How to draw in public without feeling like a weirdo

Sometimes embarrassment gets in the way of us making those first few drawings. It can feel terrifying! But it doesn't have to.

So first things first, despite the title, drawing in public is not weird. That’s important to start with. If we can all agree that drawing in public isn’t weird, then feeling like a weirdo while drawing in front of strangers isn’t necessary and will save us a lot of angst.

Introducing the inner critic voice

The feeling of awkwardness that we can get when drawing out and about isn’t based in fact at all. It’s the fault of our inner critic voice. You know the voice I mean. The mean one inside your head who tells you:

• That you’re a weirdo. 

• That your drawing is crap

• That you’ve got the wrong pens

• That everybody is staring at you

• That even that small dog is judging you for drawing in public.

Well I’m here to tell you none of these things are true. Except perhaps the first one, because actually being a bit of a weirdo is a superpower. But I digress. 

Even once we acknowledge that our inner critic can’t be trusted though, they can be hard to tune out. The best way to do this with drawing from life is to practice.

Building a new normal

The more you draw in public, the less weird it will feel. The less you’ll feel self-conscious and a bit awkward, and the easier it’ll be to get in the creative flow. I talked about this flow state in my last post, if you’re interested.

If I haven’t been out with my sketchbook in a while, my inner critic likes to try and re-assert her authority. Sometimes, if I listen to her, she will persuade me not to take out my sketchbook.

But the thing is, I always feel better once I’ve done a bit of drawing. So I really try not to let her win very often.

Starting small

It’s all very well saying practice makes things easier, but starting those first few drawings can feel daunting. We might wonder what to draw, or where, what to bring and how long we should be drawing for.

When I first started drawing from life regularly, I liked to use a very small sketchbook and draw people on the tube. Something about the small size of the sketchbook meant I felt more incognito, and could easily hide it back in my bag, or under my sleeve if I was feeling self conscious. 

Tube drawings from 2018.

Drawing tube people was useful because the drawings had to be quick, and I didn’t get decision-overload because I’d just draw the person or people opposite me. I’ve always liked drawing faces and people, so this one was good for me. This won’t work for everyone, but you can tweak it for whatever it is you like to draw - trees, dogs, buildings.

Taking just one or two art materials also helped with this, because there was less stuff to whip out on a busy train or in a crowded place. My go-to materials were a tombow pen and a black fine liner from Muji (see below).

This is the type of sketchbook I used to carry with me.

A small A6 sketchbook, one of many I filled in the early years of sketch booking.

Another way to start small is to set a short amount of time to draw in. This was done for me on the tube, as I only had my journey length, or the amount of time before the person I was drawing got off, to make my drawing. But you can also set a timer. Perhaps 2 minutes feels manageable, but half an hour feels way too scary. That’s ok! Start with 2 minutes and see how you get on.

Nobody actually cares what you’re doing

When first starting to go out and about with a sketchbook, it can feel like we are the weirdest thing happening in a 10 mile radius. It feels like everyone’s eyes and attention is on us, and that we must be so conspicuous we may as well be wearing a sign saying ‘weirdo at work’. But honestly, nobody actually cares what you’re doing.

I don’t mean that nobody cares because you’re drawing is bad, or they don’t care about you. Nobody cares simply because they’re busy with whatever it is they are doing, and most people don’t pay much attention. They might notice you, and yes some people might want to chat, but at the end of the day they don’t really care one way or the other. The non-drawing police are not going to arrive with their megaphones and announce that you are DRAWING IN PUBLIC AND MUST BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY! Really, they aren’t.

If you live in a city, like me, people care even less. They are used to seeing all sorts of (genuinely) weird things every day. And if you live somewhere remote, well, people tend to be a lot more friendly there so you might make a new friend, who knows.

Children are the exception

There is one exception to the nobody cares mantra, and that is children. Many children will swarm you when you’re drawing if given half the chance. If you don’t particularly like children, then consider yourself warned and maybe only draw in places that children aren’t allowed in. If you quite like children, or find them funny (like me) then you’ll be just fine.

I’ve had some of my favourite chats about drawing and art with children. They’ll come over to you and say something like:

“What are you drawing?”

“Are you drawing?”

“Why are you drawing?”

And the classic “Are you a real artist?”

Or often they’ll come over to chat because they actually just want to tell you that in fact they are artists, or like drawing. Just recently, a couple of children came to talk to me in a local park. They looked at my sketchbook and asked:

“How did you get so good at drawing?”

I mean come on, if you ever needed a confidence boost go and talk to a child. They will be unashamed in their praise.

My reply was that I practice a lot, and had in fact been drawing since I was their age (6 and 8). They nodded sagely, as if that made a lot of sense, and they watched me for a while over my shoulder and with absolutely no sense of personal space. They looked through my sketchbook and told me every page was their favourite one. Then they asked me to draw them a shark, which I did. Then they told me it had to be a friendly shark. Obviously, I said. 

The friendly shark I drew for the children in the back of my sketchbook.

I’ve had lots of these conversations over the years with children and sometimes also their parents or carers, and it strikes me every time how none of the children have any sense that drawing in public might make you a weirdo. They’re all very accepting in a way that our inner critics are certainly not.

I wonder when it is that we begin to judge ourselves for following creative urges? 

So set your inner child loose and just draw from life in public if you want to. They won’t judge you for it, and they might teach you how to enjoy being creative again.

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to see more of my sketchbook pages, you can find them:

• On my website

• On Instagram

• In my sketchbook zines