One of the biggest hurdles in improving your sketching skills isn’t talent or fancy materials—it’s simply showing up regularly. I’ve noticed it in my own practice: when I sketch consistently, my lines flow more naturally, and ideas come easier. 

But let’s be honest—knowing that regular practice is important and actually making it happen are two very different things. Sometimes it’s life that gets in the way, sometimes it’s a mental block or just good old procrastination.

The struggles are real

If you’re like me you might recognise some of these struggles:

‘There’s not enough time!’

Life gets busy, and sketching easily slips to the bottom of the to-do list and before you know another day passed without putting pen to paper.

‘I don’t know what to draw!’

The fear of the empty page (and empty mind) is real. When we can choose anything, we can get paralysed by the endless options and choose nothing in the end.

‘My sketches suck!’

Being overly critical paired with comparing your work to others can make your own sketches feel “not good enough.”

‘Is anything changing at all?’

Sometimes, it feels like you’re just repeating the same things over and over without real progress.

‘Pfffffffff….’

Often we start a new habit with lots of energy (and maybe some overly strong enthusiasm) only for it to fizzle out after a while when keeping up with our ambitions becomes overwhelming.

Making a shift

I’ve run into all of these at different points – and not only once. But I’ve also found that a few small shifts in how I approach practice that can make a big difference.

1. Making it regular (even in small doses)

A little bit of sketching every day is more effective than one big session once a month. Even five-minute sketches add up over time.

One trick that works is making an appointment with yourself every day. Maybe it’s a daily sketch of of a news story over morning coffee, a visual list of all the ingredients in your lunch before you tuck in, or little drawing of one moment you enjoyed this day before you go to bed.

Another great way to stay motivated is to join a group or take part in a challenge like Inktober or 100 Days of Sketching that provide you with a daily prompt list. You don’t have to think about what to draw and can just pour your mental energy into interpreting the daily prompt. And: knowing that others are sketching alongside you makes it easier to show up consistently.

2. Giving yourself a specific task

Rather than sitting down to draw “whatever,” give yourself a clear focus. This makes the getting started way easier. As mentioned in the previous point, you could pick a pre-made prompt list or you could make one yourself.

Pick a topic (e.g. emotions, professions, situations at work, activities you enjoy, astrophysics…), then write down a list of at least 10 words or short phrases around this topic. If you get stuck, use Google or ChatGPT to help you with building your the list. And this is your prompt list for the next few weeks.

A bonus about working like this is that you practice in series. Previous images you made can inspire other images in the series by re-using, complementing or contrasting elements you already used in previous images.

You could also choose to pick a few stylistic characteristics to use throughout a topic (like a certain colour combination, materials or line quality to keep consistent). Your sketches will form a satisfying mini-series after a few days instead of just feeling like singular random scribbles.

3. Notice, don’t judge!

Who doesn’t know the moment when our inner critic comes out to spoil the fun: somehow whatever we do, nothing seems to turn out how we imagined… Wonky lines, weird proportions, hands that look like cursed trees, the list of criticism can be endless. 

It’s not easy, but I’d like to propose to shift our point of view a little bit, get a bit gentler and try to replace the judging with simple noticing. Instead of labeling a drawing as “bad,” try to observe it with curiosity: What is a small detail you like and what is the part of your drawing you like least? What exactly did you do? What quality of line did you use? How thick is the line? What are the proportions? Which kind of shapes did you use? Did you use colour? Is there a lot of contrast? 

The more details you notice about your sketch, the more new possibilities open up to change things and experiment, which brings us to the next point….

4. Playing with variations

When you identified a few different qualities of your drawing, pick one and try some variations: you could play with proportions (making everything very even and harmonious, exaggerate proportions by making things ver long and thin or make it super bulky) or try out different line qualities (clean and smooth, slightly shaky, round and flowing, intricate and detailed, doubling up your lines, bold and rough, … the quality of your line is like changing your voice when you speak and the same content can feel very different).

Small tweaks can lead to big discoveries, and that’s often where personal style develops. Learning isn’t just about fixing mistakes—it’s about expanding possibilities.

I already made a short video about these two ideas of noticing and then experimenting with variations instead of being overly critical some time ago. If you haven’t seen it yet, here it is. 

5. Compare yourself with a previous version of yourself

The line between inspiration and self-detrimental comparison is very thin for me sometimes. We usually follow people whose work we admire and who are further along in their sketching journey. This can be super inspiring and we can learn a lot from analysing their work. But on a bad day it can happen that I compare myself to these people and my work seems boring, ugly and miles behind from the quality of their work. All this practice didn’t make difference?

Well, progress is hard to spot when we see our own work every day. The only realistic way of seeing the difference is to keep all your sketches, put them away for a few months and then compare your current sketches to your older sketches every now and then. Now you can see YOUR progress. This is what changed between you from 6 months ago and you today. This is the only real and fair comparison. 

Bonus tip: You don’t have to do it all alone

Sometimes things are just easier when you know you’re not alone. When there is a whole group of people with a similar interest, our energies can accumulate and amplify each other. We can motivate and inspire each other. We can learn from each other and when one person has a low moment, the group can pull them along and lift their mood again. And sometimes it’s the simple fact of having a fixed appointment that can make the difference between doing or skipping a practice.

Let’s practice together!

If you want to get practicing now and you don’t want to do it alone, I created something for you:

I want to experiment with a new format this spring. Starting on the 10th of March 2025 I am offering a series of 6 weekly practice sessions where we get together to draw, experiment and give/get feedback on our work. The sessions take place live over Zoom, every Monday at 7pm (Berlin time CET). Each date has a different topic we’ll explore and two of the sessions will be dedicated to me giving concrete feedback on your work.

If this sounds exciting to you, you’ll find all the details and the sign-up here:
evalotta.shop/practice

I’m looking forward to practicing together!