore because it’s different every time. Laundry, mopping the floor, and making the beds are always the same. Other meals like breakfast and lunch are often similar, but at dinner, we crave variety, at least in our house.
Sometimes, it’s a joy—I love to cook, but I don’t always feel like doing it.
But “no” is not an option.
So when I don’t want to cook dinner, I have a few fallbacks. They also help me draw.
Takeaways
Outsourcing the cooking costs more and still requires some creative decision-making—pre-packaged foods are in a similar category (as a dad, I love oven fries). But you’ve gotta eat, so these options are totally valid.
YouTube is to drawing as Uber Eats is to dinner. Outsource the decision-making to someone else and follow along with a tutorial or a workshop. I have a bunch of video workshops in my Sketchbook Club recordings. One of my favourites was this session on drawing cars 🚗
But beware: don’t spend too much time choosing and not enough time drawing.
The freezer
“Thank you, past Andrew,” I said today as I dug a rock-solid soup from the freezer. I know that there are often “past Andrew” meals in the freezer, and I am always grateful to my past self for making a double batch of curry.
Just like getting a lasagna out of the freezer and putting it in the oven, it’s delicious without too much effort. Redraw something from an old sketchbook. You might be surprised how much your approach has changed.
Easy recipes
We always have a few ingredients on hand, so I can rely on quick and easy recipes like omelettes, tuna pasta, and our favourite tomato and coconut cream lentil soup. The right recipes make lazy dinners a breeze.
The drawing equivalent of a recipe is a tried-and-true format. My favourite is the “one-two punch” —two similar objects on facing pages of a spread.
Another format example is what I do at the start of every sketchbook.
There’s a bunch more of these formats in my zine, Fill your sketchbook, and there’s even a digital version.
Make creating compulsory
You can’t get out of creating a dinner, but drawing and other creative acts are easy to skip; You don’t have to draw, make pottery, or play the piano every day.
You can make it compulsory, though. That’s what I have done with this Substack. When I started Coffee in, Drawings out, I put myself on a schedule. I publish a new post every Thursday. I’m so glad I made that commitment. I know if I wait until I feel like it, I just won’t do it. Making it compulsory has got me through 40 posts so far.
I recently made daily drawing compulsory, too. I set out to draw a building every day for 100 days to count down to my trip to teach at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Poznan.
Yesterday I ticked off a milestone! I’m halfway through that project. I missed a couple of days when I had a cold and again when I injured my wrist(all recovered now!), but I made sure I caught up.
I don’t say this to toot my own horn, but to show you what’s possible when you make creative work compulsory. Keep showing up, and it all adds up. You end up digging a big hole.
Make drawing like dinner
You don’t have to say no to drawing, just make sure you have easy options for days when you don’t feel like it. Contingency plans make it possible, just like when you can’t be bothered cooking dinner.
Happy drawing,
Andrew
Sketchbook Club: Brown paper edition is this weekend.
Upgrade your subscription and come along on Sunday, 29 June, at 4pm New Zealand Time. Find it in your timezone here. All the details are in the post below👇
PS: The lentil soup is delicious. If enough of you ask, I’ll make an illustrated version of the recipe.
Yes please to soup recipe. And I will try the commitment strategy!
I love the idea of thanking past you (or me) for the work that has gone before. I’m definitely going to try it 🙂