I am an industrial design student at ASU. An industrial design student designs products and items that people use every day, from chairs to pencils. This means that I do a lot of drawing.

Some of this drawing is for assignments, but most of the drawing I do every day is just for practice. Drawing every day is helpful for making sure I work on improving my art skills consistently. But sometimes, I just don't know what to draw next. Some call this "artist's block".

This article will help you (and me) be rid of this problem for at least a little while.

Warmups

Before I start working on drawing assignments, I need to warm up, just like in sports. For drawing, this means reminding myself how my hand moves when I draw and what types of marks my pencil (or any drawing tool I am using) make on the paper. Here are five different ways I might get warmed up for any drawing session. I never use all of these at once, but I might use just one or a combination of two.

1. Horizontal lines

This one's pretty easy. Just open up to a new page in your sketchbook and draw some horizontal lines. I do this one in my drawing class this semester. Just draw a bunch of lines as quickly or carefully as you want. Try to make them as straight as possible. You'll know when the lines aren't straight when the next line is parallel to the last.

2. Vertical lines

Just like the horizontal line warmup but with vertical lines. This one is a bit more difficult because most pages are taller than they are wide. It is more difficult to get consistent lines. But I do this one because it forces me to be careful about how I move my hand and my arm when I draw. If I want to take an opposite approach...

3. Scribble page

Yep. Scribble. Scribble all over the page. No rules, except fill as much of the page as you can. No technique, except use up the pencil. No stress, because when a drawing isn't working, switch to the next page and scribble out your frustrations. Can you tell this is my favorite warm up?

4. Line values

Draw all types of lines. No worries about direction. The goal this time is to draw with different values. Thin lines, thick lines, wavy and straight, light and dark. Not as unorganized as a "scribble" page, but it helps get me thinking about all the varieties of lines that go into a drawing.

5. Boxes

3D shapes are difficult when you get into perspective. Save that for later. Now just draw boxes. A square. Then draw diagonal lines at all the corners. Then a square parallel to the first at the ends of the diagonal lines. Nice and easy.

Try these warm-ups out for yourself. Happy drawing!