27 artist date ideas for people who overthink artist dates

a small list for following creativity and curiosity without optimizing the fun out of it

what is an artist date?

an artist date is a solo-date with our playful inner creative self and no one else is invited (just yourself)!

these artist date ideas are all pulled from my real patterns, I went back through my past diary/journal entries in Week 9 and decided to mark/gather together my past artist dates i’ve gone on inspired by the weekly task in The Artist’s Way book by Julia Cameron. i threw in some of those quotes from my morning pages diary where i felt it relevant or topical. enjoy the read!

🪫 low-energy dates

✿ drive around in the quiet for a while with nowhere specific to be

Julia Cameron herself remarks in the book how driving is an “artist brain activity.” ever since i read that, i realized I love spending intentional solo time in my car.

from my morning pages: “i woke up at 5am today. i went and got a coffee with my dog Nike and we drove around the semi-dark with the car windows rolled down: drinking in the quiet, the calm, the still of the early morning. it was an amazing way to wake up. i love the early darkness, i love the early morning, i love the peaks of color of the sunrise starting to form in the sky.”

✿ put on one chapter of an audiobook and listen while you drive around

driving is an ‘artist brain activity’ and so is (per Julia) listening to music and reading. what if you mash-mashed them together ??? it’s so enjoyable, especially when I'm feeling too low energy to go for a nature walk.

from my morning pages: “it’s July 5, 7:22 AM and I’m driving to Starbucks listening to my The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron audiobook. I’m tired but I don’t feel so tired that I am fighting sleep. I just feel like I need a little coffee pick-me-up so I can focus on these lessons! :)”

✿ park somewhere with a view of sunrise and sit there while the world wakes up

i have this spot in my apartment complex with a clear view of the sunrise over the lake. the view as the sky lightens for the day is magical. i just sit in my car and soak it in.

from my morning pages: “i love the early darkness, i love the early morning, i love the peaks of color of the sunrise starting to form in the sky. it’s 7am rn and the perfect sunrise time to sit and look at birds flying across the pastel-colored sky.”

✿ stay in the car while it rains and people-watch

peoplewatch, birdwatch, or just get lost in a random distraction: let your whimsy and intuition guide you, here, as you enjoy the rain sounds (from the cozy safety of your heated seat).

from my morning pages: “the second park that I went was crazy because it was raining. it was just sprinkling, but I stayed in my car, and then it just increasingly got more rainy. but, oh, my gosh, it was so relaxing and I saw there were so many birds and ducks walking around the park. i didn’t even have to get out of my car. i saw a bunch of ducks having a council meeting. they’re under a little palm tree sheltering from the water??? it was so cute.”

✿ bring a little treat somewhere scenic, write one page, and let yourself go home afterwards if you want

oftentimes i feel like when i go out for an artist date, it has to be a two hour production at least. Julia mentions in the book how you’re to set aside a two hour block of time for the artist dates. but that doesn’t mean every date has to be a production. sometimes it can be 25 minutes of musing, journaling, and getting lost in thought somewhere sacred-feeling. and then going back home and getting on with your day.

from my morning pages: “i’m gonna go get a coffee. because i want a pep in my step and to go absorb the sunshine. gonna get a sweet little treat and write the beginnings of a substack essay at my favorite picnic table at a local park. even if it’s just for a little bit, i think it will restore me.“

🌿 nature/mindfulness dates

✿ walk your usual nature trail without headphones/music

contrary to my earlier ideas of adding inputs… this time I suggest you remove the inputs! focus on what you see around you on your walk, what looks new. something you’ve seen before. maybe a mushroom or color follows you?

from my morning pages: “no headphones… just rawdogging my nature walk. learned i need to spend more time outside. that’s the takeaway. that’s the lesson. that’s the rule. that’s the standard.”

✿ choose a random new park to explore

look up somewhere new based on a recent recommendation or intuitive curiosity and plan a scenic outdoor walk there and notice what happens that’s new.

from my morning pages: “yesterday went birding for the first time, like officially, like i was serious about it, and i went on a little field expedition to 2 different parks that i’d never been to that are on, like, the birding trail loop on this website that i found. it was awesome.”

✿ go birdwatching

seriously. try it. :)

from my morning pages: “i spotted a group of what i think are white egrets. it was a parent and like three little birds running around it. they were catching little fish! it was so cute to watch i probably stood there for 20 minutes taking photos. have you ever seen a duck loaf? It’s the cutest thing. just the cutest thing.”

✿ go outside and write field notes about a thing that catches your interest

it doesn’t have to be birds. maybe you’re into mushrooms. maybe you don’t know yet that you’re into mushrooms, but when you really look, you think they’re super cool ??? go find out something new that sparks that kind of curiosity.

from my morning pages: “i had a great time reading a book about beginners birdwatching outside today! i took tiny notebook notes on a beginners birders national geographic book. it was fun, i just took notes on what i found interesting.”

✿ pack a book, sketchbook, drink, and snack and have a tiny picnic outside

this was one of my most favorite artist dates, even though it started raining after about ~20 minutes. i still had a great time, and plan to do this again. (and to check the weather in advance, lol.)

from my morning pages: “i went birding earlier and i did not see many birds however i heard them… instead of feeling like the trip was a failure, i brought out my ipad and did some lighthearted doodles in Adobe Illustrator. being out in nature? amazing! joyous. i love drawing outside.”

📚 bookish dates

✿ wander around the book store with no real research goal and grab anything that sparks something of interest

follow the dopamine here is key. you don’t wanna pre-research what book you grab, you just wanna wander around and see what covers, art, illustrations make you gravitate towards it. sit and take notes or a few pictures of the material if you want.

from my morning pages: “i didn’t do what i thought i would do: sketch on my ipad and write substack essays. i took tiny notebook notes on a beginners birders national geographic book instead, actually. it was fun, i just took notes on what i found interesting.”

✿ go to the library & find a space that feels comfortable to relax, read, and melt into

highly recommend bringing a comfort pile/bag to the library and camping out in the best spot you can find. the library near me has this amazing wall-to-ceiling window: i love watching the bugs fly across in the sky when i sit here.

from my morning pages: “i found that my anxiety settled once i found a cozy space for me to sit and call my own and feel comfortable in. if i hadn’t of found a comfy spot i would have left immediately tbh. i decided to be in my own little world and sat down instead of leaving.”

✿ pick up a beginner’s guide to a hobby you’ve secretly been wanting to try.

seriously: read about something new you want to try. there’s something about reading about something new (and fun-sounding, to you) that makes me immediately impatient to get out and go do the new thing immediately. talk about behavioral activation!

from my morning pages: “i stayed for a few hours and had a great time reading a book about beginners birdwatching! i’d say i was there 2pm to 3:40pm and i didn’t have anxiety at all.”

✿ bring your journal to a book store and write about whatever being there makes you want to create.

if you don’t consider yourself an “urban sketching” kind of artist, an alternative option I've been wanting to do myself (but just haven’t yet) is eavesdrop to conversations in a cafe and do a visual journal page full of other people’s quotes and secrets I've overheard, hehehe.

from my morning pages: “i want to stay, draw, read, write substack essays here for a while. just relax, be one with Barnes & Noble cage and the cozy space that feels so warm and inviting. perfect for drawing. maybe even some urban sketching in my sketchbook 👀👀👀 ok that will get me outta the car.”

✿ bring a book to a café and mark it up!

this has been such a fun, chill artist date for me lately: annotating books I'm reading! sometimes it’s physical sticky notes and flags, and other times I'm annotating an e-book pdf on my ipad. both are enjoyable when I'm sitting at a cute little cafe~.

from my morning pages: “i want to annotate my copy of The Artist’s Way and get really into it. like i did with like the Secret History a long time ago, where I just like annotated in the book, wrote in the margins, put the sticky note flags everywhere of my own thoughts and critical thinking about the novel. i just want to annotate a book so freaking bad and feel like I’m really just like in the muck with the text, you know, just like really just sloshing around in there.”

✂️ art-making dates

✿ go to a local craft event and make one thing

my favorite artist date in retrospect is one that I didn’t think that I enjoyed very much in the moment: going to a free local craft event. what I went to was specifically a zine-making class. it was full of kiddos which made me feel awkward at the time but I still made my zine and honestly? it was so fun, i remember it as a good memory.

from my morning pages: “i just left a free ‘zine making class’ at ‘Center for Contemporary Craft’ and it was SO cool! i am really glad i went. i made a zine for my dad.”

✿ turn a memory into art

i love going out somewhere (anywhere) for an artist date to snap a few photos of some core moments/memories that transpired… then I go home and often make a little doodle from the photos. if I don’t snap photos, I often get home and lament “I have nothing to draw” or am convinced “nothing interesting happened” when oftentimes that is never the case i just have a horrible memory, lol.

from my morning pages: “working on my ‘field notes merit badge’ cabinet just for fun? for shits and giggles? to humor myself, and award myself for mundane thing? also amazing. also joy. i’m excited to finish some of the merit badges on my desktop computer when i get home.”

✿ sit in a café and make art for an hour with no obligation to finish it, improve it, or post it.

drawing in a cafe makes me feel so artsy and mysterious as a person. you should definitely try it.

from my morning pages: “i just sat down at a cafe cafe to do some urban sketching. i got a second coffee, lol. oops. can it be okay if it’s in the name of whimsy???”

✿ build a personal website

i use Squarespace as my website and host and it is so fun and easy to use. i also know/research code for mine to look like this but maybe that’s just another fun thing for you to learn ???

from my morning pages: “I’m currently working on a code static app project to build me a dopamine dashboard… just to organize stuff and track stats. I was looking at Google Sheets on Etsy but nothing exists for what I want to use so I’m just gonna make it.”

✿ make art every day for one week

from my morning pages: “i realize along this journey I want to create more art I think that’s the point. i’ve been kind of considering making art every day… but that feels like quite a commitment, but it can even be small or you know it could be a sketch she could be a doodle that would count.”

🏛️ out-in-the-world dates

✿ go to an art museum and follow your intuition

i personally found treating a museum like a completion contest was not fun. i crave going back and going slow, sitting and sketching, people watching, and taking longer amounts of time looking at artworks i liked.

from my morning pages: “we got there and my intital feelings were like excitement and bubbliness and wonder by everything. i was really taking to heart following my intuition and noting what spiked my happy chemicals in my brain. tbh i wanted to find a corner and sit and draw an urban sketch and just vibe out for like an hour or two. instead that didn’t happen I hoofed it 2 miles through all of the buildings every level and just looked at everything, it was overwhelming. it felt like a competition or a completion contest. but I know if I had just sat and sketched in front of my more favorite artworks and slowed down x100, I would have had a wonderful time.”

✿ take notes on colors, textures, strange little details, or art you wish you could steal for yourself while you’re out

in fact, take photos too! decorate your future studio or an imaginary dream vacation home. what’s the harm in dreaming? this practice hones your personal taste, too! sometimes we don’t think about ourselves enough.

from my morning pages: “while we were out at the museum i enjoyed looking at the expressive and colorful paintings. i was constantly drawn to oil paint on different mediums like wood and metal and canvas. also gouche paints came up a lot when i read the materials on the info plaque next to the artworks.”

🏡 at-home artist dates

✿ bounce between writing, drawing, reading, and whatever creative side project currently has your attention.

something about task-switching is so fun when your only options are line items from a self-created dopamine menu. for real, like your neurodivergent self go nuts and work on a billion things at once. sometimes nothing else hits just like this does.

from my morning pages: “i dream of taking an all-day artist date where i work on creative side projects & make art and write with abandon and joy and no shame. just so many projects, i don’t even care if I'm finishing them all.”

✿ make something you never have to post

free yourself from the pressure of something having to be “good enough” for your art feeds or to post publicly in general. make something private, just for yourself. wow, does it feel different.

from my morning pages: “i just want to create. i want to make. i don’t want to be a part of the ‘content’ machine. i want to make sure im creating and not contenting, lately… I just want to create low pressure stupid art for once, i think. just take the pressure off.”

✿ take a bubble bath, lower the lights, and listen to something soft

this is my go-to move when I’m not wanting to make or write but rather healthily disassociate for a minute in the dark. something about submerging in the water is totally relaxing, I genuinely feel my muscles unclench once underwater. water is healing. (highly recommend lights off!)

✿ create a digital garden out of the quotes, books, essays, websites, and weird little internet links you collected that week.

it doesn’t have to be curated in a fancy Notion template or article. slap a substack note up every Sunday with your favorite 5 things. it’s actually so amazing how much I've gone back on my own substack notes feed just to look back on the record of my own ilife it’s accidentally become.

from my morning pages: “i wanna create round ups of any quotes, books, essays, etc i’m reading i’d like to share with my internet friends. i have a lot going on, substack-wise. that’s because i have a lot of ideas!”

✿ record a stream-of-consciousness voice note while walking around your home or along the lake trail.

yap into a voice memo to yourself. it’s actually so healing to externalize what’s on your brain… even if no one ever listens to it! sometimes I go back and listen to these self-yap sessions and find threads of essay ideas and other intuitive findings in my yaps. it’s like an audio morning page session, for real.

from my morning pages: “it is July 11 at 4:11 AM and this is my audio morning pages for today. i have just walked outside to do a little grounding walky-walk along the lake trail…”

_{thank you for reading. :)}