Can’t think of 10 different drawing styles? Here are 17 [+10 drawing tips]

Want to improve your drawing skills? Feeling stagnant in your style and keen to try something new?

Experimenting with simple drawing styles is a fantastic way to hone your skills, improve your ability to capture imaginative imagery, and reignite your creative ideas.

There are many different styles of drawing to play with, so we've compiled a list of modern and classic drawing style ideas for you to explore and test.

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A note on different drawing styles

Finding the drawing styles you love takes exploration and practice, and it's also influenced by the medium you're working with. 

The most common drawing mediums are:

• Pencil drawing (graphite, watercolor pencils, or colored pencils)
• Ink drawing
• Pen drawing
• Chalk drawing
• Crayon drawing
• Charcoal drawing
• Drawings with digital tools such as tablets and drawing/illustration software 

Before choosing an art style, you also need to consider the appropriateness of your medium and the surface you have available to draw on. For instance, to create a hyperrealist drawing, you're better off using a pencil and smooth paper than crayons and textured paper.

The ultimate drawing art styles list

We've listed 18 different drawing art styles for you to expand your artistic and technical abilities. See what inspires you, from basic types like doodling and line drawing to complex photorealism and 3D illusions.

1. Doodling

Doodling is an informal drawing style, usually created absent-mindedly (for instance, to keep yourself entertained in class).

Everything, from drawing a simple shape over and over to creating characters that spring to life off the page, can be considered doodling.

Many people discover their love for drawing by doodling as children. Some designers carve out their unique drawing style around the informal aesthetic of doodles. The doodle freehand drawing style is incredibly trendy for internet-based companies and SaaS startups.

2. Photorealism & Hyperrealism

Photorealistic drawings intend to depict reality as you would with a picture.

Hyperrealism strives to be "more real than reality," making it hard to tell that the drawing is actually a drawing.

Drawing in these styles often requires a lot of preparatory sketches and erasing sections you've drawn to improve on them. But realistic drawing sharpens your eye and improves design skills across all areas. It helps you get faster at producing more accurate simple drawings, too.

If you're interested in drawing portraits, these drawing styles are perfect for you, as you'll learn to capture facial features in incredible detail. 

3.Cartoon style

The cartoon style is usually a simplified, non-realistic way of drawing, often with exaggerated features. What we love about cartooning is that you can make characters look like and do anything.

Superheroes with huge muscles and bionic arms, babies with psychic powers, animals that wear clothes and can talk, cars and clothing that don't exist, out-of-this-world destinations — the possibilities of cartoons are endless.

Different art styles exist under the "cartoon" umbrella: 

• Caricature drawing
• Character design
• Cartoon strip
• Comic book style
• Anime
• Insert cartoon drawing style invented by you here

While cartoon-style drawings work equally well to create a cute and whimsical feeling, they don't need to be childlike.

4.Line drawing

Line drawing styles have become very popular in recent years. They frequently appear in social media and online editorial design, as well as cosmetic brands, T-shirts, and tote bags.

This technique is particularly satisfying for beginners, as line drawings are quick and uncomplicated. It's also fun to turn a photograph or complex image into something simpler by tracing over it with a line drawing.

5. Architectural drawing

While architects learn to hone this skill to a highly technical level, drawing beautiful pieces of architecture is great for artists to learn about detail, volume, perspective, and precision.

You can copy photographs of beautiful buildings or draw them from real life if you can access an exciting view. You could also draw architectural pieces from your imagination.

You will gain valuable technical skills and develop a keen eye for great architecture and an appreciation of its beauty.

6. Fashion illustration

This drawing style is highly practical and developed within the fashion industry. Fashion designers developed drawing methods to quickly capture the essence of a garment through gestural drawings.

Fashion illustrations often depict elongated figures resembling models, with minimal focus on anatomical features to emphasize the clothing.

You can study various postures and poses to create functional and sophisticated fashion drawings. Push yourself to depict attitudes and movement as accurately as possible using only a few light lines. 

You'll be surprised how much it'll help you bring designs to life, such as flat character designs and storyboarding ideation.

7.Diagrammatic drawing

A diagrammatic drawing is a technical drawing that explains how something works. You can create a diagrammatic drawing of anything from a human or animal to interior design plans and exploded views of objects.

Diagrammatic drawing is a good practice for developing your observational skills. It also helps you plot ideas from your imagination, for instance, when creating imaginary worlds or designing new products.

8.Tattoo drawing

The first thing tattoo artists learn to do before picking up a tattoo gun is to draw. And they draw a lot. 

Tattoo apprenticeships last about six months, and aspiring tattoo artists spend all that time perfecting their art before permanently etching them into someone's skin.

There are many different tattoo styles. If you want to become a tattoo artist or just enjoy drawing in this style, start following tattoo artists who inspire you and draw the types of tattoos you love.

9.Geometric drawing

Geometric drawing offers so much variety. You can create stunning portraits by combining abstract geometric shapes and clean lines. 

You can also try experimenting with geometric patterns to create seamless backgrounds. 

Designers need to be able to break things down into geometric shapes to capture and build both the real and the imaginary. Logo design also often relies on geometry to produce elegant, impactful branding.

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10.Stippling, hatching, cross-hatching, and scumbling

These are all hand-drawn art styles used to cover large surface areas with marks.

Stippling involves creating a drawing from many tiny dots, usually done in one color. The dots are grouped together to create images. Shading and gradients are created by placing the dots closer together or spreading them out. You can get incredibly detailed with stippling, which also teaches you to be conscious of shading.

Hatching and cross-hatching are used to create depth, gradient, and texture without blending. Hatching involves filling in an image with closely-drawn parallel lines. 

Cross-hatching is almost the same, except the lines intersect and cross one another. 

Scumbling is often used for areas where you want to suggest detail rather than explicitly outline every detail. You can also achieve scumbling by rubbing, smudging, or lightly dragging your pencil across the drawing surface rather than using solid lines. This can be used to create gradient effects, textures, or soft shadows.

11.3D drawing

There's realistic drawing, and then there's 3D drawing. Who doesn't love an occasional optical illusion to trick the eye and amuse the mind?

You can use perspective drawing principles to make your images seemingly move off the flat drawing surface into a three-dimensional form. All of it is an illusion, of course.

While the most popular works usually include complex subjects and colors, you can practice 3D drawing quite easily using simple shapes in pencil only.

12. Scribble art

This drawing style is defined using free-form lines, often rapidly or randomly applied, to build texture, shape, and form. The goal can be to create a recognizable image or an abstract design.

Though it may seem haphazard, scribble art can be quite detailed and precise.

In scribble art, you typically use repetitive circular motions, zigzags, or other patterns with a drawing medium, layering them to create darker and lighter areas of the drawing.

13.Typography drawing

Whether you're a professional graphic designer who regularly works with fonts or just love playing around with typography as a creative, typography design is a fascinating area of expertise.

Typography drawing could involve anything from drawing scenes inside letters to creating an image out of wording. It's up to you to get creative and have fun playing with lettering.

Trying some calligraphy drawing might also be a worthwhile technique for learning about the world of lettering, mastering the medium of ink, and honing your precision skills.

14.AI-assisted drawing 

This modern drawing technique mixes the skills of the designer or illustrator with the power of GenAI. Since AI has been trained on all existing art styles and techniques, it can be a great assistant for pushing the boundaries of your imagination.

You can use AI to...

• Help you spruce up a drawing by adding AI-generated elements, characters, or backgrounds
• Mix and match different types of drawing techniques to get inspired
• Suggest colors or shapes to include in your drawing
• Ask for feedback on how to improve your drawing
• Generate an entirely new artwork based on your prompts

15.Digital brush and pen drawing

All the drawing genres explored before tend to be exercised by hand on paper. But you can do the same, and with greater flexibility, with sketching and illustration tools like Linearity Curve or Procreate. 

Software for digital illustration offers pen tools that can be used to, for instance, draw vector portraits. Or a variety of brush tools that can emulate, for instance, watercolor or pencil strokes. For example, you can use these brushes to design and color cartoon characters. 

Digital drawings can still achieve an organic look and feel, it all depends on your mastery of the brushes and the precision and pressure sensitivity of the hardware you're using to draw.

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 16.AR/VR drawing

AR/VR can assist in the creation of digital 3D art. Innovative software like Gravity Sketch allows you to draw in the air. 

You put on your VR headset and touch controllers and can start drawing with your hands in front of you. Since VR has a 360-degree view, you can adjust your drawing from all possible angles and perspectives. 

You can also create layered compositions or fully immersive artworks.

This art style might not be accessible to most people, but it's certainly an interesting advancement in digital three-dimensional art.

17.Mixed-media drawing 

Mixed media drawing is the proper amalgamation of all drawing styles. 

As the name suggests, this art style is all about mixing and matching. You might create a portrait line drawing with ink, then scan it and color between the lines using a digital brush. 

Or you might hand-paint a watercolor scene, upload it to your computer, and ask AI to complete the image with some animals. 

You could also prepare a sketch by hand, photograph it, and use it as the basis for a digital illustration. 

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Tips on how to draw better instantly

Most creatives and designers, whether just starting out or seasoned experts, want to know how to draw better. It's important to consciously try to keep creativity alive by drawing. But drawing is both an art and a technical skill. So, to improve in the long term, you also need to master the technical side.

Learning the technical side of the drawing styles you enjoy most will also help improve your design skills and artistic abilities.

This is because drawing teaches you to focus on detail, precision, and understanding what it takes to create beautiful works of art and design.

We've pulled together some exercises recommended by artists that'll help you improve your technique.

Drawing tip #1: keep a daily sketchbook

Sketching is an essential practice for anyone wanting to improve their observation skills.

The goal is to draw something fast, often much faster than you're used to, capturing the most essential features. Depending on the subject, drawing a quick sketch should take a few seconds or a few minutes.

If you practice sketching regularly, you'll soon realize that you're more able to put down fleeting moments in your sketchbook. This could be a passerby on the street or animals at the park.

The more you improve your drawing speed, the more accurately you'll be able to capture and immortalize the world around you.

Drawing tip #2: use perspective to make drawings more realistic

Especially if you're trying to improve your realistic drawing skills, you're probably familiar with using perspective. 

For example, suppose you're sitting on a park bench across from a fountain. In that case, your drawing will illustrate it from that angle: with a large fountain front and center and the people and objects behind it much smaller.

Perspective can be one of the most challenging skills to master, and it's helpful to engage in exercises that will help you improve your grasp of perspective. Once you do, drawing and painting more realistic images from your imagination will be easier.

Drawing tip #3: improve your proportioning

Much like using perspective, correct proportions help make your drawings more realistic.

The grid method is a helpful tool for practicing proportions. If you're looking for a simple exercise to begin working with grids, start with an image you want to draw. Have the following tools handy: a ruler, your favorite graphite pencil, and an eraser.

Then, draw vertical and horizontal lines across your image to mimic the look of traditional graph paper. Grid boxes are commonly measured one inch wide by one inch wide.

Once your grid is established, label the rows and columns with numbers (horizontally) and letters (vertically). Next, replicate the grid pattern on blank drawing paper, which will become your drawing grid.

Lay it next to the original image, side-by-side. Then get drawing.

Drawing tip #4: perfect working with shapes

Shapes are important when practicing drawing because they can help you communicate designs better. Shapes also help you develop intricate patterns and fill space within abstract pieces. 

Shape exercises are simple yet effective techniques that can improve your drawing abilities.

Shape exercises challenge you to examine photographs and drawings and identify the basic shapes that make up their foundations.

Once you train yourself to see and sketch key elements of complex works of art, you'll better understand how images come together.

Drawing tip #5: use stick figures

Though drawing stick figures sounds somewhat basic, they're an exceptional tool for improving your anatomical drawings.

Stick figures provide the basis for our line figure drawings. When we begin with a simple subject we're familiar with and can draw, it's easy to turn these basic figures into more complex, accurate drawings.

Stick figures can also be a great starting point for quickly sketching ideas without wasting time on details.

Drawing tip #6: mastering light and shadow

Understanding how light and shadow work is essential for creating a sense of depth and three-dimensionality in your drawings.

Start by observing objects in different lighting conditions. Note where the light hits the object (highlight), where the object blocks the light (shadow), and the transition between light and shadow (mid-tones).

Draw simple shapes like spheres, cylinders, and cubes under a single light source, focusing on how the light and shadow fall on the object.

Drawing tip #7: practice line quality

Line quality can significantly affect the look and feel of your drawing. Thick lines can denote weight and provide emphasis, while thin lines can suggest delicacy or distance.

Practice creating a range of line types by adjusting the pressure of your pencil on the page, using different types of pencils (HB, 2B, 4B, etc.), or trying out different drawing tools (like charcoal, pen, or pastel).

Drawing tip #8: mixing techniques

Don't limit yourself to one drawing technique. In the same drawing, experiment with hatching, stippling, scumbling, photorealism, and more.

Different techniques can add texture and depth to your drawings. Trying different methods expands your skill set and inspires you to think creatively about approaching your next drawing subject.

Drawing tip #9: take breaks and step back

Sometimes, when drawing, you can get so caught up in the details that you lose sight of the overall picture. Every so often, take a step back from your work or even take a break entirely.

When you return to your drawing, you'll have a fresh perspective and be more likely to notice if something looks off.

Drawing tip #10: embrace mistakes

Mistakes are an integral part of the learning process. Don't be discouraged if your drawing doesn't turn out as envisioned. Instead, analyze what you don't like about it and how you can improve.

What's important is that you learn from them and continue to improve. Practice and patience are key to improving your drawing skills.

Practice all drawing styles with Linearity

Drawing is one of the most accessible and enriching artistic forms you can discover. With so many approaches to rendering the world around us on two-dimensional surfaces, there's so much you can learn to enhance your creative flow.

You can put all of the techniques explored in this article to the test by using digital drawing tools, such as Linearity Curve.

With Linearity Curve's Pen Tool, you can turn any drawing mark into a vector shape or line that you can edit to your heart's content. Stretch, color, add gradients, copy-paste, and more on your Mac or iPad.

Download Linearity Curve and start digitally practicing your favorite drawing styles for free.

We'd love to hear from you and see your finished drawings. Why not share your designs on social media or with our Linearity Community?