A five-part drawing class exploring landscapes with ink.
Last year I make one ink drawing each day for 100 days. I wanted to improve my drawing accuracy, speed, and confidence, and to explore the fun and challenge of a daily practice. At the end of those 100 days I was amazed to feel and see improvements in my drawing ability (and painting skills, too!)
My goal with this class is to create a guided version of this experience for you! For 30 days we will improve our drawing skills together in step-by-step lessons and daily sketching prompts.
Recording available now- The live version of this class wrapped up in February, and there are two ways to access the class recordings:
This Course Only: $120. You can purchase the course here, and after registration you will be sent a welcome email with course access information.
As part of the Adventure Art Academy ($27/month): You can sign up and cancel anytime, and this option also gives you access to the entire library of more than 35 watercolor lessons in the Adventure Art Academy. For all current and new students, you will find the recordings in the main classes library/ dashboard under "Ink Sketching," with no additional registration required after you sign up for the Adventure Art Academy.
How it works:
Now that the live class is complete, the course is a self-paced sketching adventure. Through the recordings, you can choose to sketch at the same pace we did as a group (one class per week), or you can work at whatever speed you want! Each recorded class is around 2 to 2.5 hours long, including the group Q&A at the end of each session.
I want this class to be fun and supportive, so there is no right or wrong way to engage with the content. And, if you would like to practice outside of each of the classes, the course includes a curated collection of reference images for practice!
Some of the skills we will cover include:
- How to simplify a complex landscape into a series of minimal lines
- Using black and white shapes to explore value (the range of light and dark in a painting)
- Creating realistic and organic patterns for a variety of landscapes from mountains to coastlines
- Exploring simple shading techniques to add depth to a landscape
- Using the ink brush pen as a powerful tool to improve our painting, especially expressive lines and shapes
Ink sketches were and continue to be transformative in my creative practice and helped me become a better painter. I am excited to share this process with you!
The topics for each class are:
- Class 1- Mountains
- Class 2- Trees & Forests
- Class 3- Water and rocks
- Class 4- Simplification Strategies, Foliage, and Clouds
- Class 5- Flowers & Closing Group Chat
MATERIALS:
When I first embarked on my 100 day sketching challenge I went down a supplies rabbit hole. I knew nothing about fountain pens or different kinds of ink. Over time I found a small collection of favorites, listed below, which are my go-to's because of good performance and affordability. If you already have tools you love, that's awesome!
- Pentel Pocket Brush Pen- I will use this in every lesson. My favorite is linked here (https://amzn.to/40DjfmR) and comes with a few extra cartridges of ink as well.
- Fine Tipped Pen- Something like a Micron pen is great, but I found that I was using them up quickly, so I switched to a refillable fountain pen. I love the Platinum Desk Pen- affordable, feels nice to hold, and designed to work with waterproof ink. (https://amzn.to/3NeN2gs)
- Sketchbook/ Paper- If you want to use printer paper, you can! Or any kind of non-textured paper. I unexpectedly really loved having all my sketches collected in a book. I like this one ( https://amzn.to/3ufZNAy) because it is not too expensive, ink flows beautifully on the pages, and the thinner paper actually helped me let go of perfection and worry less about results!
- Pencil and Eraser- Anything works here! My go-to pencil is always this little pentel mechanical pencil (https://amzn.to/3Tz2p7t), as I like the soft lead and no sharpening required.
If you sketch every day for a month you may need to refill your pens. The easiest way I've found to do this is to buy a blunt-tipped needle, and just refill the cartridges that come with the pens instead of buying messy converters. My current favorite ink is the Platinum Carbon Black; it is beautifully dark, and also waterproof so I can sketch under watercolor paintings, too!
