5 Art Goals That Will Dramatically Improve Your Drawing Skills

Goals for Artists

Ah, it’s that time of year again. Time to reflect on all of our failures for the year. And all of the things we wanted to do, but never quite got around to doing. Let’s take a look at 5 art goals that will dramatically improve your drawing skills, so we can get this year started off right.

So let’s look at what these five art goals are, and then we’ll look at each one in more detail.

Draw daily
Improve creativity
Try a new medium
Draw something new and step outside of your comfort zone
Draw from life

And of course you can start these at any time throughout the year. These aren’t things that have to be reserved for the new year.

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Art Goals #1 – Draw Daily

Deciding, and committing to, drawing daily is a huge step in the right direction. There are so many benefits to doing this that it really can’t even be measured. Drawing daily should definitely be included in your art goals.

There are several ways to go about doing this. Today we are going to look at a couple of my favorites.

30 Day Drawing Challenge

The idea is to commit to drawing every day for 30 consecutive days. You could set a theme and stick with it for 30 days. Or you could draw something completely different for 30 days. You can learn more about this type of challenge at, 30 Day Drawing Challenge.

The point is to make a commitment to draw each day. Using a grid and filling in a square a day is a popular method for the 30 day challenge.

If you find it difficult to make a 30 day commitment, try breaking it into 7 day chunks. I personally prefer doing 7 day challenges over the 30 day challenge.

You can learn more about the 7 day drawing challenge in the next section.

Goals for Artists #2 – Improve Your Creativity

The best way to improve your creativity is through repetition. If you draw a subject one time, you’re not likely to be very creative when doing it.

But if you draw the same subject several times, you’ll start to feel yourself being more creative with each one. You’ll actually experience a noticeable shift in your thinking. If improving your creativity is one of your art goals then a daily art challenge is a great idea.

Daily Art Challenge

My favorite type of drawing challenge is definitely a daily art challenge. The way I do it is to pick a theme for all 7 drawings. And then I make 7 different artist trading cards following that theme.

You don’t have to do them on cards, but I love getting involved in trades so I prefer drawing on ATCs. Take a look at How to Make Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) to learn how to get starting making and trading your own.

When doing a 7 day drawing challenge, push yourself to come up with as many different ideas as you can.

Here is an example of a dragon eye drawing challenge that I did.

7-Day-Dragon-Eye-Drawing-Challenge-Finished

For additional ideas on starting a 7 day drawing challenge, you can take a look at 7 Art Themes to Spark Your Creativity.

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Art Goals #3 – Try a New Art Medium

Working with a new art medium has the potential to really help you grow. If you normally use a pencil to draw, try using a pen instead.

When we do the same things, the same way repeatedly, we tend to rely on muscle memory for much of the task. In many situations this is a desirable thing. But if you want to grow as an artist you need to get away from that sometimes.

Breaking away from a task that relies on muscle memory will force you to think differently from what you’re used to. Here are some product reviews to help you get started with a different media.

Art Goals #4 – Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

It’s always fun to try something new. But it can also be uncomfortable to step out of our comfort zone. That’s why setting this as one of your goals for the year can be an advantage.

You can try a new technique or style for your work. Maybe try doing some Zentangles if you’ve never done them before. Easy Zentangle Art has information on how to get started making these relaxing little patterns.

Maybe try your hand at neurographic art. This is an extremely new and interesting art form. An Introduction to Neurographic Art will help you get started with this type of art.

Introduction-To-Neurographic-Art-Butterfly

Or you could try a new subject matter that you’ve been avoiding, but have always wanted to get better at. Quick sketching is a great way to start working on improving those skills.

Goals for Artists #5 – Draw From Life

I have always heard that drawing from observation is by far the most beneficial type of drawing to do. But I’ll be the first to admit that I rarely make time to do this anymore.

There are a couple of ways to make this easier and a bit more manageable than just going out and drawing everything you see.

1 Minute Sketching

What is a 1 minute sketch and how do you go about doing it?

So let’s say you want to get better at drawing bodies. This is something I’ve never been good at, by the way.

Go somewhere that has a lot of people. Such as a mall or park.

Set a timer for 1 minute and start sketching. When the timer reaches zero, stop drawing.

It’s that simple.

If you’re drawing people, you’ll most likely just want to capture their pose during that one minute session as it’s not a lot of time to do much else.

But, this is plenty of time to get you to loosen up and relax a bit over drawing something outside of your comfort zone.

3 Minute Quick Sketch

From there you can move into the 3 minute sketch. Same exact concept, but with 2 extra minutes to draw.

If we look at the same scenario of drawing people, you would start out the same way as with the 1 minute sketch. But you would continue to work on your drawing and make it a bit more refined and detailed.

The idea behind the timed sketches is that it takes some of the pressure away. You’re not investing a lot of time into each drawing. And the expectation is lower because there just isn’t enough time to do a really nice drawing.

When drawing from life, you can draw anything. It doesn’t have to be just about drawing people.

Maybe try doing a Sketchcrawl.

If you want to get better at drawing, or anything for that matter, you need to do something different from what you’ve been doing. Practicing the same thing over and over does have its benefits. But if you really want to grow, you’ll need to be a little more adventurous and try something new. If one of your art goals is to improve your drawing skills, quick sketching is a great exercise.