The key to generating sketch book ideas (prompts) is to provide tasks that allow students to improve specific drawing skills. This can be done by creating categories within that students can explore different techniques, subject matter and artistic concepts or styles. Some sketch book ideas should also link to art history to give the student experience with historically successful artworks and techniques.
Technique
One type of artist prompt is a technique-based prompt. These prompts will be based on practicing a technique such as blending with colored pencils or shading with cross-hatching. The art teacher could assign subject matter for these prompts or allow the student to choose. The art teacher should make a list of all the artistic techniques he would like students to master and assign them throughout the time frame of the course. It might also be wise to look at the other class assignments and schedule a specific technique to be practiced before working on a relevant project. The teacher could also tie in art history by asking the students to find an example of a given technique in the work of another artist.
Subject Matter
Art teachers can also organize their sketch book prompts around subject matter. Students will often base their drawings on what they like at the time. This may limit their abilities in drawing other types of subjects. It is important to provide a variety of subject matter to students, such as the human form, animals and plants. Vary the subjects from organic to geometric. The prompts might go from something such as architecture or shoes to hands or ears. This allows students to examine many different types of objects and practice depicting them realistically. A teacher can also incorporate art history by asking the students to find a real-life representation of a famous artwork's subject matter. The student could then draw that subject matter in his own style.
Artistic Concepts or Styles
Prompts can also be fashioned around a concept or art style. To give a conceptual sketch book prompt, the teacher should provide a broad, generalized idea such as distortion. The students can then interpret that idea in their drawings. As for art styles, the students will have to study art history to understand specific art styles and how they work. The teacher could combine a style and subject matter prompt in which the students would choose two artworks and draw the subject matter of one work using the style of the other. The teacher could also request the students redraw a previous prompt using a different art style, such as cubism.
