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Mindful Drawing: Activities that Embrace Experimentation  

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"Be kind to yourself" is a sentiment we've been hearing a lot lately. For me, taking just ten minutes to have a mindful experience with drawing is an act of kindness that clears space in my mind and encourages new perspectives. It offers me a sense of respite and escape that fuels other types of creativity and generosity. I'm not alone in this. As a museum educator, I've seen how drawing can help people slow down and relax, embrace playful creativity, and at times even discover emotional catharsis.

We've worked with a team of educators and teaching artists to develop sketching prompts that you can use from home. Some of these are shorter; with others, you might prefer to take your time, or keep trying them over and over again. Just remember: these drawing prompts are about mindfulness and observation, so try to silence your inner critic. Embrace experimentation and the process, and don't worry about the outcome. Simply trying them is a success.

We would love to see the different ways you connect with drawing through these prompts. Email [email protected] to share your creations and tag us with #NGAsketch on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Berthe Morisot, Spring Landscape, c. 1890/1891, colored pencils and graphite, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.163

Drawing Prompts

For each of the drawing prompts, start with the following steps:

1. Focus on your posture. Sit up straight and relax your shoulders.

2. Take a deep breath in for five seconds, and then breathe out slowly for five seconds. Repeat this up to ten times.

3. Pick up your drawing tool. Take a moment to focus on your grip. If you find that your grip is too tight, loosen it up. Experiment with different ways of holding your drawing tool. For example, if you are using a pencil, try moving your grip away from the page, toward the pencil's eraser.

4. Optional: Write down or say aloud one thing that you appreciate or have gratitude for right now.

Drawing inspired by music

Play one of your favorite songs or types of music. Think about how different sounds might make a line do different things. Find a starting point on your paper and begin drawing. Let your line wander around the page and change direction or create shapes inspired by the different sounds you hear. Try to keep drawing until the song ends. When you are done, think about how you might include color.

Emotional mark-marking

Can a line suggest an idea, emotion, or movement? Draw what might represent a quiet line, a loud line, and a dancing line. Write down an emotion that you are feeling. Draw a line that might represent that emotion. Fill your page with similar lines.

Blind contour portrait drawing

Choose a person to draw. You can base your drawing on someone in your home, a photo of a friend or family member, your reflection, or a portrait in the Gallery's collection. Find a starting place on your page and line that up with a point on what you are observing. Set a timer for three minutes and prepare to keep your eyes focused on your subject the entire time. Without looking at your paper, move your pencil with your eye as it traces the edges and shapes that you see. Focus on the connection between your eye and your pencil.

Simple shape landscape

Find a view outdoors from a window or during a walk. Draw what you see using simple shapes such as circles, squares, and triangles. Use darker lines for the objects closer to you and lighter lines for objects that are farther away. For additional inspiration, browse through landscapes in the Gallery's collection.

Silhouettes

Draw a silhouette or an outline of yourself. You can use an image from your phone or a shadow created with natural or artificial light. Fill the inside of the silhouette with words that describe how you are feeling and what you are thinking about. Fill the outside of the silhouette with lines and shapes that describe those emotions.

After trying these prompts, feel free to browse our collection of drawings for more inspiration.

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Mindful Drawing: Activities that Embrace Experimentation

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"Be kind to yourself" is a sentiment we've been hearing a lot lately. For me, taking just ten minutes to have a mindful experience with drawing is an act of kindness that clears space in my mind and encourages new perspectives. It offers me a sense of respite and escape that fuels other types of creativity and generosity.

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Take one minute to reset your brain.

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Not enough time in your schedule for a lengthy mindfulness practice? You can get started with these simple 1-minute exercises.

Beginning the practice of mindfulness can feel daunting at first, but starting small with 1-minute exercises can make mindfulness very doable.

The more regularly you practice any-length exercise, the more mindfulness will be a part of your everyday life. Then, you can reap the rewards of living more mindfully.

The short answer is yes, you can.

Think of a 1-minute mindfulness exercise like the brakes in your car. The important thing is that you stop - not so much the length of your stop. You may find yourself looking forward to putting the brakes on your high-speed life with one of these 1-minute breathers.

Research in 2019 suggests that regular meditation of a short duration can have similar health benefits as meditations of longer duration and higher intensity.

Regular daily practice seems to be more important than the length of your practice.

As you begin stopping for 1 minute a couple of times a day, you may soon find yourself expanding your practice to several times, or even 5 or 6 times, a day.

Soon, mindfulness will be a daily practice that comes naturally.

There are a number of ways you can practice mindfulness in just 1 minute.

Just sit

This is a basic meditation that could become the cornerstone of your mindfulness practice. It's easy to learn and is designed to be done in as little as 1 minute.

You can try the below version, provided by the Center for Healthy Living at Kaiser Permanente. Their PDF flyer even has pictures of steps you can print out.

1. Sit up straight, but not stiffly, in a chair with your feet flat on the ground.

2. Place your hands in a balanced position and close your eyes.

3. Focus on your breathing, as you follow each breath in and out.

4. After 1 minute (or longer), gradually open your eyes and resume activities.

Walking meditation

You can start doing this meditation for 1 minute as you walk from the kitchen to the living room, or from your home to your car. Later, you might expand walking meditations to include part or all of a daily walk.

This version of a walking meditation comes from the Buddhist mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hanh's book " Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practices."

1. As you begin walking, pay attention to each step.

2. Notice how many steps you take during each inhale and exhale, and at the speed you're walking. Pay attention to your lungs, and do not force your breathing or the number of steps you take.

3. Match your steps to your breath. For example, as you breathe in, count 1-2-3 steps. As you breathe out, count 1-2-3 steps. Let your lungs and feet come to a happy equilibrium.

4. As you walk, you may wish to say a phrase that approximates the rhythm of your walking. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests: "With each step, a gentle wind blows."

Waking up

The first moments of waking are a wonderful time to practice mindfulness to greet the day:

1. Arrange your body in a comfortable position.

2. Stretch and let your attention scan your body quickly.

3. Pay attention to how each part of your body feels.

4. Follow several cycles of inhales and exhales for 1 minute.

Free-range meditation

"Free-range meditation" is a term from the book " Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics " by Dan Harris, Jeff Warren, and Carlye Adler. It refers to co-opting daily activities for your meditation practice.

They use the example of a shower:

1. Pay attention to the action of turning faucets, standing under the spray, putting on soap.

2. Feel the warm water, trying to feel each individual stream.

3. Switch to cooler water for a couple of seconds, then back to warm water.

4. Keep your attention on the present. If your thoughts wander, gently bring them back.

5. Keep doing this for a minute to start, and you may eventually extend it to include the entire shower, and drying off as well!

You can do free-range meditation with any of your daily activities - brushing your teeth, washing dishes, drinking coffee, and even having a conversation with your spouse or friend.

Box breathing

This is a great exercise to do whenever you're waiting, for example:

on hold on the phone

at a traffic light

in the doctor's office

It's a highly structured type of breathing exercise that requires your full attention.

You breathe in specific counts, while visualizing a box:

1. Inhale to the count of 4 as you visualize the top edge of a box.

2. Hold your breath for a count of 4, as you go down along the right side.

3. Exhale for a count of 4, moving from right to left along the bottom edge.

4. Hold for another count of 4, going up along the left side, back to the top.

5. Repeat for several cycles for at least 1 minute.

If you'd like to try a guided demonstration, view the video Box Breathing - 1 minute in length by Conscious Works on YouTube.

Passing through a door

This exercise comes from pediatrician Jan Chozen Bays' book of mindfulness exercises: " How to Train a Wild Elephant." She calls it Entering New Spaces.

It helps us learn to leave and enter rooms, cars, houses - anything with a door - mindfully.

"Before you walk through a door, pause, even for a second, and take one breath," she writes. "Be aware of the differences you might feel in each new space you enter."

She also advises mindful attention to how we close the door behind us before entering the new environment. "We often move immediately into a new space without finishing up with the old one, forgetting to close the door or letting it slam shut," she points out.

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Do you think you're too busy for a mindfulness practice? You can find mindfulness in just 1 minute.

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Think positive thoughts. When is the last time your were happy? Go to that place in your mind for one minute. Be grateful for your happiness. 

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Take a deep breath in.... Count to 5  Take a deep breath out .... Count to 5

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Listen to the calm music and just quiet your mind for 90 seconds

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Listen to the calm music and just quiet your mind for 90 seconds

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Mindfulness Meditation | Calming Tributes - Queen Elizabeth II | One Minute Calm

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Listen to the calm music and just quiet your mind for 90 seconds

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Listen to the calm music and just quiet your mind for 90 seconds

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Mindful Minute Meditation | Calming Animals 14 with One Minute Calm

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Use this to help you take deep calm breaths

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Use this to help you take deep calm breaths

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3x3 Present in the Moment | 3-Minute Mindfulness Meditation