8 Fun Drawing Styles to Try Art Style Ideas

Sometimes you might, just like me, want to try another style. But there are so many to choose from. So I listed 8 of my favorite drawing style ideas that I have tried or want to try that you might want to give a go too.

What are my favorite drawing styles?

1. Doodle art

Doodling is a very relaxing style to draw in. You can't really do anything wrong. And if you have no idea what you want to draw, no problem! Just move your pen or pencil where ever you feel like. It's doesn't need to be something. It can just be a bunch of shapes intersecting. But if you start to see something in your drawing you can also work more towards what it looks like.

Vexx's doodle style is very different. His doodles contain a lot of figures and sometimes also something realistic as in the image above. His doodles often contain flowers, skateboards, clouds, letters and some creatures. And all these elements are overlapping so that there isn't any white part between them.

2. Abstract

This is, just like doodling, another art style where you can just draw whatever you feel like drawing. But it can also be more complicated. You can kind of see this style as a color study to see what colors do and look like next to other colors, or as an experiment of shapes and textures. But it can also be something very different or nothing at all.

When you don't know what to draw this is definitely a style to try. Just keep it simple and don't overdo it.

3. Realism

Realism is one of my favorite styles. I always like to draw something realistic. It can be a little difficult to draw something from memory realistically. I always find it hard to imagine the lights, the shadows and the reflections.

When drawing something realistic there are countless of things to draw and you don't always need a photo to guide you. Just look around your room and pick something you could draw. And then just draw it while looking at it.

4. Hyper realism

Hyper realism is by far my favorite art style to draw at the moment. When drawing hyper realistically you try to draw as realistic as a photo. You draw every single detail, you draw the colors, the lights and the shadow as precise and realistic as possible.

Drawing hyper realistic does take a lot of time. For me just drawing a car on A4 sized paper takes around 10 hours. But when it's done it was definitely worth it.

Also when you want to grow a following on social media this style might be something for you. I've noticed that people are very easily impressed by hyper realistic drawings. And most people like the style, unlike abstract art.

To get this style to look good though you need to draw the proportions and the values very accurately. The grid method can make it a lot easier to draw to proportions perfect. You can learn more about the grid method and how to use it in this article I wrote.

5. Anime/cartoon

Anime art is kind of the opposite of hyper realism. This style is a very simplified version and the proportions don't need to be realistic so it's a lot simpler to start with.

I would just screenshot scenes of the series I was watching and draw them.

This is a great art style if you don't want to spend lots of time on one drawing as there aren't many details and all the colors are mostly flat colors. This makes this art style suitable for alcohol markers.

6. Product design

I really like this art style. Maybe not so much to draw, but when other people draw like this it always looks really cool. Product design is  sort of a simplified version of realism. Which is quite logical when you think about it. You want to quickly sketch something to show a client, but it needs to be kind of realistic. That's why everything is drawn in very quick and long motions.

If you want to try this style just pick something in your room to draw and just sketch it.

7. Graffiti art

Graffiti art is a style i have no experience in (yet), but I always think it looks really cool and so different from other art styles. And of course that's partly because of the spray paint used to create this art. But as you can see you can just replicate this style with almost every other medium. You could also see this style as street art I guess as it's not specifically linked to the medium anymore.

8. Geometric art

Geometric art is a style I that didn't really caught my I until recently when I saw a reel from @tashavision_. Well I guess the doodles i made in my notebooks could be described as geometric art.

Geometric art is so mesmerizing to look at especially these paintings from @tashavision_ on Instagram. The gradients and how the colors react next to each other makes such a simple painting look so sophisticated.

Luuk Minkman

Full-Time Artist Specialized in Automotive Art

I'm an artist and I draw realistic cars with alcohol markers and colored pencils. I have been doing so for a decade. I'm sharing everything I know about drawing on this blog. On here, you can find all you need to know to learn how you can draw realistic cars and other subjects yourself. Stay updated by following me on Instagram.