Angel art giveaway to welcome 2010

Yesterday I bought a calendar for the coming year. It’s a pleasure to open that first page and see all those clean white spaces, full of possibility. How can I make the most of those 365 empty squares, during our next twelve-month trip around the sun? Steadily those calendar pages will fill with gardens to be planted and harvested, illustrations to be drawn and painted, grandchildren to be loved and enjoyed.

Do you have special hopes or wishes for 2010?  Share them in a comment, and you will be included in a random drawing on New Year’ Day to win this 8×10 original watercolor angel.  Happy New Year!

Wait! Don’t throw that away…

I need your trash. To be more specific, I need some of your trash, for a very good cause, if you live within a reasonable proximity to Mobile, Alabama.

Bright and early on Jan. 6, Iwill load up my trusty etching press for the first of 19 school visits. As part of a wonderful outreach program sponsored by the Mobile Centre for the Living Arts, I’ll work with 900 third-through-fifth-grade students as they create collograph plates, ink them and pull their own original prints on the press.  Young artists learn about printmaking history, explore textures and form… and have lots of inky fun.

The wacky cousin of the block printing family, a collograph can be made by inking and printing practically anything that can be safely glued to a plate and cranked through the press. These things can be cut, torn, and arranged in interesting ways to create unique designs. For our purposes, that means we will need a large pile — a small mountain, really — of the following things:

• feathers
• textured ribbon scraps, from gift wrap or sewing
• lace
• bits of burlap, felt, corduroy or upholstery fabric
• pieces of woven straw hats, straw purses or woven placemats
• textured mat board
• sandpaper
• paper doilies or other paper cut-outs
• coins or Mardi Gras doubloons

So, if you live anywhere in the Mobile-to-Pensacola area, and you have household trash that aspires to avoid languishing in the landfill by becoming art materials instead… please email me.  Thanks!

And the winner is…

… Gosia, who lives in Dolnośląskie, Poland. A copy of “Designing with Words” and a raku magnet will soon be crossing the Atlantic. Thanks to everyone who left comments to participate in the contest –  and watch for a new giveaway during the first week of January.

A book giveaway to inspire you

Need a little extra inspiration as the year descends into the cold and dark of winter? I’m giving away a new copy of Designing with Words by Erin Trimble — an art-filled book that demonstrates how to use literary flair in your artist’s journal or altered book project. I’ll also include a raku magnet from my studio, with some wise advice from Emily Dickinson on a cheery kiwi green background. 

To be included in the giveaway, leave a comment after this post and tell me where you find your creative inspiration: in the notes of a beloved piece of music? The writings of your favorite author? Somewhere else entirely? The winner will be chosen at random in one week, by the good folks at random.org. Good luck!

This morning in the garden

Bees love the Thai basil's pretty purple flower spikes.

Atticus, fearsome hunter of earthworms

Is there anything prettier than a red cabbage seedling?

Green cabbage, tucked into a cozy bed of compost and leaf mold

Swiss chard. Mmmm.

Savoy cabbage, my 94-year-old grandmother's all-time favorite.

Alliums and a few hardy herbs. Garlic. Multiplier onions.

Bees love the Thai basil's pretty purple flower spikes.

Mark's citrus trees have put on new growth. It's lemon time!

Not much is in bloom now, but Texas tarragon is a bright spot.

Cuban peppers, producing continuously since April.

The lettuces grow through the winter in our only part-shade bed.

Baby broccoli in a double-dug "Chinese style" raised bed.

2009 Holiday Open Studio – Nov. 22

Come on over, everybody! Eat, drink and be merry. Visit awhile. See what’s going on in the studio. Take a walk in the garden. Browse a wide variety of original works by six artists:

Nissa Gordon

Melody MacDuffee

Mary Elizabeth Kimbrough

Jan Horton

Karin Marrero

Val Webb

 WHEN:     Sunday, Nov. 22 from noon until 5pm

WHERE:    Val Webb’s home and studio

NEED DIRECTIONS?    email me:   studio@valwebb.com

 

 

 

 

 

Angels in the garden

Pencil study for a new series of angel paintings

Tropical storm Ida rolled in from the Gulf this morning, but she has been a surprisingly well-behaved visitor. She thoughtfully watered the new transplants for me (brussels sprouts, chard, heirloom collards) and in her wake — as so often happens during hurricane season — we will have several crytalline fall days with blue skies and low humidity. Thanks, Ida!

I’m working on pencil sketches for some new angel paintings. They unfold in front of me, gradually revealing themselves, and I’m glad to go wherever they are leading me.

For the special herb gardener in your life

This is what I want to find in my stocking on Christmas morning: raku pottery garden markers from Sweet Paisley.  Choose from a selection of herb names or request your own, all for $4. 

I grow basil, mint, chives and oregano. (Hint, hint. )

 

Jewels on the side of the road

This time of year, the fall wildflowers fill our roadside ditches and paint vacant lots with yellow (beggarticks and narrow-leaf sunflowers), red (turkish lanterns), orange (native lantana) and purple (trillium and mist flowers). Stubborn and opportunistic, they don’t need a gardener’s help. All they require is a patch of dirt underneath, the bright autumn sun above, and the blessing of occasional rain.

40 days and 40 nights

We’ve had a lot of rain lately. The ground is saturated, clouds of mosquitos are swarming, and tiny mushrooms are popping up throughout the neighborhood.  We woke this morning to the latest in a long, gray string of gloomy skies — but suddenly, around midday, the clouds parted and the sun came out. I was relieved that we would not be forced to use our stack of soon-to-be-chicken-coop lumber to build a boat, after all. And I was reminded of this watercolor, painted years ago when my children were small. Here are some close-ups of the cheerful critters: