Why Autumn Is a Surprisingly Good Time to Start Drawing Again

There's a particular feeling that shows up (definitely for me!) every September, even long after you've left school behind...

New stationery in the shops. Slightly cooler mornings. That faint, nostalgic pull towards fresh notebooks and sharpened pencils. You might tell yourself it's silly — you're not going back to any classroom — but the feeling is real, and it's worth paying attention to.

Because if you've been meaning to start drawing again, or start for the very first time, this month might genuinely be a better moment than the one you've been quietly waiting for — the one further down the calendar, the one you've decided has to be the “proper” start.

Why September Feels Like Permission to Start Drawing Again

I notice it every year. My art classes have filled up more in September than almost any other month, and it's rarely because people have suddenly decided art matters more than it did in August.

It's because September feels like permission, much like the New Year. A clean page in the calendar. A reason to try again without it meaning you failed the first time.

Most of us carry a version of “I'll start properly in January” — as if only one date on the calendar counts. But that's not actually how motivation works, and there's decent research to back that up.

The Psychology Behind Why Now Actually Works

Researchers Hengchen Dai, Katy Milkman and Jason Riis studied something they called the fresh start effect.

They found that people are far more likely to pursue a goal right after a temporal landmark — the start of a week, a new month, a birthday, the first day of term — than at any random point in between.

The reason is quietly fascinating. A new starting point lets you draw a mental line between “past me” and “future me.” The person who didn't pick up a pencil all summer isn't quite the same person starting this week. You get to begin again without dragging the last attempt along with you.

You don't need January for that. You need a Tuesday that feels like a new chapter, and September is full of them!

Why Waiting for January Can Actually Work Against You

Here's the part that surprised me most when I read into this properly.

January doesn't just fail to be special. It can actively work against you, because it carries so much weight. One date, expected to hold every unfinished intention from the entire year. No wonder most resolutions quietly dissolve by February.

A landmark that big invites a big, all-or-nothing version of the goal:

"Draw every day."

"Fill a whole sketchbook."

"Become someone completely different by February."

Miss one day and the whole thing can feel like it's already failed.

Smaller landmarks don't carry that pressure. A new season, a Monday, the week after the school run starts again — these ask much less of you.

Just: begin again, here, now, with whatever ten minutes you've got. That's a far easier promise to keep, and easier promises are the ones we actually keep.

I see this in my classes constantly. The students who stick with drawing aren't usually the ones who arrived with the grandest plan. They're the ones who let a smaller, quieter moment be enough of a reason to start.

What This Means for Your Sketchbook

If you've been putting off drawing again because you missed your “proper” start date in January, I'd love for you to let that go.

There isn't a right day. There's just the next one that feels like a fresh page — and this one, with the light changing and the year quietly turning a corner, is as good as any. Better than most, if the research is right.

I wrote a little about this feeling of starting from wherever you are back in January — that you're not behind, you're simply beginning. Autumn is just another version of that same permission, wearing a jumper 🍂

How to Start Drawing Again This Autumn (Without Overthinking It)

Here's the part I'd actually invite you to do, not just read about.

Pick one object near you right now. A mug, your keys, a plant on the windowsill.

Set a timer for ten minutes.

Draw what you actually see, not what you remember drawing before, or what you think it's supposed to look like.

That's it.

No warm-up required, no “getting back into it” phase to sit through first. The fresh start effect means you don't need to ease in gently — the moment itself is doing some of the work for you.

If it's been years since you last drew anything, that's fine. If you drew all through spring and quietly stopped in July, that's fine too. This exercise doesn't ask which kind of beginner you are. It just asks for ten minutes and one object.

A Small Ritual Worth Keeping

You don't have to decide, right now, that this is the start of some grand new habit. That's exactly the kind of pressure that makes people give up by week two!

Just let today be one honest attempt. Tomorrow can decide whether it wants to be another one.

If you do want a shape to hang future days on, a simple prompt helps more than a strict rule. Same time each morning. Same corner of the kitchen table. Same ten minutes, whenever they naturally appear in your day. The ritual matters more than the duration.

A Simple Way to Begin Today

You don't need the perfect set-up, a clear diary, or January. You need ten minutes and a willingness to let this week count as a beginning.

If you'd like a bit more structure to carry that feeling forward, my free five-day course KickstART Your Art is built around exactly this kind of small, doable start — ten minutes a day, no experience needed, and nothing to catch up on if you've drawn before or never at all.

Has autumn ever nudged you back towards something you'd let slide over summer? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Debbie x