Winter Drawing Ideas: 40 Things to Draw in Your Sketchbook This Winter

The best winter drawing ideas are sitting right outside your door. Christmas lights strung along the street, an ice skater at the local rink, smoke rising from a chimney, a fox crossing fresh snow, icicles catching the last of the afternoon light. Winter hands artists a whole new palette and a hundred subjects that simply do not exist in July. Below are 40 things to draw this winter, split into holiday scenes for December and quieter snow scenes for the long stretch after, plus the real reason drawing the season is worth your time.

For artists, genuinely cool things happen during the winter months. The light outside changes character, the trees drop their leaves, and the whole world takes on the glow of holiday lights. In terms of fresh subject matter for your sketchbook, it is hard to beat what December and the rest of winter give you. If you have been itching to take your sketchbook out and draw, these lists will keep your pages full all season.

What are the best winter drawing ideas for December?

The best December drawing ideas come from the way the season decorates itself. Lights, markets, carolers, and storefronts turn an ordinary street into a stage, so you rarely have to look hard for a subject. Here are 20 holiday things to draw in your sketchbook this December.

1. Christmas lights on your house and around your neighborhood
2. Christmas and holiday decorations in your city’s downtown area
3. Holiday lawn decorations
4. Christmas and holiday-themed window decorations in local stores
5. The windows of your local bakery, filled with holiday goodies
6. The windows of the local candy store
7. Ice skaters at the local outdoor rink
8. Christmas carolers who sing around your neighborhood
9. Holiday-themed porch decorations
10. Scenes around the Christmas markets in your town
11. Holiday candles in windows
12. Ornaments on outdoor trees
13. People sitting on park benches with their holiday-themed coffee cups
14. Snow angels that your kids make in the backyard
15. People decorating their homes and lawns for the holidays
16. The Salvation Army holiday bell ringers
17. Reindeer
18. Letters to Santa in the mailbox
19. Mistletoe on the porch
20. Christmas bells

These lists are meant to be evergreen. You may not get to paint the local Christmas market this particular year, and that is fine. The point is to keep the ideas flowing, so when you sit down to draw, you are never staring at a blank page wondering where to begin.

What can you draw in winter after the holidays?

After the decorations come down, winter is still full of subjects, just quieter ones. The snow, the bare trees, and the animals that move through a cold landscape give you weeks of material once the holidays are over. Here are 20 winter things to draw for January and the rest of the season.

1. Your pets playing in the snow
2. Your kids, or the neighbors’ kids, playing in the snow
3. Smoke coming from the chimney
4. Winter bonfires
5. Frozen lakes
6. Frozen or snowy rivers
7. Your local streetlight at dusk as the snow is falling
8. Snow-covered cars
9. Snowmen
10. People building a snowman
11. Someone shoveling the sidewalk
12. The local snowplow clearing the streets
13. Snow owls
14. Foxes in the snow
15. Deer in the snow
16. The buds on the trees in late winter and early spring
17. Mittens or scarves dropped in the snow
18. A snow-covered chimney
19. Icicles
20. Snowfall

Notice how many of these are small. A dropped mitten, a single icicle, smoke against a gray sky. You do not need a dramatic vista to make a good drawing. Some of the most rewarding sketchbook pages come from the quiet details most people walk past, and winter is full of them.

Why should you draw winter scenes from life?

You should draw winter from life because the season teaches you things studio work alone cannot. Sketching and painting winter scenes outdoors shows you how the light and color of the world actually change, and those lessons stay with you long after the snow melts. If you love drawing and painting in your sketchbook, the seasonal shift is a gift worth taking advantage of.

Here is what is really happening when you draw the season again and again. You build up an image bank. That bank gives you ideas for future paintings, but it does more than that: it teaches you what things are supposed to look like. When you draw winter scenes often, you fill your subconscious mind with images of winter. Draw them enough, and you begin to intuitively understand how the low afternoon light falls on the ground in winter as opposed to summer, and how the colors of winter sunlight differ from the warm colors of a summer afternoon.

That stored knowledge pays off later. Once winter lives in your memory, you can draw a snowy scene even without a reference photo in front of you, because you already know what it is supposed to look like. This is the quiet power of keeping a running list of things to draw: you will never run out of ideas, and a great deal of your growth as an artist depends on simply drawing a lot. If you want a fuller case for the habit, the benefits of drawing and doodling are backed by more research than most people expect.

What can you draw in winter if it is too cold to go outside?

If it is too cold to draw outside, sketch from inside a warm window instead. You lose almost nothing. Take a table by the glass at your local coffee shop, the mall, or your own kitchen, and capture the winter light and street scenes from there. Nab a seat by the window and start drawing what you see through it.

If you cannot find a good window, there will still be plenty of holiday and winter subjects nearby to draw indoors: a still life of ornaments and candles, a warm cup on the table, decorations you have not put away yet. You win either way. The cold is a reason to change where you sit, not a reason to close the sketchbook. And if your hand feels stiff or your lines feel tight when you start, a few easy drawing games will loosen you up before you commit to a real scene.

How do you keep your winter sketchbook going all season?

You keep a winter sketchbook going by lowering the bar and drawing small, often. The goal is not a gallery piece. It is a habit, and habits survive on ease, not ambition. One subject a day from the lists above is plenty, and a fifteen-minute sketch counts as a real win.

Keep that running list at the back of your sketchbook and add to it whenever you notice something seasonal, a particular streetlight in the snow, a neighbor’s lights, the way smoke hangs over a roof on a still morning. When you sit down to draw, you pull from the list instead of waiting for inspiration. This is also the gentlest cure for a stuck spell. If the season has you feeling flat or blocked, drawing one small ordinary thing is often the fastest way back in, and there is more on that in our guide to how to get out of an art block. The fundamentals matter less than consistency, though if you want them, even something as basic as how to hold a pencil for drawing can make the marks feel easier.

Winter gives you everything you need for a full sketchbook: changing light, fresh subjects, and long quiet evenings to draw by. Pick one idea from the lists above and draw it today, badly if you have to, just to keep the habit alive. If you want a structured, supported way to build a real drawing and painting practice this winter, our free Two Week Challenge is a guided way to start making work instead of only reading about it. And when you want more on the inner side of keeping a creative habit alive through a long season, the rest of our creative block and identity collection is here whenever you need it.

Frequently asked questions

What are good winter drawing ideas for a sketchbook?

Good winter drawing ideas split into two groups. Holiday scenes include Christmas lights, decorated downtown streets, bakery windows full of treats, ice skaters, carolers, and reindeer. Pure winter scenes include snowmen, frozen lakes, smoke from a chimney, foxes and deer in the snow, icicles, and falling snow. Keep a running list so you never sit down without a subject.

What should I draw in December?

December is the easiest month to find subjects because the season decorates itself. Draw the Christmas lights on your street, holiday window displays in local shops, ice skaters at an outdoor rink, carolers, snow angels, and the bell ringers outside stores. Letters to Santa, ornaments on outdoor trees, and people in holiday coats with warm cups all make quick, satisfying sketchbook pages.

What can I draw in winter after the holidays?

Once the decorations come down, the season is still full of subjects. Draw pets and kids playing in the snow, smoke rising from a chimney, frozen lakes and rivers, snow-covered cars, snowmen, someone shoveling a walk, the snowplow, owls and foxes and deer in the snow, late-winter buds on bare branches, icicles, and falling snow at dusk under a streetlight.

Why should I draw winter scenes from life?

Drawing winter from life teaches you how the season actually looks. You learn how low afternoon light falls on snow, how winter sunlight is colored differently than summer light, and how bare trees and cold air change a scene. Those lessons are hard to get from studio work alone, and they build an image bank you can paint from later, even from memory.

What can I draw in winter if it is too cold to go outside?

Sketch from inside a warm window. Take a table by the glass at a coffee shop, a mall, or your own kitchen and draw the winter light and street scenes from there. You can also work from holiday decorations indoors, a still life of ornaments and candles, or reference photos. The cold is never a real reason to skip a sketchbook day.