Creativity Boost: One Minute Drawings

I’m always looking for drawing ideas and have a fun creativity prompt to share that will help you with drawing practice. My family tested this out on Day 8 of the first TinkerSketch sketchbook challenge, but I didn’t take time to share the results of the process.

This creativity booster invites you to draw as much as you can in one minute.

My 4-year old and I spend a lot of time at our art studio while her older sister is in school, and today she suggested that we make some one-minute drawings. It’s been a few months since we’ve tried this fun creativity prompt, and I was game. I also enjoy the challenge of making art with my kids, and when they have an idea I try to run with it.

Of course she wanted to use Sharpies (affiliate), so we covered the table with fresh paper. We use Pacon Kraft paper (affiliate), in case you’re looking for something similar…it’s great stuff!

I cut up 9″ x 12″ sheets of drawing paper into four pieces, gave us each a stack, and we were ready to go.

I set the timer for one minute and then we faced the challenge to draw as much as we could (or wanted to) in that time span. A minute goes by surprisingly fast!

So fast, in fact, that after that first lightening round, my daughter asked for more time. While she was on more of the 6-minute track, I continued to crank out 1-minute drawings. One of the best things about this exercise is how you don’t have time to judge your drawings — the point is not to be brilliant but to get some marks on the paper.

Benefits of 1-Minute Drawings

• It’s fun!
• You work too fast to be judgmental of your work
• One idea leads to another. When the first drawing ends, it prompts new ideas for your next 1-minute drawing.
• If you keep going on to make 40, 50, 60, or more drawings, you may start to run out of ideas which pushes you into new territory

How to set up One Minute Drawings

I thought you might like to see the progression of a series of nine of these quick drawings, and how one idea lead to another: connected triangles led to connected circles, which led to connected quadrilaterals, ovals, more triangles, and finally dots.

While my little one didn’t stick with the one-minute drawing plan, she enjoyed creating the beginning of a book about panda bears, and working side-by-side is always something I look forward to.

More Drawing Ideas + Creativity Prompts

If you’re looking for more prompts like this for kids, you’ll enjoy this list of Simple Creative Invitations.

And if you’d like to join the fun, experimental TinkerSketch sketchbook challenge that I host on Instagram and Facebook, you can find more info here.

You might also enjoy slide drawing, drawing with art dice, and the word drawing game.