I’ve not been using my sketchbooks as much in the last couple of weeks, and I wanted to change that. So today I sat down at my desk for some quick timer drawings, using the beautiful images that are sent out in the monthly emails from Ellie at Still Flower Drawing.
I started doing these timer drawings last year, and shared this post about it back in May 2024. They’re a great option when I’m feeling uninspired, or overwhelmed at the idea of starting a new drawing. I set a timer, usually for 3 minutes (although I often start with a 5 minute one to get me used to the time restriction) and just draw! The time limit means I can’t overthink or overwork it, and I can just focus on making marks and getting down the shapes of what I’m looking at.
For me, these are always about flowers and plants, because that’s what I’m most comfortable drawing and what comes more naturally to me. But you could apply the same idea to any subject matter. It’s a great way to quickly fill up lots of pages and warm up your drawing hand. Sometimes I do it at the start of the day to help me get in to work, or sometimes I do a few of a specific subject mater before moving on to some more detailed ink drawings or paintings.
This exercise is often paired with a challenge to not look at the paper while drawing. I don’t fully stop myself from looking, but try to make sure I’m spending most of time looking at the subject matter, and only look back at the paper a few times during the 3 minutes, to check I’m in the right place and not going off the page.
This is a series from last summer when I had a bunch of peonies in a vase on my desk. For the whole week I started my day with 5x 3 minutes drawings of the peonies. The flowers changed as the week went on as they opened up from buds to full blooms, so I had something different to draw each day. Over the week I did 25 studies, so got in lots of drawing practice and produced a stack of work I loved in a really short space of time. I noticed patterns and ways of drawing peonies that I particularly enjoyed, and I still notice myself using those ideas now.
Earlier this year I brought some geraniums in from the garden, put them in a little jug on my desk and drew them over and over again, for 1-3 minutes a time. These are all from the same day, using a few different materials, changing the angle of the jug, and focusing on different parts of the plant each time to get a bunch of totally different drawings.
A few other favourites from the last year, using a mix of reference images, books and real flowers. I try to challenge myself to draw new flower types when I’m doing this too. Often a flower I haven’t drawn before will seem a bit daunting, but spending just 3 minutes on it takes the pressure off - if it’s a terrible drawing, that’s fine because it only took a few minutes of my time and I probably learnt something from it anyway!
I’m working digitally a lot at the moment, but want to keep up with traditional drawing and filling sketchbooks too, so I’ll be building this back in to my routine to keep me drawing regularly.
Have you tried drawing with a timer?
I love drawing with a timer, and I want to do it more often cause it's so great to get yourself out of that overly perfectionist mode! Though I never tried not looking at my page while drawing! Will have to try that next time! Your drawings look really great, would never have guessed you did them in such a short time!
What a delightful practice! I'm going to have to try it myself. It's also impressive the quality of flowers you are drawing in under 3 minutes. It goes to show the work you have put into the craft 👏🏻
I haven't drawn with a timer before but I'm excited to try it!