CMA Sketch

Two Women Sketching a Sculpture

CMA Sketch challenges participants with a prompt to draw something inspired by the CMA’s collection.

Participants can share sketches using #CMASketch for a chance to be reposted to CMA’s Instagram stories.

A Meaningful Teacher

This woodcut, Teacher, by Fanny Rabel depicts a teacher with a direct and dignified gaze, holding a book in her powerful hands. Throughout her career, Rabel was dedicated to issues of social justice—especially those involving children. Think about a teacher who has positively influenced your life. Draw a portrait of your favorite teacher and what they mean to you.

Collection Inspiration
A vertically oriented woodcut print in black ink on white paper depicts a person with dark skin tone and hair in a bun, looking toward our right while wearing a white collar and bow tie over a patterned garment. Both hands clutch a dark book in the foreground. Sharp, carved lines create heavy texture across the skin and clothing. Radiating white marks emerge from the black background, creating high contrast around the figure.

Your Favorite Shoes

In November 1933, Ilse Bing began doing accessory shoots for Harper’s Bazaar, including jewelry, handbags, belts, and occasionally shoes on models’ feet, like Model’s Feet Wearing Two-Toned Shoes. Think about your favorite pair of shoes. What’s the story behind them? Create a drawing of them.

Collection Inspiration
A horizontally oriented black-and-white photograph shows two feet wearing stockings and heels dangling in from the upper left corner. Framed against a neutral, light background, the heels mix leathery black portions with smooth, white, elongated blobs and have fine laces at the top. The left foot kicks out horizontally, tilted in slightly where the laces can be seen more clearly. The right foot hangs down at a diagonal, highlighting the profile of the heel.

Literary Inspiration

What’s on your summer reading list? Draw the cover of one of your recommendations or a favorite literary character. The woman featured in this artwork, Reading, by Berthe Morisot, is the artist’s sister, Edma. Morisot was one of the few female Impressionists, and the subjects of her paintings frequently reflect the social constraints of her gender.

Collection Inspiration
A horizontally oriented oil painting in loose brushstrokes depicts Edma Morisot, a woman with light skin tone in a white dress seated reading a blue book on a pink blanket over grass. The dress, blanket, and grass are all patterned with flecks of paint. The woman's facial features are only hazily suggested under a hat with a green veil hanging down. An open fan lies in the grass to her right and there is light brown grass in the background.

Staying Cool

Bathing Beach was drawn by American artist George Bellows. Did you know Bellows has an Ohio connection? He was raised in Columbus and attended Ohio State University. Now it’s your turn to draw—what do you do to stay cool in the summer?

Collection Inspiration
A vertically oriented black-and-white lithograph depicts a crowded beach. In the foreground, a woman and man with light skin tones lie on the sand; she faces right on her forearms while he props his head on his hands, looking toward us. Behind them, five figures in dark swimwear stand or bend, one bowing over their knees. The background shows a hazy, distant crowd along the shoreline beneath a pale, grainy sky.

Musical Melody

This drawing belongs to a series that Georges Braque made with papier collé, a technique he invented in 1912 that featured collaged elements made from inexpensive wood-patterned wallpaper. Can you see how he used layered paper and charcoal lines to represent this violin? What’s your favorite instrument to play or listen to? Draw a sketch of it!

Collection Inspiration
A vertically oriented drawing depicts a violin and a glass on a table. Cut-and-pasted brown papers create geometric shapes and a layered collage on which components of the violin are drawn.

Summer Shadows

Look at all the shadows found in this artwork, Mid-Summer Light. Where can you find shadows inside or outside your home? Sketch the most interesting or surprising shadow you come across.

Collection Inspiration
A horizontally oriented color screenprint depicts white and peach lilies and blue irises overflowing from a glass vase on a sunlit windowsill. Luminous light from the left casts deep shadows across the ledge. Dappled green foliage fills the left window pane, while the right displays reflections against a dark interior. Long green stems sprout from the vase, their vibrant blooms reaching toward the top margin. Handwritten text, numbers, and a signature mark the bottom margin.

Your Favorite Animal

Located in New Castle, New Hampshire, Bos’n’s Hill was a favored leisure spot for the artist Edmund C. Tarbell’s family. It provides the luminous setting for this depiction of the artist’s wife, Emeline, who strolls through the landscape while a beloved pet dog accompanies her. Do you have a pet at home? Draw a portrait of your pet, or a pet you’d like to adopt in the future.

Collection Inspiration
A vertically oriented oil painting depicts a woman with light skin tone standing on a sunlit hill, looking at us. She wears a long, flowing white dress and a wide-brimmed hat, holding an open parasol over her shoulder. Behind her, a tan dog looks to our left. A large tree frames the composition, with thick, energetic brushstrokes creating patches of light across the ground and a brilliant blue sky.

Use Your Imagination

What do you think is on the other side of this garden wall? What piques your curiosity? Draw a picture of what you would want to see on the other side.

Collection Inspiration
A vertically oriented oil painting depicts a man with a light skin tone peering over a stone wall from a wooden ladder in the lower center. Beyond the wall, dense green trees fill the midground. To our left, a tan building with a tall chimney rises into a pale blue sky in the upper half. On the wall to our right, a dark plaque features text identifying the site as a school for young women.

What’s in Your Home?

This artwork, House Model, shows a group, perhaps members of a family, together in their home. Draw a picture of what makes your home special to you!

Collection Inspiration
An earthenware sculpture in earthy creams, oranges, and reds depicts an architectural scene. A tall, saddle-shaped roof with upward-curving points features vertical stripes and a black zigzag border. Below, two thick pillars support the structure, housing reddish-brown figures. A central figure sits facing forward with arms folded across their chest, while another sits in profile nearby. The figures are nestled within the open base, framed by the dominant, decorated canopy.

Favorite Household Item

Do you have a favorite chair? Or maybe a funky lamp you picked up at a garage sale? Draw a picture of your favorite household item. Is it comfortable, sentimental, or both? What’s its story?

Collection Inspiration
A dark-brown wood chair features red undertones and a cylindrical base created by three rows of angular carved faces. Between each face in a row is a hollow space and between each row an undulating strip of wood. Above this, the chair's back is flanked by stylized leopards ridden by humanlike figures. The leopards are speckled with concave spots and the profile of another leopard, facing our left, supports the square back of the chair.

Time to Celebrate

This artwork, Decoration Executed for the Birthday of His Majesty the King of Westphalia, shows all the decorations for the the birthday of Jérôme Bonaparte, the King of Westphalia. Draw your favorite way to celebrate any holiday, special occasion, or little victory!

Collection Inspiration
A horizontally oriented ink and watercolor drawing depicts a garden framed by heavy, dark blue curtains. A wooden trellis draped in green vines and purple grapes forms a canopy overhead. In the foreground, white pedestals with busts flank a sunlit space. At center stands a yellow architectural facade with white spiral columns and statues. Beyond its large archway, a shaded path leads past trees to a distant fountain under a pale sky.

Playtime

The figures in this image are playing a game like Rock, Paper, Scissors. Make a sketch of your favorite game to play at home!

Collection Inspiration
A hanging scroll depicts five women with light skin tones on a matted floor. Four sit together; one pours tea while a woman plays a long-necked instrument with strings.

Are You Hungry Yet?

This painting shows a fancy 17th-century meal. Have you tried any new recipes? Draw your favorite work from the CMA’s collection that features food, or just sketch the last thing you ate!

Collection Inspiration
A colorful, horizontally oriented oil painting depicts various foods on a table including a basket overflowing with vegetables, meat on platters, and fruits scattered across the tablecloth.

Inspired by Nature

Sketch your favorite work from the CMA’s collection that features flowers and plants, or sketch the flowers in your home or yard. What shapes and colors do you see?

Collection Inspiration
A vertically oriented oil painting depicts vibrant tulips in a gray vase with spiraling grooves, located at the lower center of a textured green background. Broad brushstrokes create the red, white, and yellow petals and long dark-green leaves that splay against the seafoam-green paint. A dark-brown vertical band stands behind the stems, while a dark-green surface forms the foreground. The centered composition highlights the floral cluster reaching toward the top.

All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education. Major annual support is provided by Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter E. Fortney, Florence Kahane Goodman, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, and the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, the Lloyd D. Hunter Memorial Fund, Marta Jack and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, William J. and Katherine T. O'Neill, Mandi Rickelman, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Sally and Larry Sears Fund for Education Endowment, Roy Smith, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Trilling Family Foundation, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. 

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

Education programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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