The 30 Days is almost here! Get Your Sketchbooks Ready

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Hello friends!

Guess what starts January 1st??

2026 THEMES: LESS IS MORE & CONNECTION

We’re back, baby.

On January 1, we begin a new 30 Days of Drawing. The 30 Days of Drawing is the perfect opportunity to take a deep breath, re-center and recommit ourselves to move into the new year together, with curiosity, creativity, and care. This is our third year, and I dare say, it’s going to be our best year yet.

What is the 30 Days of Drawing?

This is a beloved, heart-growing, life-changing drawing adventure that I’ve been leading with the DrawTogether Grown-Ups Table community for three years now! Starting January 1, every day I send the GUT community a new lesson. Members will also receive the daily drawing assignment. You draw every day, for ten minutes, and share your drawings with the community in the chat and support one another as you build and maintain a daily drawing practice. It’s a really beautiful way to access the power of drawing in a low-stakes, accessible format, and connect to a creative community to keep your new drawing habit going.

This year, we’re throwing in a few things to make it more personal, and more doable for this challenging moment in the world. Less about achieving what we want. More about enjoying and appreciating what we can, what we already have. Which is so much. First new thing: 30 DAY GATHERING!

SAVE THE DATE: 30 DAY ZOOM GATHERING! January 1, 10am PT/1pm ET (for GUT members)

On January 1 — Day 1 of the 30 days — we are going to gather LIVE on ZOOM to kick off our 30 days. We will say hi, talk about what’s coming up, and draw our first assignment TOGETHER. And we may even have a special, very relevant guest artist joining us. This is for members only, so make sure you are subscribed to get the registration link. We will send out a link to members on the 31st. (And yes, we’ll record it in case you can’t make it.)

…from the mouths of 30-day participants…

In addition to the daily lessons and drawing assignments, here’s what we’re looking forward to this January:

2026 Themes: LESS IS MORE & COMMUNITY

The world is a lot right now. I certainly don’t have the energy to take on much more. I can be deliberate about what I choose to do. This year I’m setting us up to really be present in our creative efforts together, and not take more energy than we make.

LESS = MORE

Each Sunday, I will send out a big drawing/life lesson. Then I’ll follow it up with mini-lessons and drawing prompts every day through the week. Why not a behemoth drawing lesson every darn day? Turns out more is not always better. I believe small bites will help us all keep going the whole way through the 30 days, while still deeply exploring our themes. (And I won’t get sick at the end this time🤞.) Let’s try to continue practicing last year’s theme of Good Enough.

CREATING COMMUNITY

While a lot of people use the GUT community chat to share artwork and make new friends, I’m delighted that people invite each other to create mini-drawing crews — like a smaller accountability circle. In that spirit, if you want to gift a GUT membership to a friend so they can join you and the GUT for the 30 days (and beyond), I made you a gift certificate to use. Just download the image and email it to them after you’ve signed them up at the link below. We also have discounts for folks signing up with a group. More on that below…

A few more things in the housekeeping area:

In case you fall behind…. Of course the idea is to do it everyday, but life happens. It’s all good. Stay in the present. drawing is best when done together, but access to 2026’s 30 Days daily lessons and prompts will be available to all paid subscribers through February.

Special pricing:

• We recently started a sale on Annual Subscriptions for under $50/year (compared with $60 regular price). For the months of January and February, monthly subscription prices will increase to support the huge extra effort, cost, and crew required to produce 30 daily lessons for the challenge. We highly recommend grabbing the discounted annual subscription instead! You get full access to the 30 Days of Drawing in January, plus daily/weekly lessons and community access for the entire year. This offer is for a limited time through December 31st.

• A special for groups! When 2+ people sign up together we also offer a 25% discount.

• The GUT continues to offer full scholarships to make sure everyone can access the benefits of drawing. If you are experiencing financial difficulty, please reach out. We got you. No artists left behind. (Thank you to paying members and the Muriel Pollia Foundation for making this possible.)

❤️✏️❤️

Got questions about the 30 Days??

Here’s an FAQ with everything you want to know about 30 Days of Drawing. We answer questions about membership in the GUT, explain how to participate in the chat and share your drawings, and address common subscription issues and policies.

Any more questions? Leave it in the comments. Our favorite Art Auntie Kathleen can point you in the right direction, and the wonderful Kyle Ranson-Walsh is available to help with challenging tech and billing questions (email community@drawtogether.studio).

Also, I’d love it if you experienced 30-Days Alumni would also hop in to help newcomers. It’s called DrawTOGETHER for a reason, and we really are a great, supportive community. To that end, let’s take a moment to review our DrawTogether/GUT code of conduct. Violators will have to deal with me. Mwahaha.

Alright, if you want to share a little about what you are looking forward to in the 30 Days in January 2026, we’d love to hear it. Please leave a comment below. It’ll be a fun way to reconnect and start getting into the 30 day community mindset together.

Assignment: Get your materials ready

Get your supplies together. All you need is a sketchbook (any bound book of paper will do), a pen and/or pencils, and something to color with. Watercolor paints, markers, colored pencils, etc. Doesn’t have to be fancy. Whatever feels fun, and maybe like a manageable challenge. I repurposed an old sketchbook I started but never finished for 2026. Again, not fancy! Just fun. Get messy!

Love you GUT crew!! Let’s do this.

Alright friends. Gather those supplies, invite your friends, and let’s get ready to DrawTogether.

Pencils UP!

xoxo,

w

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GUT Gallery

D’Lena: The “Sprint Selfies” from February were a fun assignment. We did one 1 min sketch, one 3 min sketch and one 6 min sketch. The trio from today is on the left, the trio from the first time around is on the right! The first time was an unsettling exercise, in a good way 😂 Initially, I did them from shortest to longest time but this time I started with the 6 minute drawing to help me figure out what I wanted the selfie to be. I also wanted the quicker ones to be the biggest, because the timer helps me to let my hand go and just play. I’ve lost some of that outside of the 30 days of drawing and it felt good to go big(ger) with something looser. It also feels good to see that I’m a little more able to capture expression and to stylize. (The 3 minute drawing is the closest to the side-eye expression I saw in the mirror).

Bronwyn: Ruth Asawa’s flowers! Was inspired to make a calendar of flowers as a gift

Yana: My absolute favourite was the woven drawing. When I did it in May (see the picture in the comments), I used paper with paintings on both sides, and I was surprised that the other side of the woven drawing turned out even better than the one I intentionally designed. So I used this strategy again this time. Because I missed several assignments this year, for designing my woven drawing, I decided to complete two other assignments that I had not done earlier: “What Can We Do” and “‘Us’ Flowers”. It was interesting to work with text in a woven drawing; however, once again, I liked the back side of the drawing more

Tracy Tingle: This is an add on and new year’s wish for you all. I am the keeper of the message board above the mailbox at the condo compound I live in, and many of the displays that have gone in there are inspired by the GUT. So, thank you, Wendy and team for all the gifts, and here’s hoping 2026 provides a kinder, gentler path forward for all of us!

Mina J: My favorite is the 40,000 year obsession - self portrait - I always have a willing model. From the original pencil to the ballpoint experiments to the last two quick charcoals today. This year of GUT has enabled me try new things and to loosen up. Sometimes less is more. Thank you to this wonderful community 🤗