Give Me A Drawing Prompt

Welcome to my new random Art Prompt Generator, a completely free and easy web app designed to help you spark your creativity and get moving again anytime you're feeling a little stuck.

Scroll a little further to use the generator ↓

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All of us get stuck at one time or another, feeling at a loss for creative ideas and/or creative energy. feeling blocked and discouraged. And that is exactly why I put this random prompt generator together. To offer short but evocative prompts to help you get ideas, get motivated, see things or feel things, change your perspective and think about things from a different angle.

☆ Random Drawing and Art Prompt Generator

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How Do I Use the Art Prompts and Ideas Generator?

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Most will probably mainly think of my Art and Drawing Prompts Generator as a tool for when you are a little stuck for creative ideas, inspiration or motivation, but I really hope that you may come to use it at other times too – again, for example, even when things are going great, to provide a new energy or perspective, to explore new subjects or processes, expand your skills, or to just have a good laugh.

And it's so simple to use that you can use it really any time you want, and contains so many interesting and evocative prompts that you can turn to it as often as you like.

All you need to do is:

1. Select one of four categories — Characters, Animals, Objects, Situations
2. Click on "Generate New Prompt"
3. Read your prompt in the space below the button

After that it is up to you. I personally like to read the prompt and just sit with it for a few moments, even a few minutes. I don't grab a pencil, I don't start thinking about what I should do, I don't even move from the web page. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind and just sit. And then, whether something obvious seems to have happened or presented itself or not, I open my eyes and get on with my day.

Some people might use arts prompts differently. For instance, if they get a prompt with a certain animal they may immediately begin to draw that animal. Or others may get their prompt and then turn right away to their work in progress – which is most likely not at all related to the prompt – and see if the flow is back.

Certain people will get their prompt and then just take a long walk without thought of results or productivity, and some may read the prompt, go get some coffee and chocolate, sit and watch the birds in the trees for a while, and wait without pressure or expectation. Ok, I use this method sometimes too, especially the coffee and chocolate part.

But the "without pressure or expectation" part is nice, and I think important. Whatever your own method, however you use my new Drawing Idea Generator, it is good to allow sparks to spark and flow to resume flowing without pushing it or pondering over it.

I should also mention that lots of artists and art students use the arts prompts generator as a kind of "art challenge" program. Art challenges are absolutely huge these days, and it can be enormous fun to do a challenge where you go to my page every morning, generate a prompt, and create a piece of art, a craft piece or a story based on it. You can do this to learn, improve and grow, to challenge yourself and to expand your skills sets and your horizons, and you can – in the grand art challenge tradition – share your daily creations through various social media platforms.

50+ Art Challenges Guide in 2021

So basically to get your creative juices flowing again and get you back to drawing, painting, writing, crafting or whatever your thing is. And if things are flowing already, the random drawing prompts can also give you a new and different perspective, a challenge, an opportunity to increase your skills and improve your techniques, a good laugh or just one of those invaluable "hmmm" moments.

What is an Art Prompt Generator?

An arts prompts generator can be called many different things:

Art Prompt Generator
Drawing Prompts Generator
Painting Prompts Generator
Creativity Prompts Generator
Creative Idea Generator
Art Idea Generator
Or Character Prompt Generator (when thinking specifically about the characters' prompts)

And it can also take many different forms, but the drawing prompts generator I have put together is a web page you can go to any time you want or need, to get ideas or inspirations, sparks, seeds, new and fresh perspectives. All of these take the form of short phrases – anywhere from three or four words up to maybe twenty – which fall into four basic categories:

Characters – a familiar character from life, from fiction, from mythology, or really anywhere
Animals – real or imagined, in familiar or strange settings
Objects – again, real or imagined, seen in normal or strange ways
Situations – everyday or extraordinary happenings, or the bare hint of what might happen

Compared to other generators out there, my generator contains over a thousand all new phrases specifically written to inspire creativity, provide ideas or lead to ideas, change perspective, amuse and entertain, light that inner fire, challenge the brain, or touch the heart.

What are Art and Drawing Prompts?

Well, some of the phrases are quite plain and prosaic, some are funny, some are weird or mysterious, some are at least apparently simple and straightforward and some seem to have some elusive complexity behind them. Still, they are all engineered to evoke and spark, to unloose the creative flow and get us back on track.

The best arts prompts will encourage ideas, feelings, lateral thinking, humor or irony, fresh perspectives and old, powerful memories. They will also, either directly or indirectly, provide usable ideas for artistic creation, but usually – and preferably – not by just giving a clear and obvious subject or scene. Indeed, really effective prompts will show or suggest, but they will also reach inside of you and energize your own creative processes, and ideally provide just enough – that is, just the right amount of impetus and inspiration so that you yourself are actually seeing and creating the real ideas and subjects of your art.

Because it has always been one of my core beliefs, as an artist, teacher and writer who has spent a lot of time helping people unlock their own inner creativity, that you can give a man a fish, you can teach a man to fish or you can somehow illuminate that man's inner fish – and we all have an inner fish.

Put another, less odd way, a good arts prompt will provide:

Not a whole picture, but a single item designed to bring the artist to complete the picture
Not a whole story, but a single element or idea that suggests a story
Not the answer to a question, but an evocative example of lateral thinking or a fresh perspective which may suggest a different path to the answer

And a good arts prompt will provide visual and other sensory cues and stimulation, will make us laugh or make us think, will confuse us or raise our curiosity, will make us happy or sad, will energize and motivate us, will sometimes even spin our world a little tiny bit.

And ultimately will lead us to create.

Who Can Benefit from an Art Idea Generator?

Whether we are commercial artists, fine artists, casual artists, art students, hobbyists or crafters, or creative people of any type, sometimes we find ourselves a little bit lacking in ideas, or in energy or motivation. Or we may have ideas, energy and desire, but feel as if we're still missing something, needing a fresh perspective or a different idea on how to proceed.

And even when things are going great, we may feel the need to challenge ourselves beyond the levels at which we're currently creating and working, to expand our horizons, to try new things, explore new subjects, techniques and processes, and an arts prompts generator can be a great tool in these noble endeavors as well.

Many people even consider using arts prompts as a form of self-care, a positive step we can take to improve not just our art and our process, but to grow as a person, demonstrate self love and self caring and increase our confidence and our abilities.

But whatever your situation, anybody and everybody is free to check out and use my new Arts Prompts Generator whenever you want, and I really hope it is valuable to you, and as much fun to use as it was to create!

What if I'm Really, Really Stuck?

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Yeah, this happens to all of us at one point or another. Days or weeks pass without a good idea, without energy or motivation, without creative flow, creative feeling or creative confidence.

And when it gets bad, when deadlines come and go, we've watched every single episode of Modern Family three times and our cats are hiding in the closet because they're sick of all the attention we've recently been paying them, something as simple as an arts prompts generator surely isn't enough to pull us out of it, is it?

Well, actually it often can, and it is definitely worth giving it a shot. So even if you are the most blocked artist in the history of creativity, even if you are so stuck in the snow and ice, your tires spinning so fast, that you are absolutely certain you will need a tow truck, let up on the gas and open the web page, get a prompt and just see what happens. The good news is that if you are sure it won't be enough, you will either be right or you'll be pleasantly surprised – win / win!

If arts prompts really aren't enough for you, though, there are all kinds of other resources available to help you generate ideas, get unblocked and regain your creative flow. And please believe that I take this very seriously – I may joke around and be silly about all of this, and I do think a good, bright attitude always helps, but I have also helped a lot of students and colleagues who are battling against creative blocks, and I fully understand how serious, difficult and frustrating it can be.

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Rediscover Your Creativity

In fact, one of the best resources you might find (if I do say so myself) is an audio course I recently published: Rediscover Your Creativity. Please also check out the loads and loads of video interviews I have done on my podcast – Art Side of Life Podcast. Really, to hear so many artists speak with such passion and such clarity about their art and their process can be an incredibly powerful motivator and inspiration.

Thanks so much for reading this latest article – The All New Arts Prompts Generator from Art Side of Life – and again please visit my blog – Art Side of Life – not just for the podcasts but for tons of other inspiring ideas, resources, articles, buyer's guides and a lot more!