What to Draw When Bored
Fun prompts for when you have a pen and nothing to do.
A cat tangled in tinsel
64 ideas in this deck
Tip: press the space bar or the right arrow for the next one.
What to draw when bored and the time feels long
You have a pen, a scrap of paper and nothing to do. This page answers what to draw when bored with one random prompt at a time, and the prompts are built to keep you busy. They are not single objects. They are small, odd situations: “A dragon who is afraid of mice”, “A party for all your socks”, “Everything on your desk right now”. Each one has room for as much detail as your boredom calls for.
There are 64 ideas in this deck.
How to use it
- Press Next, the space bar or the right arrow key for a prompt.
- Start drawing right away, before you talk yourself out of it.
- If an idea does not grab you, press Next again. Nobody is checking.
- Want the last one back? Press Previous.
The counter shows how many prompts remain. You will see all 64 before any repeats.
What kind of ideas you get
- Mash ups. A new animal made from two real ones, a spaceship made of kitchen tools.
- Everyday things made strange. A bike with square wheels, a house shaped like a shoe, an upside down city.
- Look around you. Everything out your window, everything on your desk.
- About you. Yourself at 80, your pet as a superhero, your name in bubble letters.
- Mini stories. A three panel comic, a day in the life of a raindrop.
Places boredom strikes
Waiting rooms
Draw on the back of a receipt or in your phone’s notes app with a finger. Small and messy is fine.
Rainy days at home
Pick one big prompt, like a map of an imaginary island, and spend the afternoon adding rivers, towns and names.
Long car rides
Kids can draw on a clipboard. Read the prompt out loud and compare drawings at the next stop.
Instead of scrolling
When you catch yourself scrolling with no purpose, open this page, press Next once, and draw for ten minutes.
Tips for bored drawing
Do not erase
Use a pen. Mistakes become part of the picture, and you will finish faster.
Fill the whole page
Keep adding details to the background until no blank space is left. Patterns, little people, clouds, anything.
Combine two prompts
Press Next twice and put both ideas in one picture. A wizard’s messy workshop inside a fishbowl is better than either alone.
Set a small limit
Give yourself one color, or only circles, or five minutes. Limits make choices easier when you have no energy for them.
Random, fair and free
The order comes from your browser’s cryptographic random generator, so you will not get the same sequence twice. It is free and runs in your browser. Want something simpler for younger kids? Try easy things to draw. The full what to draw generator mixes in all five idea types.
Examples from this deck
A few of the 64 ideas you can get above:
- A cat tangled in tinsel
- A watch drawn on your wrist
- A narwhal with a party hat
- A monster made of three random shapes
- A robot that does your chores
- A dragon who is afraid of mice
- A pattern that fills the whole page
- A sandwich stacked as tall as a building
- A bike with square wheels
- An octopus doing eight jobs at once
- Your hand traced and turned into an animal
- A train that travels underwater
Frequently asked questions
How many ideas are on the what to draw when bored page?
There are 64 ideas, all tagged When bored in the main drawing deck.
What makes these different from easy drawing ideas?
They are open ended. Instead of a single object, most give you a strange situation, like a dragon who is afraid of mice, that you can grow into a whole page.
What can I draw with if I only have a pen?
A pen works well for these. You cannot erase, which stops you fussing over details and keeps the drawing loose and fun.
How long does each idea take?
That is up to you. A quick version takes a few minutes, while a map of an imaginary island or a comic strip can fill an afternoon.
Will the same idea come up twice?
Not until all 64 have come up. Then the deck shuffles itself and starts over.