The rules of the pencil
Under the official rules the drawer may not write letters or numbers, may not draw symbols that stand for words (an arrow for “to”, an equals sign, a hashtag), may not talk or make sounds, and may not use gestures. Everything else on the paper is fair, including the things nervous players avoid: motion lines around a shaking figure, arrows showing which way something moves, speech bubbles with a picture inside, crossing out a wrong guess, dashes for the number of words, and pointing at parts of your own drawing. The timer is 60 seconds and there is no prize for restraint. The rules guide has the complete list and the usual house rules.
Stick-figure basics
One figure, under three seconds: circle, line, two arms, two legs. Everything it communicates comes from three variables. Posture: leaning forward is running, leaning back is falling, arms up is celebrating, curled is sleeping. Props: a figure plus a rectangle is a phone, a book or a door depending on where it is held. Face: a straight mouth, a curve, an O and a zigzag cover most of the emotions in the bank. Draw the figure big; a tiny one in the corner has no room for the prop that wins the round.
Drawing objects and places
Objects are the O line on a classic card and the easiest words in the game, provided you draw the silhouette and not the surface. Guessers recognise outlines: the flat top and curved handle of a kettle, the tall thin body and lantern of a lighthouse. Draw the outline whole in one pass, then add one context clue that separates it from its neighbours; a kettle without steam is a teapot. If the outline is not landing, draw the object in use beside it rather than fixing it. A place is a landmark plus a setting: for a named landmark, draw only the shape everyone knows (a tall iron A-frame is the Eiffel Tower); for a generic place, draw the setting and two signature items, so a beach is a horizon line, a wave, a sun and an umbrella.
Drawing actions
A verb is a change, so draw two frames, before and after, with an arrow between them. Sneeze is a face with a wrinkled nose, then the same face with the mouth open and lines flying out. Slip on a banana peel is a figure walking toward a peel, then the figure horizontal in the air. Motion lines, sweat drops and a cloud of dust are all legal and all useful. For an action with an object, draw the object first and let the figure interact with it. Actions are the category most players draw badly, because they try to capture the whole motion in one static figure.
Drawing abstract words and idioms
This is the Difficult line, and it is won by the literal picture. An idiom is a phrase, so draw the dashes first, one per word, then draw exactly what the words say: for the elephant in the room, an elephant inside a box with a door and a sofa. Guessers are good at idioms once they see a literal scene, because they are searching a short list of sayings rather than every noun they know. For an abstract single word like procrastinate or wanderlust, draw the situation the word captions: a desk, a clock and a figure on the couch; a figure with a suitcase staring at a map. Draw each concrete piece, point at the dash it belongs to, and let the team fill in the small words. The “sounds like” ear, where the drawer draws an ear to signal a rhyme, is a widely used house rule rather than an official one, and tugging your real ear is a gesture, so agree it beforehand and put the ear on paper. The phrases page and the idioms list are the practice grounds.
Drawing under a 60-second timer
The most important habit: draw the whole thing rough first. Silhouette in five seconds, context clue in five more, then react. Players who lose rounds are usually still shading the giraffe’s ears at the thirty-second mark. Spend the first three seconds deciding the picture, not drawing; a plan is faster than a restart. Draw big, in the middle of the paper, and leave space for a second picture. When a guess is close, point at the part that confirms it or draw a bigger version; when the team is stuck on the wrong thing, cross it out and draw a different picture of the same word. Keep the pen moving; a still drawer is a team that stops guessing.
Common mistakes
- Detail before shape. A perfect eye on a face nobody can identify.
- Drawing the first word instead of the easiest. In a skeleton in the closet, start with the skeleton, not the article.
- Skipping the dashes. Without them, the team guesses single nouns at a five-word phrase.
- Symbols that are secretly letters. A heart is a drawing; a plus sign is a symbol. A clock face with numbers breaks the rule; one with hands is fine.
- Talking with your face. Nodding, mouthing and pained expressions are gestures. Point at the paper instead.
Three worked examples
Easy: giraffe. Silhouette first: a long vertical neck rising from a body on four legs, small head at the top. That is the whole word for most tables. If someone says “llama”, add the spots and two little horns. Done in ten seconds.
Medium: flip a pancake. Three dashes. Draw a frying pan (a circle with a handle) with a flat disc inside it and point at dash three: pancake. Draw the pan again with the disc in the air and a curved arrow, point at dash one: flip. Nobody needs the middle dash drawn. Most teams have it by the second pan.
Hard: a skeleton in the closet. Five dashes. Start with the easiest picture, a skull and rib cage, and point at dash two. Then a tall rectangle around it with a door handle and a hanger inside: the closet, dash five. Add a stick figure outside the door looking shocked, with motion lines, to show the skeleton is hidden rather than decorative. The small words fall in by themselves and the literal scene triggers the idiom. It is a hard-tier phrase from the hard generator, and guessable in under a minute by a team that knows to look for a saying.
Practise on the generator above, pick a themed round from the ideas hub, or print a deck from the printable page for a table without a phone.
Last updated September 2026. Independent tool; Pictionary® is a trademark of Mattel, Inc.