The Canon of Design Drawing Game was created by photographer and artist Tavis Leaf Glover. The aim of the game is to encourage artists to draw more and also learn about composition, techniques and other artists along the way.
Roll dice to determine how long and what to draw
The rules are a little complicated, but essentially you roll a 10 sided dice to determine the time you will spend drawing. This can be anything from 10 to 100 minutes. Then you roll dice to get a number between 1 and 30 which decides what subject you will draw. The game includes a list if 30 subjects and reference material, but Tavis suggests that you may want to choose 10 of your own subjects to include in the list. This will mean you get the opportunity to draw the things you love.
You get points for the time you spend drawing. Once you have completed about 8 hours of drawing you unlock more possibilities such as trying out different drawing utensils. Tavis has a full list of materials that he suggests you could use, which also help support his work as he’s giving away the pdf game free. As you rack up more points/drawing time you “unlock” different drawing techniques, and learn more about composition.
One thing I think is really clever about the game is that it takes the indecision out of not knowing what to draw. It should also make you draw things you may never have thought about before. Plus there’s plenty of reference included in the book for you to draw which makes things easier than trawling the web for material.
One thing I found a bit complex was all the different dice that Tavis suggests you use. But this is easily rectified if you just use an online random number generator like https://www.random.org. Just set it to numbers between 1 and 30 or 1and 8 and you’re good to go.
Drawing game wall of fame
Tavis has created a wall of fame for any artist that completes the game by earning 65000 points
Thank you to Anna Sellers who discovered the Art Game and shared it in the Kick in the Creatives Facebook Group
