100 things to draw when your brain is empty, sorted by difficulty

The hardest part of drawing practice is often the first minute, when you have a blank page and no idea what to put on it. The random things to draw generator exists for that minute: press Pick and it hands you a prompt like "A sleeping fox" or "A bowl of ramen". What it doesn't tell you is whether the prompt is a five-minute doodle or an afternoon. So I went through every prompt in its list and sorted them, then filled the list out to 100 with objects and animals from two sister pickers. Below are all 100, in four tiers, with a suggested time limit for each.

Where the 100 come from

The things-to-draw list has 56 prompts. All 56 are here, written exactly as the generator shows them, so they're the ones starting with "A" or "An". The other 44 come from the random object generator (306 everyday objects in eight categories) and the random animal generator (290 animals in six groups). I picked those 44 to fill gaps: more small, simple objects for tier 1 and more texture-heavy animals for tier 4.

The difficulty tiers are my own judgement, not something the generator knows. I sorted on three things: how much perspective a subject needs, how many repeating details it has (feathers, scales, spokes, windows), and whether it needs a setting to make sense. A mermaid needs water. A teacup doesn't.

Tier 1: five-minute warm-ups

Flat shapes, circles and simple cylinders. Good for the first drawing of the day or for a kid's first go. Give yourself 5 minutes each and stop when the timer does.

1. A crescent moon
2. A donut
3. A cupcake
4. A slice of pizza
5. A teacup
6. A cup of coffee
7. A cactus
8. A paper airplane
9. A flowerpot
10. A potted plant
11. A snail
12. A friendly ghost
13. A pair of glasses
14. A book stack
15. A rocket
16. Pencil
17. Envelope
18. Paper clip
19. Sticky notes
20. Candle
21. Yo-yo
22. Acorn
23. Leaf
24. Kite
25. Smooth stone

The trap in this tier is drawing the symbol instead of the thing. Everyone can draw a pizza slice as a triangle with dots. Look at a real one and draw the crust thickness and the way cheese pulls at the tip.

Tier 2: ten to fifteen minutes

One subject with a bit of structure: a handle, a spout, something hollow, a simple character. You'll need basic perspective for some of these, mostly ellipses.

26. A campfire
27. A pair of headphones
28. A street lamp
29. A mushroom house
30. A snow globe
31. A camera
32. A guitar
33. An umbrella in the rain
34. A hot air balloon
35. A cat wearing a hat
36. A sailboat
37. A telescope
38. A retro television
39. A bowl of ramen
40. A jellyfish
41. A sandcastle
42. A tiny dinosaur
43. A garden gnome
44. A balloon animal
45. Teapot
46. Kettle
47. Rubik's cube
48. Watering can
49. Backpack
50. Penguin

Rubik's cube looks like tier 1 and isn't. Getting nine squares per face to shrink correctly in perspective is a proper exercise. If it goes wrong, that's the lesson.

Tier 3: twenty to thirty minutes

Fur, mechanical parts, or a subject that needs a bit of setting. Most people find their weak spot in this tier.

51. A lighthouse
52. A robot
53. A windmill
54. A bicycle
55. A pocket watch
56. A vending machine
57. A sleeping fox
58. An owl on a branch
59. A hedgehog
60. A koala
61. A whale
62. A panda eating bamboo
63. A vintage car
64. Chameleon
65. Seahorse
66. Octopus
67. Flamingo
68. Toucan
69. Axolotl
70. Sloth
71. Hermit crab
72. Binoculars
73. Chess set
74. Hiking boots
75. Bird's nest

The bicycle is the famous one. Most people can't draw a bike from memory, because they've never looked at how the frame joins the pedals. Draw it once from memory, then once from a photo, and compare.

Tier 4: full-page projects

Scenes, lots of repeating detail, or both. No time limit. Break these over two sessions if you need to.

76. A dragon
77. A treehouse
78. A castle
79. A spaceship
80. A pirate ship
81. A wizard
82. A mermaid
83. A ferris wheel
84. A waterfall
85. Peacock
86. Lyrebird
87. Komodo dragon
88. Praying mantis
89. Stag beetle
90. Lionfish
91. Pangolin
92. Frilled lizard
93. Nautilus
94. Spider web
95. Honeycomb
96. Model train
97. Hammock
98. Pinecone
99. Rope
100. Sea urchin

Rope surprises people. A single length is easy. A knot, with each strand passing over and under the next, is a real test of how well you understand form.

Five ways to use the list

The one-a-day climb

Do one prompt a day from tier 1 for a week, then move up a tier each week. After four weeks you've drawn 28 things and you've hit tier 4. Don't skip ahead because a tier feels easy. Speed is part of the practice.

Roll a tier, then roll a prompt

Use the random number generator to pick a number from 1 to 100 and draw whatever's at that number. To stay inside a tier, set the range to that tier's numbers, 51 to 75 for tier 3.

Six-prompt sheet

Set the things-to-draw generator to 6 and press Pick. Divide a page into six boxes and fill one per prompt, five minutes each. One example draw: a wizard, a mushroom house, a treehouse, a teacup, a paper airplane and a vending machine. That's two tier 1, one tier 2, one tier 3 and two tier 4 prompts on the same page, so expect the last box to look rushed. That's fine. Another example draw: a flowerpot, a treehouse, a whale, a sleeping fox, a rocket and a bowl of ramen, which was kinder.

Push one prompt up the tiers

Take a tier 1 prompt and draw it three times, harder each time. A teacup on its own is five minutes. The same teacup on a saucer, with a spoon, steam and the light from a window catching the rim, is tier 2 or 3. Put it on a table with a teapot, a book stack and a cat wearing a hat, and you've built a tier 4 scene out of prompts from this list. I like this one for weeks when nothing new appeals, because the subject stays familiar and only the difficulty changes.

Draw-off with a friend

Both of you take the same prompt, same timer, then swap sketchbooks. Pick the prompt from tier 2 or 3. Tier 1 is too quick to show any difference and tier 4 takes too long for a fun round.

What the generator can't do

It has no difficulty setting, no categories and no history. It draws from 56 prompts with equal odds and forgets each draw as soon as you press Pick again. That's why this page exists: it's the sorting I wished the tool had. If you want to stay in one tier, either use the numbered list with a random number, or draw six and take the first prompt that's in your tier.

It also won't give you reference images. For anything in tiers 3 and 4, find a photo before you start. Drawing a pangolin from imagination is a different exercise, and a much harder one.

For characters instead of objects, the random cartoon character generator is good for practising expressions. For more prompts in the same style, go back to the random things to draw generator and press Pick. If it gives you a crescent moon, draw it, then try number 100.