100 Ideas by Keri Smith

This list is from Keri Smith’s Website – here. She’s a brilliant illustrator and has inspired me a lot recently.

1. Go for a walk. Draw or list things you find on the sidewalk.

2. Write a letter to yourself in the future.

3. Buy something inexpensive as a symbol for your need to create (new pen, a teacup, a journal). Use it everyday.

4. Draw your dinner.

5. Find a piece of poetry you respond to. Rewrite it and glue it into your journal.

6. Glue an envelope into your journal. For one week, collect things you find in the street.

7. Expose yourself to a new artist (go to a gallery or in a book). Describe what moves you about it.

8. Find a photo of a person you do not know. Write a brief bio about them.

9. Spend a day drawing only red things.

10. Draw your bike.

11. Make a list of everything you buy in the next week.

12. Make a map of everywhere you went in one day.

13. Draw a map of the creases on your hand (knuckles, palm).

14. Trace your footsteps with chalk.

15. Record an overheard conversation (in a notebook, I presume?).

16. Trace the path of the moon in relation to where you live.

17. Go to a paint store. Collect ‘chips’ of all your favourite colours.

18. Draw your favourite tree.

19. Take 15 minutes to eat an orange.

20. Write a haiku.

21. Hang upside down for five minutes.

22. Hang found objects from tree branches.

23. Make directions for a puppet.

24. Create a collage from things you find in nature.

25. Read a book in one day.

26. Illustrate your grocery list.

27. Read a story out loud to a friend.

28. Write a letter to someone you admire.

29. Study the face of someone you do not like.

30. Play with your food.

31. Create a museum of very small things.

32. List the smells in your neighbourhood.

33. List 100 uses for a tin can.

34. Fill an entire page in your journal with small circles. Colour them in.

35. Give away something you love.

36. Choose an object. Draw the side you can’t see.

37. List all of the places you’ve ever lived.

38. Describe your favourite room in detail.

39. Write about your relationship with your washing machine.

40. Draw all of things in your purse/bag.

41. Make a mini-book on the theme ‘my grocery list’.

42. Create a character based on someone you know. Write a list of personality traits.

43. Recall your favourite childhood game.

44. Put postcards you respond to on the inside of your kitchen cupboard doors so you can see them everyday.

45. Draw the same object every day for a week.

46. Write in your journal using a different medium (Brush and ink, charcoal, old typewriter, crayons, markers).

47. Draw the individual items of your favourite outfit.

48. Make a useful item using only paper and tape.

49. Research a celebration ritual from another culture.

50. Do a temporary art installation using a pad of post it notes and a pen.

51. Draw a map of your favourite sitting spots in your town/city (photocopy it and give it to someone you like).

52. Record all of the sounds you hear in the course of one hour.

53. Using a grid, collect various textures from magazines and play them off of each other.

54. Cut out all Media for one day. Write about the effects.

55. Make pencil rubbings of six different surfaces.

56. Draw your garbage.

57. Do a morning collage.

58. List your ten most important things (not including animals or people).

59. List ten things you would like to do everyday.

60. Glue a photo of yourself as a child into your journal.

61. Transform some garbage.

62. Write an entry in your journal in really LARGE letters.

63. Collect some flat things in nature (flowers, leaves). Glue or tape them into your journal.

64. Physically alter a page (ie. cut a hole, pour tea on it, burn it, fold it, etc).

65. Find several colour combinations you respond to in public. Document them using swatches, write where you found them.

66. Experiment with simple print making (ie. monoprint, photocopy, stamping, potato printing, lino, eraser).

67. Record descriptions or definitions of words you are interested in, found in encyclopedias or dictionaries.

68. Draw the outline of an object without looking at the page. (contour drawing).

69. What were you thinking just now? write it down.

70. Do nothing.

71. Write a list of ten things you could to do. Do the last thing on the list.

72. Create an image using dots.

73. Do 3 drawings at different speeds.

74. Put a small object in your left pocket (or in a bag), Put your left hand in the pocket. Draw it by feel.

75. Create a graph documenting or measuring something in your life.

76. Draw the sun.

77. Create instructions for a simple everyday task.

78. Make prints using food. (fruit and vegetables cut in half, fish, etc.)

79. Find a photo. Alter it by drawing over it.

80. Write a letter using an unconventional medium.

81. Draw one object for twenty minutes.

82. Combine two activities that have not been combined before.

83. Write about your day in an encyclopedic fashion. (i.e. organize by subject.)

84. Write a list of all the things you do to escape.

85. Cut a random shape out of several layers of a magazine. Make a collage out of the results.

86. Write an entry in code.

87. Make a painting using tools from the bathroom.

88. Work with a medium that is subtractive.

89. Write about or draw some of the doors in your life.

90. Make a postcard that has some kind of activity on it.

91. Write an entry about a secret. Cut it up and glue the pieces in randomly.

92. Devise an entry using “layers”.

93. Write your own definition of one of the following concepts, sitting, waiting, sleeping (without using the actual word.)

94. List 10 of your habits.

95. Illustrate the concept of “simplicity”.

Your own list (write down and complete your own ideas):

96.

97.

98.

99.

100.

Keri Smith: 100 ideas (pdf)

All Images from We Heart It.