Marks in Motion: Exploring Ink & Biro

Start Date: Wednesday 25/03/2026 (Weekly)

Time: 10:30am

Duration: 2.5 (10hrs total) hrs

Price: £180.00

Ability: All Welcome

Tutor: Rachel Labovitch

Tickets Available: 8

About this course

This short 4 week course will begin Wed March 25th skip 2 weeks over Easter and resume wed 15th April - 29th April

Discover the expressive power of simple tools in this bite-size 4 week drawing course exploring ink, wash, and biro. Across four focused sessions, you’ll experiment with line, texture, and tone using dip pens, brushes, twigs, and ballpoint — building from delicate mark-making to rich, layered drawings.

From subtle ink washes to surprisingly painterly biro techniques, this course is all about loosening up, trying new media, and finding fresh ways to bring depth, movement, and character to your drawings. Perfect for curious beginners and experienced drawers wanting a lively skills refresh.

Led by acclaimed artist Rachel Labovitch this course builds upon foundational drawing skills, refining techniques and introducing more advanced concepts to help you create confident, dynamic drawings with depth and precision and with different mediums.

The creative energy of Colne Road Studios, with its light-filled space and welcoming atmosphere, provides the perfect setting to expand your skills.

About this course:

INK: Session 1 – Refining Your Tools & Techniques In this session, we will take a deeper dive into the materials and techniques needed for drawing with inks. By the end of the session, you will have: Explored the properties of pen and ink using a dip pen Experimented with diﬀerent grips to achieve variation in line Looked at the diﬀerent types of ink available Made small line drawings to practise capturing diﬀerent textures Used diﬀerent mark making techniques to render a still life of organic forms Studied other artists techniques in line

INK: Session 2 - Using washes This session focuses on expanding your mark-making vocabulary to create texture, tone, and movement in ink drawings. This session will develop your skills in using ink washes to make gestural drawings By the end of the session, you will have: Looked at Rembrandt and Claud Lorraine wash drawing techniques Made drawings of forms and their shadows using ink and a brush to create depth Used watercolour washes to add colour in your drawings

INK: Session 3 – Expressive Mark Making, Line & Mark This session focuses on layering your ink and wash techniques to create texture, tone, and movement in ink drawings. By the end of the session, you will have: Experimented with a variety of marks using diﬀerent implements including reed pens, feathers, and twigs, and dip pens Explored dry brushing techniques to create textures Studied how diﬀerent artists use mark-making for expression and texture. Created a layered drawing of organic forms incorporating diﬀerent techniques of mark making, line and wash, using at least three diﬀerent drawing tools in your picture used colour to add washes

BIRO: Session 4 - Using Biro to create layered drawings with cross hatching and watercolour washes This session looks at the surprisingly subtle use of biro and layering with watercolour to create detailed paintings of natural form. By the end of the session you will have: Explored hatching, cross hatching and fading out marks in biro Created detailed drawings of natural form Applied watercolour to layer on top of the biro Experimented with paint washes and weights Explored colour mixing

Materials supplied: Ink and dip pens and brushes with a limited supply suitable paper.

What to bring: range of different weight pencils, putty & plastic rubbers, sharpener and 180gsm cartridge paper, sketch pad or similar .

Book Your Place

Event FAQs

Reviews

“Taking the time to learn in the inspiring environment of Colne Road Studios was such a treat! The group was welcoming and supportive and Rachel is an extremely talented and generous teacher, sharing her skills and knowledge to give us fresh perspectives and a wealth of useful advice and feedback. I felt my ability and interest in drawing had been revived after many years dormant, learning how to observe as well as how to draw. I would encourage anyone willing to pick up a pencil to have a go, and have already signed up to Rachel’s next course! “CB March 2025

‘I decided to do the Drawing for Beginners class at Colne Road Studios as I have recently started painting for the first time since school and felt that doing a beginner drawing class would aid me with this in looking at image and form. That and the fact that I hadn’t picked up a pencil to draw since I was a teenager. The course exceeded my expectations. The group were lovely and from very different backgrounds – some beginners, some already dabbled, and a couple were professionals who used drawing in differing forms in their careers. Rachel Labovitch is an exceptional tutor. She is informative in her teaching approach bringing in examples of other artists as we went along meaning that new or well-known works of art were discussed and techniques explored. She is positive, supportive and very encouraging. I left each class feeling inspired and even did ‘homework’ during the week to practice what I’d learnt – something I didn’t do at school. I would highly recommend this course to anyone and everyone – if you think you can’t draw, you’ll be proved wrong and you’ll start to notice the world around you with fresh eyes.’ LA Feb 2025

Can I park nearby ?

A CPZ is in force from Mon to Sat 8.30 – 6.30pm
Limited paid spaces available in surrounding roads with Ring Go cashless Parking

Max stay 4 hours during operational hours

Holly Road Car park, behind Marks & Spencer TW1 4HF

Mon to Sat – 8am to 6.30pm.
This car park is accessible and free to park in outside of these hours. Max stay 4 hours during operational hours – walking to the Studio approx 9mins

Are your courses just for adults or do you offer any courses for children ?

At the moment the courses at Colne Road Studios are designed for adults over the age of 18 . The aim is to create a relaxed environment, provide a bit of an escape and switch off from every day responsibilites. We are not able to accommodate children in our classes, nor do we provide children’s classes at this time.

Enrolment deadline

To secure a course, please book at least 8 days before the listed course start date.

Any course with no bookings 8 days prior to it’s start date will then be removed from the website .

Courses with fewer than 3 participants may be cancelled, with 5 days’ notice given to those who had enrolled.

You will be notified by email if this happens, unless you would like us to text you instead, but please let us know.
A refund for the full course value will then be made.
Please bare with us . This might take 5-10 days to come through.

Where is my course taking place ?

100 Colne Road Twickenham TW2 6QE. map ref

WHAT3WORDS : location kind.cook.honest

What is your refund policy?

All of our longer courses are exchangeable up until 28 days prior to the start of the course. After this, you are able to change your booking to a different course for a £20 admin fee. Please note that from 14 days prior to the start of the course, your booking is non-refundable and non-exchangeable.

Our refund policy is strict because it enables us to pay ourselves and our tutors a fair wage, and remain accessible as a studio.
Every time we are asked to to accommodate a refund request, we would be forced to lower our staff wages or increase our prices – both of which we really want to avoid. We hope you understand that this is why there are no exemptions to our refund policies.

What if the course is cancelled by Colne Road Studios ?