The course is designed to be a helpful guide for folks at any level - it will provide simplified approaches and exercises to get started as a beginner or expand the practice of someone with more experience. By complimenting your botanical studies and supporting mindfulness in everyday life, these approaches encourage you to develop a fun, long-term creative habit which will evolve your drawings to be more and more accurate over time. No matter what level you begin with, starting this practice will create a visual record of your studies and experience with herbalism, helping you create your very own Materia Medica. 

Like all of our courses, this course is self paced, with Lifetime Access. In addition, course content, charts and graphics are all available to download as PDFs, and video content is available as transcript PDFs. 

You are free to bundle your registration with the Botanical Sketchbook by choosing the 'Course with Sketchbook' option from the dropdown menu on the Botanical Drawing for Herbalists product page, or purchase separately from the Goods Shop listing here: https://theherbalacademy.com/product/botanical-sketchbook/ Our Botanical Sketchbook is designed for dry media, and includes a mix of grid types, dot grids and blank paper, so you get a taste of the options out there; it is not designed for water media, because we did not cover that in the course, but you can of course use however you wish! It also includes some content from class, and space at the bottom of each page to notate your plant's information. All of the content in the sketchbook is available in the course, in a slightly different format.

BASICS / ESSENTIALS: 

  • Pencil (#2 such as Ticonderoga / school style pencils, which are HB, middle of H-B specturm so not too light or dark, allowing you to achieve many tones in your drawing; feel free to upgrade with other options listed below)
  • Paper of some type: Printer paper, notepad, notecards or sticky notes are all fine. Upgrade to art sketchbooks for dry media or thicker paper from an art store if you’d like a to try water media. 
  • Eraser of some type (pink pearl, school supply store style is fine)
    - Magic Rub or similar from art store are a step up;
    - Gum / Kneaded eraser is even better, for cleaner pickup of marks - (optional but a nice way to upgrade a basic toolkit)
  • Smudging tool to smudge / blend your marks - available at art stores / online (optional but a nice way to upgrade basic toolkit) 
  • Colored Pencils or some type of coloring tools; Watercolor pencils if you want more options (can be blended like watercolors); colored pastels, crayons, oil pastels, watercolors or markers are all fun to work with too).  


UPGRADES / OTHER OPTIONS to experiment with:  

PENCILS - any one of the following suggestions will be fine to get started with or upgrade to: 

  • Ebony Pencil from Prismacolor (gives a range of tones) 
  • Pentel Mechanical Pencil - 0.9mm or ).7mm (or similar) if you’d like the precision of a mechanical pencil with a softer blendable lead.
    ^ both of these options offer versatility so you could economize by just purchasing one to create a range of tones. 
  • H-B grade Graphite pencils, either in sets, or just one from each part of the spectrum: 2H, HB, 6B for example will give you light, medium and dark tones. Allows you to gradually and intentionally build up tones in light, medium and darker pencils, instead of blending tones with just one medium grade pencil. Optional, but fun to experiment with. 


OTHER MEDIUMS to try:  

  • Charcoal (sticks or pencils) to get a very soft, chalky texture, highly blendable, slightly messy but great for shading. 
  • Conte Crayon similar drawing texture, but made from clay, so they are more compressed / less crumbly, gives you a little more control in creating nice shadows like charcoal. 
  • Color Pastels: Similar to Charcoal, chalky, slightly messy but great for blending new colors. 
  • Crayons are another way to blend colors together - very easy to find, affordable. 
  • Color Brush Pens / Markers less blendable, another way to add color to your drawing, less possible to blend new colors that match what you see. 
  • Drawing Pens Microns, Pentel Sign Pens, Brush tip pens etc. add a hard edge, graphic element, test your hatching / shading styles. Ballpoint pens can also create a range of tones. 
  • Watercolors great for blending colors, somewhat difficult to control - (test out on other pages before adding to final images), but create a beautiful, fluid style. 

We hope this gives you a better sense of the course content and materials and look forward to you joining us in class!