• 150 page ideas

Sketchbook Ideas That Fill a Whole Page

Three page ideas per press: how many pages each fills, the minutes it takes and how to set the page up.

Sketchbook Ideas That Fill a Whole Page

All 150
  1. One colour in seven stripes from pale to full1 page, 15 minutes. Start with plenty of water or white and use less each time. Label the stripe you like best.
  2. Coffee-stain rings turned into drawings1 page, 15 minutes. Stamp rings with the base of a mug and let them dry. Pen makes them moons, snails, bike wheels.
  3. Blind contour portraits of everyone in the room1 page, 10 minutes. Eyes on the face, never the paper, one slow unbroken line each. They come out wrong and alive.

Next step Pen subjects, each with a mark to practiseCollage projects to glue into a spread

All 150 page ideas

First page and cover 25

  • Bookplate for the inside front cover Cover, 25 minutes. A border, the words From the sketchbooks of, and one animal that stands for you.
  • Contents page you fill in as you go 1 page, 5 minutes. Number the corner of every page now. Add a line here whenever a page is worth finding again.
  • Cover collage of stickers you drew yourself Cover, 40 minutes. Draw ten small stickers on label paper, cut them out and overlap them from one corner.
  • Cover pattern from one repeated shape Cover, 30 minutes. Paint pen on a plain cover. Pick one shape, such as a leaf, and turn it a little each time.
  • Dedication page to your future self 1 page, 10 minutes. One sentence in drawn lettering and a small portrait of you a year from now. Be kind and specific.
  • If found, return to: a drawn luggage label 1 page, 10 minutes. First name only and a reward of one biscuit. Nothing a stranger could use to find you.
  • Inside-cover chart of this book's six colours Cover, 20 minutes. Limit the book to six colours and swatch them here. Every page then looks as if it belongs.
  • Inside-cover pocket for loose scraps Cover, 15 minutes. Glue three edges of an envelope inside the back cover, and draw on it what it is for.
  • Last page first: a drawing to beat 1 page, 15 minutes. Draw a mug on the final page today. When the book is full, draw it again beside the first.
  • Map of everywhere this book travels 1 page, 20 minutes. Home goes in the middle. Add a dot and a date each time the book goes somewhere new.
  • Paper test: what bleeds through this page 1 page, 10 minutes. Marker, ink, wash and pencil in four boxes. Turn over and note which came through.
  • Ruin the first page on purpose 1 page, 5 minutes. Scribble, smudge, date it. The page you were afraid of is gone and the book is open.
  • Ruler drawn down the edge of page one 1 page, 10 minutes. Mark centimetres down the outer edge against a real ruler. Now you always carry one.
  • Self-portrait as you are today, dated 1 page, 20 minutes. Mirror, not phone. Draw another on the last page of the book and compare the two.
  • Spine label with a volume number and start date Cover, 5 minutes. A strip of masking tape down the spine, lettered in pen. A shelf of books becomes findable.
  • Swatch border round an empty first page 1 page, 15 minutes. Paint a border of small colour squares and leave the middle bare until you feel ready.
  • The three rules of this book, hand-lettered 1 page, 10 minutes. In your best lettering: no tearing out, date everything, bad pages stay.
  • Thumbnail plan of the pages you want to make 1 page, 15 minutes. Twelve boxes 4 cm wide with a scribble of an idea in each. Cross them off as the book fills.
  • Title page with your name in block letters 1 page, 25 minutes. Pencil letters 4 cm tall, fill each with a different pattern, and ink the outlines last.
  • Tool roll call: every pen you own, labelled 1 page, 20 minutes. One line and one scribble from each tool, its name beside it. You will check this page for years.
  • Twenty ways to sign a drawing 1 page, 10 minutes. Initials, a monogram in a box, a tiny symbol. Circle the one that is quick and small.
  • View from where you are sitting, inside a drawn box 1 page, 20 minutes. Rule a box 10 by 14 cm first. A box is less frightening than a whole white page.
  • Warm-up page of circles, ellipses and straight lines 1 page, 5 minutes. Loops and lines ruled by eye, drawn from the shoulder. Nothing here has to look like anything.
  • What is in my bag today 1 page, 25 minutes. Tip it out and draw each thing life size where it lands on the page. Label the odd ones.
  • Your free hand holding the book open 1 page, 15 minutes. The one model that never leaves. Draw the line of knuckles first and hang the fingers from it.

Fill a page 41

  • A chair drawn with your other hand 1 page, 10 minutes. Use the hand you never write with. The wobbly line is often the better one.
  • A page of only feet, drawn from your own 1 page, 30 minutes. Sit on the floor with one leg out. Block in the big wedge first and add the toes last, as one shape.
  • A page of only hands 1 page, 30 minutes. Your free hand in eight poses: fist, point, pinch, holding a cup. Overlap them so no gap is left.
  • A shelf of twenty mugs, no two alike 1 page, 25 minutes. Rule four shelves. Change the handle, the height and the pattern every time.
  • Bicycle from memory, then from life 1 page, 20 minutes. Draw one without looking anything up. Then find a real one, draw it underneath, compare frames.
  • Blind contour portraits of everyone in the room 1 page, 10 minutes. Eyes on the face, never the paper, one slow unbroken line each. They come out wrong and alive.
  • Clouds from one afternoon, each with its time 1 page, 20 minutes. Shade the sky and leave the cloud as paper. Work fast: the shape will not wait.
  • Complementary pairs: three tiny still lifes 1 page, 30 minutes. Red with green, yellow with purple, blue with orange. An apple on a green cloth does the first.
  • Crowd of fifty people, each 2 cm tall 1 page, 20 minutes. A bean for the body, a dot for the head, two sticks for legs. Fifty of them make a street.
  • Crumpled paper ball under a lamp 1 page, 30 minutes. All planes, no outline. Squint, map the three darkest shapes first, then the mid greys.
  • Cutlery drawer seen from above 1 page, 25 minutes. Draw the tray's compartments first, then fill them. Spoons nest, forks tangle, one thing is lost.
  • Draw your breakfast before you eat it 1 page, 10 minutes. A time limit you will keep, because it goes cold. Note the date and how it tasted.
  • Draw your desk exactly as it is 2 pages, 40 minutes. No tidying first. Start with the biggest thing and fit the rest round it, cables and crumbs too.
  • Every shoe by the front door 1 page, 30 minutes. Draw them where they lie, overlapping, laces last. Shoes show who lives in a house.
  • Faces found in objects: sockets, taps and bags 1 page, 20 minutes. Hunt the house for things that look back at you. Draw ten and exaggerate nothing.
  • Frottage page: rubbings from round the house 1 page, 15 minutes. Side of a pencil over a coin, a shoe sole, a grater, a leaf. Label where each one was found.
  • Gesture page: a new figure every thirty seconds 1 page, 10 minutes. Pause a sports video twenty times. One line for the spine, then the limbs. No faces.
  • Glass of water with a spoon in it 1 page, 25 minutes. Look hard at where the handle meets the waterline. Draw what you see, not what you know.
  • Hatching sampler: one cube shaded six ways 1 page, 20 minutes. Parallel lines, crossed lines, lines that curve round the form, dots, scribble and solid tone.
  • Keys, life size, all the way round the ring 1 page, 20 minutes. Trace nothing. The teeth are where the eye gets lazy, so count them.
  • Kitchen chair from three eye levels 1 page, 30 minutes. Standing, sitting, lying on the floor. Watch the seat change from a wide shape to a thin line.
  • Lined-notebook page that uses the lines 1 page, 15 minutes. The ruled lines become washing lines, shelves, waves or a music stave. Hang things from them.
  • Negative space of a houseplant 1 page, 20 minutes. Shade only the gaps between the leaves and stems. The plant appears as bare paper.
  • One bottle's shadow traced at nine, noon and three 1 page, 15 minutes. Stand the bottle on the page by a window. Trace each shadow in a different pen.
  • One leaf, five views 1 page, 20 minutes. Flat, side on, curled, from behind, and its cast shadow. Tape the real leaf in when it dries.
  • One-point perspective down your own hallway 1 page, 30 minutes. Mark a dot at eye level on the far wall. Every floor and ceiling line aims at that dot.
  • People in a queue, backs only 1 page, 15 minutes. Backs do not notice being drawn. Hats, bags and the tilt of the shoulders say who they are.
  • The room bent in the back of a spoon 1 page, 20 minutes. Hold the spoon still against a cup. Draw the windows and yourself exactly as the curve shows them.
  • Rule of thirds grid over a window view 1 page, 20 minutes. Two lines across, two down. Put the tree or the chimney on a crossing, not in the middle.
  • Same object nine ways in a three by three grid 1 page, 35 minutes. Line, dots, hatching, silhouette, upside down, tiny, cropped, wrong colour, from memory.
  • Seven-step value scale and an egg shaded with it 1 page, 25 minutes. Seven boxes from bare paper to your darkest dark. Find all seven on the egg and its shadow.
  • Small copy of a painting you love 1 page, 40 minutes. A box 10 cm wide, big shapes only, five tones. Credit the painter and write what you noticed.
  • Someone asleep on the sofa 1 page, 15 minutes. The one model who will not ask to see it. Blanket shapes first, face last.
  • Tea towel pinned to the wall by one corner 1 page, 35 minutes. The folds fan out from the pin. Draw those lines before any shading goes on.
  • Texture swatches: fur, bark, brick, water, hair, rust 1 page, 25 minutes. Six squares 5 cm wide. Invent a mark for each texture and write its recipe underneath.
  • Thumbnails: one view composed six ways 1 page, 15 minutes. Six boxes 5 cm wide. Move the horizon, crop in, tilt. Star the one worth drawing large.
  • Twelve-colour wheel mixed from three paints 1 page, 30 minutes. Three primaries, three secondaries, six in between. Mix every one instead of reaching for a tube.
  • Upside-down copy of a photograph 1 page, 30 minutes. Turn the photo over and copy shapes, not things. Turn both the right way up only when you finish.
  • Vegetable cut in half, inside and out 1 page, 20 minutes. A pepper, an onion or a red cabbage. The cut face is a pattern you did not have to invent.
  • The whole room without lifting the pen 1 page, 10 minutes. One continuous line from the door round to the door. Double back along a line when you get stuck.
  • Your street as a row of front doors 2 pages, 40 minutes. Only the doors, side by side, from memory first. Then walk out and correct the colours.

Daily habit and journal 31

  • The best thing today in a box the size of a matchbox 1 page, 5 minutes a day. A week to a page. One line of words under each box and no more.
  • Bucket list for the season, a drawing for each wish 1 page, 25 minutes. Eight small drawings with a tick circle beside each: swim outdoors, bake bread, see a fox.
  • Commute sketches of people who leave before you finish 1 page, 10 minutes. Two minutes each at most. When they get off, stop and start the next one alongside.
  • Doodled icons for your to-do list 1 page, 10 minutes. An envelope for email, a pan for cooking, a shoe for a walk. Twelve icons you will reuse.
  • Dream log: the one image you remember 1 page, 10 minutes. Draw it before breakfast, before it goes. One picture, no story, and the date.
  • Film log drawn as a sheet of tiny tickets 1 page, 20 minutes. Rule twelve ticket shapes. After each film add the title, the date and one object from it.
  • Film strip: six frames of one afternoon 1 page, 30 minutes. Rule a strip with sprocket holes down both sides. Six small frames, one per thing that happened.
  • Food diary with a face on everything 1 page, 20 minutes. Two dots and a small mouth, set low on each shape. The toast looks worried. Let it.
  • Habit tracker drawn as a path of stepping stones 1 page, 2 minutes a day. Thirty stones wind across the page. Colour one each day you draw. Gaps are allowed.
  • Hourly comic: one panel for each waking hour 2 pages, 60 minutes. Sixteen small panels of about four minutes each, drawn as the day happens. Stick figures are fine.
  • Journal doodle borders for a week of notes 1 page, 15 minutes. Seven strips: dots, vines, waves, bunting, stars, bricks, stitches. The day's notes go inside.
  • Kettle doodles: one object while the water boils 1 page, 3 minutes a day. The kettle is the timer. One thing from the worktop each time, six to a page.
  • Map of your day, drawn as a route 1 page, 20 minutes. A dotted line from bed back to bed, with a small picture and a time at every stop.
  • Monthly cover page with a calendar grid 1 page, 30 minutes. Seven columns by six rows hold any month. Letter its name across the top and doodle in the dates.
  • Mood jar filled with one marble a day 1 page, 2 minutes a day. Draw an empty jar and a colour key. Add one marble a day in the colour of the mood.
  • Moon log: tonight's moon for a month 1 page, 2 minutes a day. Thirty small circles. Shade the dark part of tonight's moon. If it is cloudy, draw the cloud.
  • One object a day, seven days on one page 1 page, 10 minutes a day. Rule seven boxes on Monday. Whatever is nearest at the same hour goes in the next box.
  • One room from a house you used to live in 1 page, 25 minutes. Draw it from memory and mark the parts you are unsure of with a dotted line.
  • Overheard today: one sentence, hand-lettered 1 page, 10 minutes. Letter it large in the middle and draw who you imagine said it. No real names.
  • Pocket contents at the end of the day 1 page, 10 minutes. A receipt, a leaf, a bus ticket. Draw them life size, then glue in the flat ones.
  • Random word of the day in a 6 cm box 1 page, 10 minutes a day. Open any book, point at a word and draw it. Seven boxes fill the page by the end of the week.
  • Reading log: a shelf of spines you letter in 1 page, 20 minutes. Draw twenty blank spines of different heights. Letter one each time you finish a book.
  • Same window, same time, four Sundays running 1 page, 15 minutes. Four boxes on one page. By the fourth the tree has changed and so has your line.
  • Seedling log: the same plant drawn every week 1 page, 10 minutes. Rule a height scale up the margin and draw the plant at its true height, with the date.
  • Seven two-minute self-portraits, one a day 1 page, 2 minutes a day. Seven boxes, the same mirror and a strict two-minute limit. The speed stops you fussing.
  • Snack diary: one thing you ate, each day for a week 1 page, 5 minutes a day. Seven small drawings with the day under each. By Sunday it is a menu.
  • Sound map of everything you can hear from one spot 1 page, 15 minutes. You are a dot in the middle. Draw each sound where it comes from, and draw it big if it is loud.
  • This month in ten small drawings 2 pages, 40 minutes. Scatter them across the spread: what is in the shops, on the trees and on your feet.
  • Weather strip: one small sky a day for a month 1 page, 2 minutes a day. Thirty-one squares 2 cm wide. Colour today's sky at the same hour. The month becomes a scarf.
  • What I wore today: a week of outfits 1 page, 5 minutes a day. Seven small figures without faces. Colour only the clothes and star the day that felt best.
  • Year grid: one coloured square for every day 2 pages, 1 minute a day. Twelve columns by thirty-one rows. Pick five colours for five kinds of day and draw the key.

Interactive pages 25

  • Choose-your-path comic with page numbers 4 pages, 60 minutes. Each page ends in a choice: turn to 12 or turn to 13. Six panels are enough for two endings.
  • Colour-by-number page made for someone else 1 page, 25 minutes. Draw big simple shapes in pen, number each one and add a key of five colours at the foot.
  • Dice table: roll for subject, mood and medium 1 page, 15 minutes. Three columns of six, drawn as small icons. Three rolls give 216 possible pages.
  • Dot-to-dot you numbered yourself 1 page, 20 minutes. Draw lightly in pencil, dot the outline every centimetre, number the dots, rub out the pencil.
  • Eyes-shut prompt grid of thirty tiny ideas 1 page, 10 minutes. Write thirty prompts in a grid. Eyes shut, finger down, and draw whatever it lands on overleaf.
  • Face that works both ways up 1 page, 25 minutes. A beard one way up is hair the other. Sketch lightly and keep turning the book as you go.
  • Flip corner: a twelve-frame bouncing ball 12 pages, 20 minutes. Bottom outer corner of twelve pages in a row. Squash the ball as it lands, then flick.
  • Fold-out panorama taped to the page edge 3 pages, 45 minutes. Tape a strip of paper to the outer edge and fold it in. The skyline runs across all three.
  • Guest page: visitors sign with a drawing 1 page, 5 minutes. Rule sixteen boxes. Everyone who picks up the book draws one small thing in a box and dates it.
  • Hidden-object room with ten things to find 1 page, 40 minutes. Cram the room full, hide ten tiny objects, and list them down the margin with tick boxes.
  • Lift-the-flap door with a room behind it 2 pages, 30 minutes. Cut three sides of the door through this page. The room is drawn on the page behind.
  • Maze that carries on overleaf through a punched hole 2 pages, 30 minutes. The path leaves this page through the hole and picks up again on the other side.
  • Mix-and-match faces on pages cut in three 3 pages, 40 minutes. Keep eyes, nose and mouth at the same heights on all three pages, then cut across twice.
  • Noughts and crosses played with cats and fish 1 page, 10 minutes. Draw the grids first. Tiny cats against tiny fish instead of O and X. Nine games fill the page.
  • Paper outfits with tabs for a figure drawn on the page 1 page, 40 minutes. Draw the clothes on loose paper with fold-over tabs and keep them in a glued-in envelope.
  • Pass-the-book creature: head, body, legs, feet 1 page, 15 minutes. A loose strip folded in four. Each person draws one part, folds it under, passes it on. Glue it in.
  • Pleated page: a short dog that opens into a long one 1 page, 15 minutes. Fold a pleat across a loose sheet, draw the dog over the closed fold, open it and join the halves.
  • Prompt wheel pinned on with a paper fastener 1 page, 30 minutes. A card disc with eight ideas round its rim, and a small window cut in the page above it.
  • Pull-tab sun that rises over a drawn hill 1 page, 35 minutes. A slit along the hilltop and a paper sun on a strip behind it. Pull the strip and it is morning.
  • Six-panel concertina story glued to the page 1 page, 35 minutes. Fold a paper strip into six, draw a story of six beats, and glue only the last panel down.
  • Ten squiggles for a friend to finish 1 page, 10 minutes. Draw ten random squiggles and hand the book over. They turn each into a creature. Then swap.
  • Tracing-paper overlay: the street by day, then by night 1 page, 30 minutes. Tape tracing paper along one edge. The day street goes on the page, the night on the overlay.
  • Treasure hunt: a clue on this page points to another 5 pages, 30 minutes. A small drawn clue in one corner leads to a page number, and so on five times to a drawn prize.
  • Two pens, one drawing, no talking 1 page, 10 minutes. You and a friend start from opposite sides at the same moment and draw until the lines meet.
  • Window page: a hole that frames two drawings 2 pages, 25 minutes. Cut a circle 5 cm wide. What shows through is a planet from this side and an eye from the other.

Aesthetic spreads 28

  • Black-paper page of invented constellations 1 page, 20 minutes. Dot stars in white pen, join them into a toaster or a cat, and name each one.
  • Coffee-stain rings turned into drawings 1 page, 15 minutes. Stamp rings with the base of a mug and let them dry. Pen makes them moons, snails, bike wheels.
  • Colour-swatch page: every colour you own in a grid 1 page, 25 minutes. Squares 2 cm wide with the name or number under each. It doubles as a record of your kit.
  • Diagonal split spread: day on one side, night on the other 2 pages, 40 minutes. The same view runs across both pages, and only the colours change along the diagonal.
  • Fine-pen stems over loose watercolour blobs 1 page, 30 minutes. Paint three soft blobs first. When they are dry, draw a stem over each and ignore the edges.
  • Full bleed in a small thick book: paint to every edge 2 pages, 20 minutes. A small thick book suits one bold idea per spread. Clip the pages flat until the paint is dry.
  • Half a magazine face, finished in pencil 1 page, 25 minutes. Glue in half a face or half a building and draw the missing half to match it.
  • Instant-photo frames with drawn snapshots 1 page, 25 minutes. Rule four frames with a deep bottom border. Draw a memory in each and caption it in capitals.
  • Invented island map with a key 1 page, 40 minutes. Spill a few grains of rice and trace round them for the coast. Add a compass and six symbols.
  • Newsprint page with a drawing over a veil of white 1 page, 20 minutes. Glue in a column of newspaper, brush thin white paint over it and draw on top once it is dry.
  • Nine tiny landscapes masked with tape 1 page, 35 minutes. Tape off nine squares 4 cm wide. Paint, let it dry, peel slowly. The edges come out sharp.
  • One colour in seven stripes from pale to full 1 page, 15 minutes. Start with plenty of water or white and use less each time. Label the stripe you like best.
  • One-colour spread: everything blue you can find 2 pages, 35 minutes. Draw, swatch and glue only blue things: a bottle top, a bus ticket, the sky at four o'clock.
  • Page of pets as round blobs 1 page, 15 minutes. Yours or the ones you wish for. One blob each, with ears, tail and markings added last.
  • Palette from a photo: five swatches and a sketch 1 page, 20 minutes. Mix the five colours you see most, paint them as a column, and sketch the scene small beside it.
  • Parcel-paper page with white pen highlights 1 page, 25 minutes. Glue in brown paper. Draw in black, then add white. The mid-tone paper does half the shading.
  • Pattern swatches like a fabric sample book 1 page, 30 minutes. Eight rectangles with zigzag edges and a different repeat in each: gingham, daisies, cherries.
  • Plant shelf spread in fine liner and one green 2 pages, 35 minutes. Run the shelf across both pages. Every pot is a different shape, and only the leaves get the green.
  • Playlist page with nine invented cover squares 1 page, 30 minutes. Squares 4 cm wide. Invent the cover art yourself instead of copying the real sleeve.
  • Pressed leaf taped in and drawn again beside it 2 pages, 20 minutes. The real leaf on the left, your drawing at the same size on the right. Add the tree and the date.
  • Rainbow book: one colour for each spread 12 pages, 90 minutes. Six spreads from red to purple. Anything goes on a spread so long as it is that colour.
  • Scrap page of one week's paper 2 pages, 15 minutes. Labels, tags, a sweet wrapper. Overlap them and draw small things in the gaps.
  • Sticker sheet you draw yourself 1 page, 25 minutes. Twelve small things with thick white borders and one highlight each: toast, a frog, a cloud, a boot.
  • Ticket-stub collage page with a drawn map corner 2 pages, 30 minutes. Glue the stubs at slight angles and draw the route between them in one corner, with the dates.
  • Travel spread: a map, a meal and a doorway 2 pages, 45 minutes. Three drawings of three sizes. Letter the place name across both pages and add one glued scrap.
  • Weather characters: a sulking cloud, a smug sun 1 page, 15 minutes. Eight kinds of weather as round characters with short arms. Drizzle is the hardest.
  • Windowsill things in a row along the bottom edge 2 pages, 25 minutes. Run the sill across both pages and leave the top two thirds empty. The white space is the point.
  • Your favourite word, hand-lettered in a floral border 1 page, 30 minutes. Pencil the word between two ruled lines. The flowers may overlap the letters, never hide them.

How it works

A page of only hands, a map of your day, a weather strip for the month: 150 page ideas, not subjects. Each says how many pages it fills, the minutes it takes and how to set it up. For a plain subject to draw, press Fill a page.

Read the full guide

A page idea beats a subject

Most lists of things to draw in a sketchbook name a subject and leave you facing the same white rectangle. The sketchbook drawing ideas here set the layout too: nine boxes, seven days, one line that never lifts. Blind contour portraits of everyone in the room take ten minutes, because your eyes stay on the face and never check the paper. They come out wrong and alive.

The first page is the hard one

First page and cover holds 25 ways past it. Ruin the first page on purpose: scribble, smudge, date it. Or make it useful, with a roll call of every pen you own or a paper test that shows what bleeds through. Number the page corners and start a contents page, and the book becomes something you can find things in.

  • Date every page in the same corner. It takes five seconds and turns the book into a record you can flip back through.
  • Twelve habit pages are ruled once and filled a little each day. The weather strip asks for two minutes.
  • Lined paper is no excuse. For notebook drawing ideas, turn the ruled lines into washing lines, shelves or a music stave.

Questions and answers

Which pages suit a journal or a planner?

Daily habit and journal has 33 journal drawing ideas, such as a mood jar filled with one marble a day and a monthly cover page on a grid of seven columns by six rows, which holds any month. For journal doodle ideas, rule seven border strips for the week's notes. For words to go beside them, try the journal prompt generator.

What are interactive sketchbook ideas?

Pages that do something, or that someone else finishes. Interactive pages has 28: a lift-the-flap door with a room behind it, a ball that bounces across twelve page corners, and the pass-the-book creature, where each person draws the head, body, legs or feet without seeing the rest.

Which pages suit an aesthetic or a chunky sketchbook?

Aesthetic sketchbook ideas sit under Aesthetic spreads, 45 in all: a colour-swatch grid, a ticket-stub collage with a drawn map corner, coffee-stain rings turned into drawings. Chunky sketchbook ideas are there too, because a small thick book suits one bold idea per spread: paint to every edge, or one colour for each spread from red to purple.

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