One face, one rule: make it bad on purpose.
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Hello, and welcome to the least serious thing I run.
You’ve signed up to draw one deliberately terrible portrait. Good. It’s one of the most useful things you can do for your drawing, and almost nobody’s brave enough to try it.
Quick reminder of why. For most people it comes down to fear. The fear that whatever they make won’t be good enough tightens everything, the grip, the lines, the whole business. So instead of fighting it, we walk straight into it.
Make the worst thing on purpose, and watch it stop mattering.
Here’s the challenge:
Draw the ugliest portrait you can. One face. That’s it.
A few tips and tricks to get the most out of it:
- If you’re intimidated to draw someone you know, or simply don’t want to offend anyone, draw a stranger. Someone you’ve never met, a face off Pinterest, an old photo, a stranger on the bus.
- Choose unusual materials. If you pick what you always draw with, chances are you’ll end up with the same result you’re trying to escape. Venture into unknown territory. You might discover your new favourite material on the way. That’s how I do it anyway. I pick up something I know nothing about and explore it as I go.
- Choose A4 mixed media paper, medium weight. Nothing fancy like watercolour paper. Why A4? It gives you enough room without being intimidating. Anything bigger takes too long. Anything smaller and you can’t fit everything in. And when you scan or photograph it, A4 sits perfectly in your feed.
- You can draw digitally too, on your iPad or computer. Just set the canvas to A4.
- Try not to use AI. This is an exercise for your brain and your attitude to your own art. I don’t think a machine can help you here.
- Don’t rub anything out. If you don’t like it – keep going. If the line goes sideways – keep going. Imagine you’re four again. Every line you make is the right one.
- Go for genuinely bad. If it’s not ugly enough, you’re not pushing hard enough.
- Give yourself a rough time limit. This shouldn’t take more than an hour. Maybe less. Maybe much less.
- Draw as many ugly portraits as you like. It’s quite addictive, actually. Post your best worst one, or all of them in your carousel. Up to you.
- Put on some funky music you love. Set the scene for a good mood and a childlike game. Because that’s all this is. A game.
When you’re done: post your ugliest portrait, tag me at @elinaellis and @IndigoBee.Academy, and use #IBA_portraits so it reaches me. You’ve got until Tuesday 28th July. I’ll pick twenty for my own carousel, and one of them will get a signed copy of my latest picture book “The Truth About Books”.
One last thing. This challenge is the very first thing I ask people to do inside Drawing Faces, the masterclass I’ve been building for a while. The ugly portrait is just the start of it. More on that soon.
Now go and draw something dreadful. 
Elina Ellis and Indigobee Team