If you aren’t sure what you want to do when you come to Dabble, pick from one of these exercises (demonstrated on the Dabble YouTube channel).
- Exercise 1: Draw a Pair of Scissors Draw a pair of scissors from memory. Then draw a pair of scissors from life. Then draw a pair again from memory.
- Exercise 13: Ruler Drawing Draw a still life using a ruler for every line you make.
- Exercise 14: Draw by Erasing Create a tone acrosss your paper and draw with your eraser.
- Exercise 16: Overhand Drawing Try drawing your subject with an overhand grip instead of holding your pencil like you write with a pen.
- Exercise 17: Stick Drawing Find a stick, dip it in ink and draw with it.
- Exercise 18: Ink Transfer Drawing Cover the back of a drawing with printing ink or oil paint, then place it over a new surface, trace it and see the effect on the new surface.
- Exercise 19: Pet Portrait Make a portrait of your pet as a human.
- Exercise 20: Negative Space Draw or paint your subject by focusing on the negative spaces (the air around to openings inside your subject).
- Exercise 21: Arbitrary Color Still Life Paint a still life using correct values but arbitrary colors.
- Exercise 22: Five Angles Draw the same subject from five different angles.
- Exercise 23: Scribble Drawing Build a drawing by scribbling tones rather than making contour lines.
- Exercise 24: Value Scale by Mixing Create a value scale by mixing white and another color and painting opaquely.
- Exercise 25: Value Scale by Dilution Create a value scale by using one color transparently. Continue diluting it with its medium (e.g. water or solvent) to create lighter tones.
- Exercise 26: Pointillism Create a still life with only dots. Que Seurat Seurat!
- Exercise 27: Stamp Drawing Create a drawing by using a stamp to create values and forms.
- Exercise 28: Scratch Foam Draw on scratch foam (don’t forget your drawing will be reversed) and make a print.
- Exercise 29: Grid Transfer Copy a sketch or photograph. Draw a grid of squares on top of it. Draw a grid with the same number of squares on a larger surface. Copy your drawing in each corresponding square on the new surface.
- Exercise 30: Brush Loading Experiment with how you load paint in your brush.
- Exercise 31: Draw from the Inside Out Draw the interior details/features of your subject and work your way out to the edges.
- Exercise 32: Draw from the Outside In Draw the outside shape of your subject and then fill in the interior features/details.
- Exercise 33: Smiley Faces Anyone can draw a smiley face and there is infinite variety to the kinds of smiley faces you can draw.
- Exercise 34: Make a Mascot Create a mascot for an imaginary cereal or one that doesn’t have a mascot yet.
- Exercise 35: Same Subject Sketchbook Draw the same subject on every page of a sketchbook (e.g. a daily self-portrait or the view out the window at different times of day ro in different weather conditions etc.).
- Exercise 36: Mood Mixer Paint the color you feel today.
- Exercise 37: Hard and Soft Shadows Draw or paint only the shadows of your subject. Decide if each shadow edge is a soft edge or a hard edge.
- Exercise 38: I Can Only Draw Stick Figures That’s a lot!
- Exercise 47: Cross Hatch Draw a value scale or still life using parallel lines to create shading.
- Exercise 71: Draw a Movie Reverse engineer a favorite movie by pausing and sketching key frames to recreate it’s storyboard.
- Exercise 15:Arm’s Length Drawing Draw by holding your pencil or brush at the back end and keeping your arm extended. Does it improve your proportions?
- Exercise 39: Hard and Soft Contour Lines Make a contour drawing varying the softness of the lines of your subject.
- Exercise 40: Five Values Pre-mix five values of a color from light to dark. Then paint a still life using only those colors.
- Exercise 42: Art of Arranging Arrange the objects in this box by value, color and size.
- Exercise 45: Thin Over Thick Paint a still life in thick white highlights. Once it’s dry, paint color over it in loose wet washes.