Creative Spark: Stick Figures

“I can’t even draw stick figures!” That’s something that I’ve heard continually throughout my life when I tell people that I’m an artist. And it’s also the joke a former principal would crack to students anytime he walked into my room. I think people say this without thinking about it too much, but it’s a pretty stupid thing to say because anyone can draw a stick figure, AND being able to draw stick figures isn’t even what making art is about. And so I always want to push back and show folks that stick figures can be a good way to push themselves creatively, especially since we don’t have to worry so much about getting them “just right.”

So, let’s use the humble stick figure as a means for sparking our creativity. As you begin, think about these few things.

1. Be Intentional. When someone draws a stick figure, often times, they do it quickly without much thought, and the results can be rather abysmal. I’m not trying to be all judgy, but if we take our time and try to be more intentional, we will most likely be happier with the results.

2. Poses. It’s easy to just draw the classic stick figure pose, but we can up our creativity and our output by thinking of different poses. By posing and positioning our figures, we can make them look like they’re doing a variety of things like running, dancing, or jumping. So, think about making your stick figures do more than just stand there.

3. Clothing and accessories. Some folks like to stick to the classic stick figure, but feel free to add other details. Clothing, accessories, and other details are perfect for giving your stick figures a bit of personality and making them a bit more complex. Perhaps a hat or a skirt. How about hair? Or holding a ball?

4. Tell a story. Stick figures are great for using to tell some type of story, and there are quite a few folks who create comics with just stick figures. Think about having one or more figures engaged in some type of story. It could be a single picture, or you could create an entire comic strip. Having your stick figures interacting with other figures and their environment is a great way to bring more depth and meaning to you stick figures.

5. Proportion. When we draw stick figures, we tend to give them really big heads and short arms and legs. But we can be more deliberate with our proportions. and by drawing the heads smaller and the arms and legs longer, we can have more variations of proportions. We can even have our stick figures have more realistic and natural proportions, and often artists use stick figures as the “skeleton” for their more realistic figures and characters. But you can also exaggerate individual proportions. What if one arm was stretched really far reaching for something? Or maybe the legs were really long making the figure very tall.

Play and experiment with stick figures, and try to do a lot. Perhaps fill a page in a sketchbook or journal. Perhaps set a timer and do as many as you can within a certain time. You can even go back with another material and thicken the lines and fill in shapes. You can flesh them out a bit and have figures like Keith Haring.

Journal Page with stick figure.

Journal page with stick figure.

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Happy Creating!

Eric