1-Minute Practice

1-Minute Still Life Drawing

Still life is where you learn to see value and form without the distraction of a moving subject. Timed practice keeps you from polishing one apple for an hour, you commit to the big shapes, then refine.

Start a 1 minute session

Free to start. No account needed for your first sessions.

What a 1 minute timer trains

One minute is the classic warm-up length. Long enough to add structure to the gesture, short enough to keep you from overthinking. Most artists do ten of these to start a session.

The reference library is built for exactly this. Pick Still Life, set your timer to 1 minute, and the studio advances the reference automatically when the clock runs out, so you build the habit of finishing on time instead of fussing forever.

Practising still-life objects
  • Squint to collapse the subject into two or three values, then draw those before any detail.
  • Find the core shadow and the cast shadow, they are different and they describe the form differently.
  • Longer timers suit still life: it holds still, so use the time to render carefully.

Other still life session lengths

Mix timers within a session, short poses to warm up, longer ones to study.

Featured Saints

Start a drawing session with any of these. Six are shown, browse all 364 in the directory.

From the Blog

Tutorials, iconography primers, and notes on sacred art practice.

Ready to draw?

Your timer and category are pre-set. Open the studio, pick a reference, and start your 1 minute session.

Start drawing