These are my scanned (and not touched-up) partiers.

I drew them in a Pith Oroblanco sketchbook and am still trying to talk myself into buying an A3 scanner, so I don’t have to do this double-scanning-Photo-merge business. This is all watercolor and colored pencil.

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Here’s my favorite drawing I made in the session:

From the bottom of my heart, I love drawing insects.

Thank you for letting me indulge in this new obsession with you for thirty days. We have one more session to this month, then a few weeks off so I can finish art for a very important book deadline! I’ll pop back in next Friday with the game plan.

Until then, hope to see you at the Insect Tea Party! 🫖🐛

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• you’re “shoulding1” yourself a lot lately

• you want to be surprised and delighted

• you want to play with art supplies

Many, many thanks to Meg Lewis for facilitating this special hour of drawing with us.

Favorite quote from Colleen: “I just started drawing cowboy hats and hoping they’d end up on people.”

I’ll start a chat thread so you can share your masterpiece!

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1. The Museum of Natural History has a whole area dedicated to butterflies. (thank you !)

2. When booking airline tickets, open an incognito or private-viewing window to get the best rate.

3. COLD press paper is bumpy, because when it’s COLD, we get GOOSEBUMPS. (Thank you, !)

We shared gratitude for the work of David Hockney, as we bid him a sad farewell. My friend created this inspirational post earlier this year in his honor. ❤️

I loved seeing all the wonderful art from this session. It’s always inspiring to see everyone’s creative interpretations from the images.

Share your art from the session

Many thanks to for planning this session, everyone who drew with us quietly, shared thoughtful words, and if you’re drawing along to the replay, thank you too!

We have three more sessions this month — sign up below!

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If you stayed til the end, you know what we’re drawing next month. Are you excited? Scared? Unsubscribing? I hope you’ll stay and draw, because I’m planning so many fun things!

Now, I have to ask— If you could only use one colored pencil line for the rest of your life, which one would you choose?

Share your work in the chat

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So many thanks to , dog parents who shared photos, and everyone who joined live or is drawing along in the replay. It was such a treat to see all the delightful dog drawings at the end!

Apologies if we didn’t get to your draw your lovely dog! I guess that means we’ll have to do another one of these in the future, which isn’t a bad idea at all, right?

Be sure to subscribe to New York Cartoons and order a hand-signed copy of You’re Not A Real Dog-Owner Until (With Custom Dog Sketch)!

These are the reference images with names, so you can tag their owners if you share your art on Substack. They’ll be thrilled to see your drawings of their dog!

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Congrats to , , and for winning free months of membership! 💐🦆

I finished off a Royal Talens sketchbook in this one, then started another in our Soundtrack Session, so now I don’t have to go out and draw with a naked sketchbook. :) I can’t be the only one who won’t go out and draw in a blank sketchbook, am I?

I’ll finish and share those in a special e-mail coming to you right before we pause. If you haven’t heard, we’re pausing next month!

Pausing in April

There won’t be live sessions or guided videos, BUT you’ll still have access to all paid-member benefits, but won’t be billed. It’s the perfect time to catch up on what you missed! If you joined with an annual plan, it extends your membership by one month.

I’m excited to return in May with new guest artist cohosts, fresh ideas, and a fun new animal theme for us to draw!

I’ll pop back in Monday or Tuesday with some extra bonus tidbits, new sketches, fun stuff worth exploring, and well wishes! ✨

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This was the session dreams are made of. And like a dream, it went by way too fast! Many thanks to Emma Carlisle for cohosting and everyone who joined and shared fun board games — I’ve already bought Creatures Drawing Deck. 😁

👋 Here’s a thread for sharing work from this session.

📸The photos are by safari guide and photographer Jaco Joubert. Please tag @jaco_wildlife if you share your art inspired by his photos.

These are my drawings in progress:

I’d love to work on them more, especially those hyenas. But also, have you seen this week’s references? The goats are looking at me longingly… Someday, I’ll finish these. Maybe not this week, but someday.

Sign up for our next sessions:

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A massive thank you to for giving permission to draw his wonderful photos!

Stray Cats of Japan

Stray Cats of Japan is a newsletter of photos and stories about Japan's outdoor felines.

By Bill Adler

I still need to finish my watch kitty… I filmed the process, so maybe I can pop them up as a timelapse to wrap up our month of drawing cats. It’s truly flown by!

Materials & mentions

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Here’s a link to the chat if you’d like to share your art from the session; there’s some really lovely work in there! You can also tag me if you post to IG, so I can see and share!

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I loved learning about Holly’s intriguing writing process, fun horse facts, and all sorts of animal facts like why reindeer make a “click-click” sound when walking. Holly asked which animal we’ll draw next month and I think now is a good time to vote:

These are my horses from our session, mostly drawn with Sennelier Pastel Pencils, which I heard about from Sarah Dyer.

Reference photos!

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After moving boxes all week and a surprise trip with a cat to the vet, this was the session I needed in my life!

Thank you to all who attended or are planning to draw along to the recording — you all deserve special spots on Santa’s Nice List. And special thanks to , who started this lovely tradition. I can’t wait to do it again in 11.75 months.

Here is my art from the session:

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I was so excited when said yes to a snow globe session. It was everything I dreamed it would be and more!

In the first part of the session, we draw a variety of snow globe shapes.

Then we fill them in (using reference images we’ll share on the screen or you can use your own) the rest of the session!

This is an unguided session — you’re welcome to:

• use your own photos as reference

• sketch from the images we’ll share on your screen

• Draw from imagination!

Fun idea for this session:

• White paint, posca marker or oil pastel could be a nice way to add snow

• Collage could be fun!

• Make a family portrait with everyone as snow-people! (I did this last year)

• Create lots of tiny snow globes to use as gift tags

• Snow globes don’t have to be holiday-themed, or even wintry. You can draw your pets, house, family portrait, or favorite place, food, etc.

Some of my art from our session:

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Here’s my art from the session.

Here’s the retreat link again, in case you’re thinking about it! :) It’d be such a dream to meet and draw with you in France! <3

Here are the reference photos:

Thanks for drawing with me and being wonderful! I hope you’ll join us for the next session!

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Here are the locations, in case you’d like to Zoom in, out, or find a nice cafe to sketch instead the view I shared on my screen.

• ​London

• ​Paris

• ​New York

• ​Tākaka

And here’s the slide of birds I shared at the end, when we added birds to our scenes.

Be sure to subscribe to to keep up with all the cool stuff Andrew’s doing!

Here are my drawings:

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Bonus challenge

I proposed an optional challenge of drawing with only 1 material, then we had 10 minutes at the end to add color. It’s always fun to play with new ways of working.

Here are the rest of my drawings. Full disclosure, I added another layer of color on some of them after we said goodbye.

Materials & Mentions

• Lisa Frank Documentary

• Amber Fossey

• Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman

• My Favorite Things by Maira Kalman

• Ilene Beckerman

• I used mostly pencil, a little charcoal pencil, and red, yellow, and black watercolor. Also a yellow Posca to turn Cookie Monster into a yellow crayon.

  We’ll meet again with as guest cohost on November 15 at 4:30pm EST!

  Remember that awesome Watercolour Mixing Demystified guest post he wrote? He’s joining us live from New Zealand to draw and chat!

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We chatted about his brilliant new book, new ways he’s working, managing imposter syndrome, and more. It was brilliant! Prepare to be mesmerized by sketches from his book tour near the end.

We sketch from the Atlantic City Booardwalk webcam, then visited Vancouver’s Deep Cove.

📚 You can also catch Nishant on the Make (Sneaky) Art book tour, where he’s doing demos, sketchwalks, and secret giveaways!

I’d like to encourage you to visit a small book shop to request Make (Sneaky) Art if you can. This is an important way to support his wonderful work and your local bookstore at the same time!

Materials and mentions:

• Urban Sketchers

• Wild Wonder Foundation

• Tommy Kane

• Little Fat Man Pen

• Stabilo Nature Color Highlighters (I love that one is named “mud green”)

• De Atramentis Brown Document Ink

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The Hurst Museum in Albany, NY featured taxidermied animal dioramas by James Hurst in the 1870’s.

He featured animals in their natural habitats.

Also in more whimsical dioramas and exhibits.

Here are the photos we drew from in the session, along with a few bonus references.

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Here’s my comic from the session:

Here’s the nest of Reggie fur the dog with the nonstop flow of fur that inspired my comic.

I hope to see you Sunday in our last session of the month!

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