A five-part drawing adventure exploring landscapes with ink.
A few years ago 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 online lessons and daily sketching prompts.
The LIVE course is back, starting January 16th, 2025!!
There are two ways to join the sketching adventure:
- FREE 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 Adventure Art Academy library (includes the Alpenglow Course and 45+ landscape lessons). Once you sign up for the Adventure Art Academy, your welcome email will have the access code to sign up for the Ink Sketching Course for free.
- This Course Only: $130. You can purchase the course here, and after registration you will be sent a welcome email with course access information.
The 2025 live session will begin on January 16th and classes are held on Zoom at 6:00pm pacific time. If you can't attend live, the recordings go out the following day to everyone registered.
The core curriculum will be similar to last year, with some key alterations based on student feedback, and there will be new images and scenes in each class too, of course!
How it works:
Each week anyone tuning in live will join me on Zoom for a 2-2.5 hour class (including the group Q&A at the end of each session). Between each class, I encourage everyone to hop into our community space on Discord to share your sketches, ask questions, and say hello to fellow students!
I will also provide daily reference images for the week between our classes for you to practice!
Schedule:
- Class 1 - January 16th
- Class 2- January 23rd
- Class 3- January 30th
- Class 4- February 6th
- Class 5- February 13th
I want this class to be fun and supportive, so there is no right or wrong way to engage with the content.
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 the following (subject to change over the next few weeks :)-
- Class 1- Simplification Strategies & Mountains
- Class 2- Trees & Forests
- Class 3- Foliage & Rocks
- Class 4- Moving Water, Clouds, and Lakes
- 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! Please note that I will use a BRUSH PEN in every class. You don't need the exact brands I list below, but every student last year eventually got one!
- Brush Pen Option 1: Pentel Pocket Brush Pen- This is the most affordable option (https://amzn.to/40DjfmR) and comes with a few extra cartridges of ink as well. It does have a longer brush tip, which makes for a wider line variety but less control.
- Brush Pen Option 2: Kuretake No.13 Brush Pen- if you know that you will want the maximum control over your brush strokes, this pen costs about $10 more, and some students last year found that the the shorter and smaller brush tip was easier for them to use. (https://amzn.to/3OZwAkm)
- 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.
- Carbon Black Ink- my favorite refill ink for the Platinum desk pen and the brush pens. Might clog or be slow in other pens with more narrow feeder mechanisms. If plan to draw every day you will need the refill ink! https://amzn.to/35ryS8I
- Refill Needle- I use blunt tipped needles to refill the ink cartridge that come with the pens- easier and cleaner than the other cartridge options I tried! Here's the link for a 5 pack from Amazon (I bought mine originally from Jet Pens or Goulet Pens when I ordered some ink!) - https://amzn.to/4bBfpzU
If you sketch every day for a month you will 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!
