This December drawing challenge gives you 31 prompts, one for every day of the month, built around ordinary objects, seasonal changes, light, nature, places, and the small details that tend to define December.
I usually give myself some kind of personal drawing goal in December, but I try to keep it deliberately low pressure. The month can get busy, and I would rather finish a few honest sketches than turn drawing into another obligation.
Most of the prompts below can be completed in 10 to 20 minutes with a pencil, pen, colored pencil, watercolor, or whatever you already use. Some days I might take a drawing further. Other days a five-minute sketch is enough.
December also does not look the same everywhere. If the month is cold and dark where you live, use bare branches, winter clothes, long shadows, and indoor scenes. If December is warm or summery for you, draw the plants, light, weather, and outdoor life you actually see.
If you want ideas that are not tied to a particular month, browse my larger collection of drawing prompts.
Choose Your Version of the December Drawing Challenge
You do not have to complete this challenge in one particular way. I would choose a format that fits the amount of time you realistically have.
| Challenge | How to use the prompts |
|---|---|
| Daily | Draw one prompt every day from December 1 through 31. |
| Three times a week | Choose whichever prompts interest you and aim for about 12 drawings. |
| Weekly | Choose one prompt each week and spend more time on it. |
| Five-minute version | Set a timer and stop when it ends, even if the drawing is unfinished. |
| One-theme version | Adapt all of the prompts to nature, people, animals, interiors, or another subject you enjoy. |
The goal is to make the challenge help you draw more, not create another streak you feel guilty about breaking.
31 December Drawing Prompts
Follow these in order or move them around. If a prompt does not fit your surroundings, change it. I would rather adapt the subject than force myself to draw something I have no interest in.
- December 1: The view from a window. Use the frame of the window to simplify the composition.
- December 2: Your morning drink. Draw the cup, handle, steam, ice, or shadow rather than worrying about making the shape perfectly symmetrical.
- December 3: Something you wear this month. Try a coat, sandal, scarf, hat, sweater, sunglasses, or whatever makes sense where you live.
- December 4: A seasonal plant. Draw an evergreen branch, bare twig, flower, houseplant, tropical leaf, seedpod, or something growing outside.
- December 5: Shoes by the door. Let the overlapping shapes and different angles become the subject.
- December 6: Light after dark. Draw a lamp, illuminated window, string of lights, streetlight, candle, or glowing screen.
- December 7: A bird you see nearby. Begin with posture and silhouette instead of feathers.
- December 8: A stack of books. Notice the uneven edges, angles, and dark spaces between them.
- December 9: Something wrapped or packaged. Use folds, tape, string, labels, boxes, or packaging as shapes and lines.
- December 10: A shadow across a wall or floor. Draw the shadow itself instead of outlining the object creating it.
- December 11: A street at dusk. Choose one doorway, parked car, storefront, tree, sign, or pool of artificial light.
- December 12: A natural texture. Zoom in on bark, stone, a shell, leaf, feather, pinecone, seedpod, or another small natural surface.
- December 13: Your hand holding something. Keep the object simple and pay attention to the negative spaces between the fingers.
- December 14: Something associated with a tradition. Draw an object connected with a holiday, family ritual, celebration, meal, trip, or personal routine.
- December 15: A quick self-portrait. Use a mirror and reduce your face to the largest light and dark areas.
- December 16: One interesting silhouette. Choose a single object and concentrate on its outside shape before adding interior details.
- December 17: A plant indoors. Follow the direction of the stems and leaves rather than outlining every edge.
- December 18: Something on your desk. Draw one ordinary object you normally stop noticing.
- December 19: Three things from your pocket or bag. Arrange them into a small still life.
- December 20: An animal resting. Sketch a pet, bird, or another animal while it is relatively still. If it moves, let the unfinished drawing stay unfinished.
- December 21: Changing light. Draw the same window, room, tree, or building at two different times of day.
- December 22: A doorway or entrance. Notice how the frame divides what you can and cannot see.
- December 23: Something being prepared. Draw ingredients, tools, decorations, luggage, clothing, or objects being arranged for an activity.
- December 24: A quiet corner. Find an ordinary part of your home, hotel, neighborhood, or wherever you happen to be and draw what is actually there.
- December 25: One detail from today. Ignore the pressure to summarize the whole day. Draw one cup, hand, chair, plate, plant, view, person, or object that caught your attention.
- December 26: The aftermath. Draw dishes, wrapping, an unmade room, leftovers, shoes, luggage, empty glasses, or another scene after people have moved through it.
- December 27: Something from a walk. Draw a tree, building, animal, sign, cloud, parked vehicle, or object you noticed outside.
- December 28: A sound turned into marks. Respond to music, rain, traffic, wind, voices, insects, or another sound using lines, shapes, and pressure.
- December 29: An object that reminds you of the year. It can be important or completely ordinary.
- December 30: A place you returned to often. Draw it from life, memory, or one of your own photographs.
- December 31: One page of December. Combine several objects, shapes, textures, or observations from earlier in the month into a final sketchbook page.
Easy December Drawing Ideas for Busy Days
December can become busy very quickly. If I do not have time for the day’s full prompt, I would rather make a five-minute sketch than decide the challenge is ruined.
Pick one of these and stop whenever you need to:
- a mug
- one shoe
- a candle or lamp
- a leaf
- a pinecone or seedpod
- a spoon
- one ornament or decorative object
- a closed book
- your keys
- a piece of fruit
- one cloud
- your hand
- a sleeping pet
- a chair
- one interesting shadow
If none of those appeals to you, choose something from my easy drawing ideas for beginners. The subject matters less than actually opening the sketchbook.
December Drawing Themes You Can Explore All Month
You do not have to switch to a completely different subject every day. Sometimes I prefer choosing one theme and exploring variations on it throughout the month.
Seasonal Nature
Draw whatever December actually looks like where you live.
That might mean bare branches, snow, evergreens, dried plants, migrating birds, summer flowers, insects, dramatic clouds, fruit, seedpods, or new growth.
I like this approach because the sketchbook becomes a record of changes I probably would not remember otherwise. If you enjoy combining drawing with observation and notes, it can easily turn into a small nature journal.
December at Home
Stay indoors and draw ordinary scenes:
- coffee mugs
- books
- a sleeping animal
- chairs
- kitchen counters
- shoes near the door
- plants near windows
- lamps and shadows
- clothes thrown over furniture
An ordinary room gives me plenty to work with once I stop waiting for an obviously artistic subject.
Holiday and Celebration Details
If holidays or celebrations are part of your December, concentrate on individual details rather than trying to illustrate the entire event.
- decorations
- lights
- wrapping paper
- table settings
- food
- cards
- clothing
- hands preparing something
- objects connected with a family tradition
I find one small observed detail usually makes a more interesting sketch than trying to fit an entire celebration onto one page.
Streets and Places
December can also be a good excuse to draw places you already visit: neighborhood streets, cafés, stores, parks, train stations, airports, hotel rooms, or wherever the month takes you.
You do not have to draw the entire scene. A doorway, sign, table, parked bicycle, tree, or person waiting can be enough.
If you want to get more comfortable sketching locations, my urban sketching guides go deeper into drawing on location.
How I Keep a December Drawing Habit From Becoming Work
I enjoy drawing challenges only as long as they make me want to draw.
If I start worrying about catching up, producing something impressive, or keeping every page consistent, the challenge has stopped serving its purpose.
I Keep My Materials Simple
A small sketchbook and one familiar drawing tool are enough.
I often like using a ballpoint pen because I can simply start drawing without setting anything up. Pencil works just as well. The best material for a month-long challenge is usually the one you will actually reach for.
If you want a simple practice structure outside a monthly challenge, my daily sketching routine is the more relevant guide.
I Start With the Biggest Shapes
When a subject looks complicated, I try not to solve every small piece individually.
I look for the largest silhouette, the major direction of the subject, and the biggest areas of light and dark first.
Once those relationships make sense, I can decide which smaller details actually deserve attention.
I Let Imperfect Drawings Stay in the Sketchbook
Some of my favorite sketchbook pages are not the most accurate ones.
They have repeated lines, strange proportions, unfinished areas, or marks I would probably remove from a polished drawing.
A daily challenge gives me enough drawings that one awkward page does not matter very much.
If perfectionism keeps slowing you down, I talk more about this in drawing is imperfect.
I Do Not Catch Up
If I miss December 10, I can simply draw December 11.
I do not want one missed day to turn tomorrow’s drawing into two assignments, followed by three the day after that.
I can always return to a skipped prompt later if I actually want to.
Make the Prompts More Expressive
You can also use the December prompts as starting points rather than instructions.
Take one ordinary object and change how you draw it:
- use only two values
- draw without an outline
- make the subject fill the entire page
- crop half of it away
- draw only its shadow
- use your non-dominant hand
- give yourself three minutes
- use several overlapping lines instead of one clean contour
- turn a sound or memory into marks around it
This is often how I keep a familiar subject from becoming repetitive. My guide to being more creative in drawing has more experiments like these.
Try Drawing a December Scene Instead of an Object
If individual objects start feeling repetitive, draw one small scene.
It could be a table after breakfast, a person sitting near a window, a street after dark, a quiet kitchen, luggage near a doorway, or a corner of a room with interesting light.
I would not try to record everything.
Choose the few large shapes that make the scene recognizable and let secondary details stay secondary.
My guide to drawing a scene goes further into simplifying environments without getting lost in every object.
What If You Start the December Drawing Challenge Late?
Start with today’s prompt.
You do not need to complete the earlier drawings first, and you do not need 31 finished pages for the challenge to count.
If you begin on December 18 and finish ten drawings before the end of the month, you still created ten drawings you probably would not have made otherwise.
You can also ignore the dates completely and work through the list at your own pace.
Can You Use These December Drawing Prompts Every Year?
Yes. Nothing in the list is tied to a particular year.
Repeating the challenge can actually make it more interesting because December will not look exactly the same twice.
You may live somewhere different, travel, develop new routines, use another sketchbook, become interested in different subjects, or simply notice things you ignored before.
The prompts stay the same while the drawings change.
December Can Become a Small Visual Record of the Month
At the end of December, I like the idea of looking at all the drawings together rather than judging each one separately.
The pages might contain ordinary objects, changing weather, decorations, plants, animals, rooms, places, people, light, and small moments that would otherwise disappear into the month.
They do not need to match. They do not need to be finished. Some might be little more than a few lines.
Together, though, they can become a record of what caught your attention during one December.
If you enjoy month-specific prompts, you can also save my September drawing prompts. If you want a challenge you can start at any time of year, use my 30-day drawing challenge ideas.