You sit down to draw or doodle. A blank sheet of paper stares back up at you. Your pencil feels heavy. You start sweating and your vision gets all wiggly. You don't know what to draw.
Don't panic.
It happens to everyone! Sometimes you need a little something to get your creative juices flowing. I keep a list of STUFF YOU SHOULD DRAW. I constantly add to the list. When I sit down to doodle, I often pick something from the list at random. Some of the things on the list are fun, some are boring, some are easy, some are challenging. Some of these things you've probably drawn hundreds of times already. And that's okay! The purpose of the list is just to get your pencil moving.
The list can also be used as a way to challenge yourself, to improve your drawing chops. Find something that you're afraid to draw or that you've never tried to draw before and draw it. Find something you think would be really boring to draw (a ceiling fan? a chain link fence?) and find a way to make it interesting and fun. Find something you've drawn a million times and force yourself to draw it differently in some way. Or take a bunch of things from the list and combine them in one drawing.
PHIL McANDREW'S BIG LIST OF STUFF TO DRAW
1. books (and people reading them)
2. trophies (champion of _______!)
3. statues (who deserves to to be immortalized as a statue?)
4. dogs
5. naked people
6. all of houses you've lived in
7. sad people
8. bicycles
9. your neighbors
10. mounted animal heads
11. a map of the world (try it from memory!)
12. bugs
13. people covered with tattoos
14. fancy jewelry
15. super wrinkly old people
16. cats
17. big spooky old houses
18. Guy Fieri eating things he isn't supposed to eat (rocks, his sunglasses, toothpaste, etc)
19. pizza (with unusual toppings?)
20. people at the beach
21. trees
22. tree forts
23. forest people
24. newspapers (and people reading them)
25. monsters
26. people on skateboards (and falling off of them)
27. people playing drums
28. slugs
29. sandwiches
30. skulls
31. bottles (full of beverages or potions or poison or water)
32. fancy cakes
33. tombstones or coffins
34. cool shoes
35. a map of your city or town
36. computers (or devices with lots of buttons and wires)
37. different kinds of chimneys (and people climbing out of them)
38. crying children (why are they crying?)
39. motorcycles
40. witches
41. animals with antlers
42. people playing poker (what does a good poker face look like? what does a desperate gambler look like?)
43. every teacher you've ever had (from memory)
44. snakes (did they eat something interesting recently?)
45. chairs and tables
46. cacti
47. hotdogs
48. different kinds of hats
49. people falling out of boats
50. ghosts
51. swords
52. people in the middle of dental procedures
53. horses
54. people singing badly
55. wizards
56. umbrellas
57. fictional sons of Mitt Romney (Chad Romney, Wipp Romney, Burp Romney, etc)
58. coins
59. stupid hair styles
60. self portraits (what will you look at the age of 100?)
61. vegetables
62. flags for fictional countries
63. birds doing stuff that birds aren't supposed to do
64. pencils
65. sweaty, out of breath joggers
66. your worst fears
67. people lifting weights
68. sea shells
69. house plants
70. people playing basketball
71. turkeys
72. tentacles coming out of containers, bags, windows, etc
73. airplanes
74. fancy crowns
75. fictional members of your family
76. dinosaurs
77. people "doing science" (test tubes! strange chemicals! microscopes!)
78. musical instruments
79. castles
80. teenagers
81. snooty butlers carrying things on trays (telephones, food, unopened envelopes, small people)
82. animals wearing glasses
83. a volcanic island
84. people with ice cream cones
85. candles
86. people standing behind one of those cartoony x-ray screens
87. things that live in caves and holes
88. cardboard boxes
89. your worst enemy
90. a painter standing at an easel, painting something from life (nude model? landscape?)
91. babies holding guns
92. suits of armor
93. fictional candy bars
94. spaceships
95. labels for fictional beers
96. astronauts
97. ears
98. people with tons of facial piercings
99. the moon
100. forks and knives and spoons
101. people with briefcases hoping no one knows what's inside the briefcase
102. the aftermath of a car accident
103. a snowman
104. playing cards
105. an idiot playing piano
106. aliens
107. microscopic organisms
108. people skiing
109. snails
110. demons
111. a fictional game show host
112. sushi
113. sewer people
114. government spy drones
115. a sentient brick wall
116. coffee mugs
117. a bow and arrow shoot-out
118. a ferris wheel
119. a fish tank
120. booby traps
121. swamp creatures
122. Jay Leno weeping quietly while looking at his reflection in a mirror
123. people slipping on banana peels
124. balloons
125. people with crutches or limbs in casts
126. boogers
127. pole-vaulters
128. people stranded on desert islands
129. a dog in handcuffs, surrounded by police
130. turtles
131. mountains
132. things popping out of toasters (bread, pizza, books, etc)
133. skeletons
134. flowers
135. people trapped in the belly of a whale
136. Frankenstein's monster
137. a terrarium
138. people smooching
139. people knitting scarves
140. grumpy bartenders
141. tents in the woods
142. arctic explorers
143. bridges
144. a television set (what's on tv?)
145. people working in gardens
146. people stepping on bee hives
147. a toothbrush
148. PEZ dispensers
149. tourists
150. your childhood bedroom
151. people digging holes
152. a stamp collector and their stamps
153. a person being eaten alive by feral dogs
154. people wrapped in blankets
155. bookshelves
156. whatever you had for breakfast
157. comfy armchairs
158. abandoned buildings
159. icebergs
160. discarded underwear
161. carnivorous furniture
162. ducks
163. hermits and their hermit houses
164. hamburgers
165. lizard men
166. campfires
167. people smoking pipes
168. cliffs by the ocean
169. people waiting in line to use the bathroom
170. animals in hiding after escaping from a zoo
171. dogs trying to reach food on tables
172. garbage cans
173. slime creatures
174. crabs
175. fictional members of the Wu-Tang Clan
176. different types of helmets
177. logs
178. ceiling fans
179. Rush Limbaugh's stupid face
180. palm trees
181. proud looking guys with flannel shirts and tool belts and hard hats and no pants
182. dentures
183. skeleton keys
184. binoculars
185. giant objects crashing into earth (giant baby, giant motorcycle, giant anvil, etc)
186. exercise machines that could be mistaken for torture devices
187. things hatching out of eggs (birds, lizards, guys in business suits, etc)
188. animal skin rugs
189. people blindly trying to find their missing glasses
190. hockey players
191. people flying around with jetpacks
192. squirrels trying to drag things up into trees (an entire pizza, a piano, an old man, etc)
193. proud idiot gun owners posing with guns
194. vehicles that are shaped like food (hotdog car, banana car, pretzel car, etc)
195. clocks
196. chain link fences
197. donuts
198. people wearing ridiculous puffy shirts
199. dartboard with darts in it (or around it)
200. people being thrown or falling through glass windows
August 2014 - I'VE ADDED ANOTHER 200 THINGS BECAUSE I LOVE YOU
201. members of fictional boy bands
202. puddles
203. people who are melting for some reason
204. famous people's butts
205. dirt
206. plumbers tinkering with complicated pipe systems
207. smelly cheeses
208. cyclops
209. spooky caves
210. pieces in a chess set
211. weird looking babies
212. people trying to hold in farts while on dates
213. fashionable dog collars
214. moss
215. ruins of castles, ancient temples, etc
216. unusual body piercings
217. cereal boxes
218. unfortunate tattoos
219. stand-up comedians
220. robots
221. people frozen in of giant hunks of ice
222. fossils
223. bones
224. people modeling really complicated outfits
225. old people trying to make sense of technology that they don't understand
226. Harrison Ford
227. zombies
228. things on shelves (bottles, tools, etc)
229. piñatas
230. morons yelling at each other on fox news
231. the biggest ice cream sundae ever
232. a person kissing a framed photograph of Carl Sagan
233. really big telescopes
234. someone who hasn't yet realized thier clothing is on fire
235. people painting graffiti
236. cowboys
237. surfers
238. people wearing ugly wigs
239. trains
240. cookies
241. pyramids
242. people puking
243. sharks
244. too many people in one hot tub
245. bombs
246. teeth
247. Guy Fieri lost in the wilderness
248. people climbing ladders
249. sumo wrestlers
250. the people who write all those awful comments on youtube
251. cave people
252. a chef preparing a big meal
253. cannibals
254. shields (with cool designs, symbols, etc)
255. birds flying around, carrying things in their talons (small animals, children, a gun, etc)
256. politicians sitting in jail cells
257. doctors trying to remove something from a terrified person's nose, nurses holding the person down
258. a person with live snakes in their pockets
259. people standing on logs, floating across bodies of water
260. people with really complicated braces on their teeth
261. a tornado
262. dumptrucks
263. farmers planting things, harvesting crops
264. a blender (draw it before, during and after blending stuff!)
265. aliens hiding in craters
266. talk show hosts interviewing inanimate objects
267. a high speed car chase (or horse chase, rollerblade chase, helicopter chase, etc)
268. bank robbers
269. crystals
270. noodles
271. rollercoasters
272. pretzels
273. buildings in your neighborhood (from memory or from life!)
274. a person sitting at a desk, shouting into a phone (what are they shouting about?)
275. swordfish
276. bears
277. hideous sweaters
278. sunken ships at the bottom of the sea
279. spiders
280. unflattering portraits of bigots
281. the toothfairy
282. alligators
283. people posing with fish they caught
284. firefighters rescuing people from burning buildings
285. broken mirrors
286. Puff Daddy admiring a photograph of himself
287. werewolves
288. race car drivers
289. people playing twister
290. wet dogs
291. lightning
292. clouds
293. bats (the animal)
294. scuba divers
295. rocks
296. tree stumps
297. toilets
298. rats
299. rain
300. vacuum cleaners
301. godzilla
302. vampires
303. animals wearing really expensive people clothes
304. gondoliers
305. playground stuff (slides, swings, monkeybars, etc)
306. people falling off of trampolines
307. shopping carts (full of groceries?)
308. cars
309. the president shaking hands with an alien
310. people racing bobsleds
311. clowns
312. dog owners picking up dog poop
313. people eating mud
314. video game controllers
315. pinball machines
316. a bucket full of worms
317. people playing ping-pong
318. people wearing clothes that are either way too big or way too small
319. frightened naked people being chased by animals
320. people dancing
321. giant floating eyeballs with telepathic powers
322. a parade
323. a shady looking man trying to sell lizards out of a suitcase
324. mushrooms
325. people using jumpropes
326. mount rushmore (add new faces!)
327. boats
328. a blacksmith (what are they working on?)
329. a photographer taking pictures (what are they photographing? animals? supermodels? food?)
330. people sleeping in hammocks
331. people falling out of hammocks
332. people playing with hula hoops
333. the statue of liberty
334. a bunch of police cars crashing into each other
335. a funeral
336. people setting off or watching fireworks
337. mermaids
338. snow monsters
339. camels
340. UFOs abducting things (people, cows, trees, cars, etc)
341. a person trying to chop down a tree
342. feet
343. tacos
344. dogs peeing on things they're not supposed to pee on
345. people hiding in trees or bushes
346. a gang of women throwing a scantily clad man into a volcano
347. people in a bowling alley
348. skunks
349. the night sky
350. people taking showers
351. police officers beating up innocent people while bank robbers escape
352. boxers knocking each other out
353. people in sleeping bags
354. feathers
355. mad scientists
356. a map of your home (can you do it from memory?)
357. a black hole (are spaceships being sucked into it?)
358. album covers for fictional bands
359. people hiding in dumpsters
360. boobs
361. weeners
362. spooky shadow figures
363. futuristic versions of mundane things (coffee mug, chair, toothbrush, etc)
364. handcuffs
365. the sun
366. maps of fictional states (South Kansas, West Vermont, Texas, etc)
367. people exploring dark places with flashlights
368. beetles
369. ninjas
370. people in bathtubs
371. giraffes
372. bigfoot
373. greek gods
374. people playing soccer
375. opera singers
376. footsteps in snow
377. waterfalls
378. your hands
379. people eating in a fancy restaurant
380. scissors
381. things being launched with catapults (rocks, cows, Rush Limbaugh, etc)
382. evil cult members performing secret dark rituals
383. a bull totally wrecking a matador
384. people playing golf (what sort of stupid outfits are they wearing?)
385. jazz musicians
386. people wearing capes
387. elves
388. cabins in the woods (or on mountains or near lakes or on the moon)
389. people who have lots of secrets
390. blanket forts
391. whales
392. fog
393. people singing karaoke
394. people being injected with syringes
395. your desk and everything on it
396. people getting smooshed by giant fingers
397. grasshoppers
398. people doing yoga (make up ridiculous new poses!)
399. ballerinas
400. rhinos
March 2020 - I'VE ADDED ANOTHER 200 THINGS BECAUSE WE'RE ALL CURRENTLY STUCK INSIDE INDEFINITELY DUE TO A VERY SCARY VIRUS OUTBREAK
401. seltzer flavors that don't exist
402. unusual shops
403. the future
404. grass
405. smartphones
406. rotary phones
407. your own butt
408. the loch ness monster
409. chocolate bars
410. tea kettles
411. frogs
412. bottles of wine (what do the labels look like?)
413. zambonis
414. dangerous toys
415. romance novels
416. nuclear explosions
417. mutants
418. ice sculptures
419. Donald Trump getting kicked in the mouth
420. dodo birds
421. babies with adult-sized hands
422. things that have been lost while swimming
423. a fictional poster for The Scorpion King 6
424. ferns
425. a paleontologist in the future digging up a fossil from 2020
426. goblins
427. toes
428. a time machine
429. walkie-talkies
430. carnivorous plants
431. your best guess at what the land you live on looked like 100,000 years ago
432. a brain in a jar
433. clothing for worms
434. planets
435. cats doing people jobs
436. very fancy goblets
437. slime
438. scorpions
439. woolly mammoths
440. spatulas
441. a billionaire being physically ripped apart by a mob of people
442. your mail carrier
443. a map showing how you would escape the country if you had to do so on very short notice
444. Brendan Fraser
445. laser tag
446. people in full body casts
447. cornfields
448. mummies
449. the moon landing
450. aardvarks
451. elephants
452. a very complicated elevated highway system
453. unfortunate facial hair
454. chickens
455. a blizzard
456. very unusual roadkill
457. lava
458. people playing pool/billiards
459. hackers
460. a marching band
461. a giant meteorite crashing into the white house
462. vines
463. people on rollerskates
464. noses
465. bikinis (and people wearing them)
466. tigers
467. birds stealing hats from people
468. very ugly shoes
469. haunted buildings
470. torture devices (stocks, iron maiden, Dave Matthews Band albums, etc)
471. jinns and genies
472. a bottomless pit
473. a portal to another dimension (is something coming through it?)
474. people stepping on bear traps
475. a person using paper towels to solve a problem that can't be solved with paper towels
476. detectives doing detective things
477. a sword fight!
478. pickles
479. alarm clocks going off
480. a person popping out of a cake
481. a sculptor sculpting something with clay (nude figure, dinosaur, their own face, etc)
482. the first robot president
483. the apocalypse (what caused it?)
484. sentient underwear
485. a traffic jam
486. bananas
487. a person using a fire extinguisher for something other than extinguishing a fire
488. stupid magazine covers
489. dogs committing crimes
490. lobsters
491. A member of the Trump family trying to figure out how to use a can opener
492. muffins
493. people brushing their teeth incorrectly
494. arcade games
495. people jousting on bicycles
496. people using metal detectors
497. an unfortunate incident involving soup
498. a person laying enticingly on a bed of rose petals
499. a person having a nightmare
500. poop
501. people walking on tightropes
502. cursed objects (a cursed sword, a cursed ring, a cursed salad fork, etc)
503. mothman
504. record players
505. a picnic (where is the picnic taking place?)
506. tiny seedlings sprouting up from the dirt
507. dolphins
508. people attempting to take selfies
509. very long beards
510. flying cars
511. kangaroos
512. the biggest squirt gun in the world
513. a pack of feral dogs ripping the clothes off Jeff Bezos
514. librarians doing library things
515. New York City
516. too many pancakes
517. snakes coming up through sewer pipes and out of a toilet
518. people wearing masks
519. a geyser erupting
520. mosquitos
521. lighthouses
522. gorillas
523. a food fight
524. squid
525. pinecones
526. helicopters
527. artichokes
528. a gang of psychic teenagers
529. blood
530. people rioting in the streets (what are they rioting over?)
531. an overflowing toilet
532. fingers pushing buttons
533. people looking at things with magnifying glasses (what are they looking at?)
534. a person getting hit in the face with a pie
535. typewriters
536. a person with something stuck in their butt being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance (what's stuck in their butt?)
537. a hedge maze (are there people lost inside?)
538. a space station
539. crowns (like a king/queen would wear)
540. minotaurs
541. a framed photo of someone's butt
542. people tossing pizza dough up in the air
543. chupacabra
544. mannequins
545. people playing dungeons & dragons
546. a rainbow
547. a person lost in the desert
548. raccoons
549. puppets
550. mascots for fictional sports teams
551. clams
552. satellites
553. bees buzzing around in a garden
554. people LARPing
555. a bakery
556. a crystal ball (what is it showing us?)
557. a magician sawing a person in half
558. a person taking a bite out of a whole, uncooked fish
559. garden gnomes
560. pog champions and their winning slammers
561. groundhogs popping in and out of holes
562. secret passages
563. megatherium
564. nunchaku
565. trumpets
566. a ouija board
567. a wine cellar
568. tiny people riding around on bugs
569. a dj spinning/scratching records
570. butterflies
571. penguins
572. spores
573. a building or landscape through all four seasons
574. what happens when you run with scissors
575. a war fought entirely with slingshots
576. people with their heads stuck in things (buckets, bicycle wheels, their own butt, etc)
577. grapes
578. a person's face, mid-sneeze
579. people wearing trench coats (are they hiding something under the coat?)
580. people ice skating
581. moose
582. cartoonists at work
583. members of congress being loaded into a garbage truck
584. a bulldozer (what's it bulldozing?)
585. a farmer's market
586. people falling down stairs
587. unusual sports injuries (swallowed a basketball, hockey stick up the butt, etc)
588. people who have had all of their bones removed but are still alive for some reason
589. sardines in a can
590. people ringing bells
591. trolls hiding under bridges
592. people pushing lawn mowers around
593. toads
594. people emerging from or falling into open manholes
595. birds pooping on sunbathers
596. time travelers
597. Gwyneth Paltrow in the hospital after putting a crystal up her own butt
598. breakdancers
599. a parade of people playing tubas
600. an animatronic band
