The carved tile we’ll use in tonight’s pottery class moldmaking demo was inspired by a sweet little homeless cat who has taken up residence in our tool shed. We first saw her yesterday, curled up on a shelf next to the pruning shears. She’s a pretty little calico, very young and very skinny. She was shy at first, but a continuous supply of food and water has brought out her sociable side.
Any suggestions for a gardening-related name?
Just like our garden, some studio work is seasonal. Annual commissions return each year at their appointed dates, as predictably as hardy perennials. Every spring, for the past five years, I’ve had the privilege of designing and producing the race trophies for the Grandman Triathlon. In a feat of physical ability that makes me tired just to THINK about, 400+ athletes from across the nation come to coastal Alabama to swim 1/3 mile in Mobile Bay, bike 16.4 miles and run more than 3 miles — all in 85-degree weather with 90 percent humidity. Whew. The race benefits Mobile Baykeeper, a watchdog organization working to keep our region’s watershed healthy and viable.
Each raku tile trophy starts with a sketch. Here’s the one for this year:
It’s a little challenging to come up with a new design each year. The ideal art features the triathlon events and includes a reference to the Mobile Bay coastal ecology. The first year, the trophy ended up as a whimsical Art Deco homage to fleet-footed Mercury, with a bicycle wheel and water:
The following year, the design evolved into a heron — but the bike wheel lingered:
In 2007, the tile design headed off in a simpler direction — a relief carving of a pelican in flight. This is my favorite of all the trophy tiles, so far:
Last year, art students at Spring Hill College designed a logo for the event. Naturally, the 2008 race trophy was based on that…
…which brings us up to this year’s trophy again. Ideas for 2010, anyone?
Here are the classes and workshops I will be offering this summer. All levels of art experience are welcome here – every class is taught in an atmosphere of relaxation, encouragement and discovery. Classes taught at my studio are limited to eight people or less. To reserve a place or ask a question, you may call me anytime at 251-510-9615 or email studio@valwebb.com.
RAKU: HANDBUILT POTTERY & HANDMADE TILE Mondays 6:30-8:30pm, 8 weeks, starts 6/15/09
Learn to create handmade relief (carved) tile in the traditions of the Art Nouveau masters. Use slab construction to make raku cylinders and boxes. Fall in love with the magical firing process that combines earth, air, fire and water to dramatically transform your artwork. All tools, clay, glazes and firing included. $120
DRAWING THE NATURAL WORLD Thursdays 6:30-8:30pm, 8 weeks, starts 6/18/09
See plants and animals in a whole new way. Learn to use pencil, ink and watercolor to bring your nature drawings vividly to life. Explore scientific illustration techniques – absolutely no previous drawing experience necessary. We will have at least one field drawing day at a location to be announced. Bring a sketchbook – everything else is provided. $120
DRAWING WITH INK & WATERCOLOR Saturdays 9am to noon, 4 weeks, starts 7/11/09
Combine pen-and-ink techniques with colorful watercolor washes to create richly detailed drawings with a spontaneous touch. Includes a lesson on color mixing… and one on making your own bamboo ink pen! There is a very small supply list (under $20) for this class. $95
The Illustrated Garden has a new Facebook page! My upcoming classes and workshops will be listed there, as well as images of new artwork and links related to nature drawing/botanical art/illustration.
Stop by for a visit, and become eligible to win a raku garden angel. Each angel is individually sculpted, glazed and raku fired. She’ll keep a watchful eye on your veggies and herbs.
Just go to Facebook and log in. Then type “The Illustrated Garden: Val Webb’s Art Studio” in the search bar. There you are!
The winner will be chosen at noon on Friday.
Pencil, gouache and recycled postcard on buff drawing paper.
This gardener took a break from tending his rattlesnake beans and tomatoes, and gave us a quick tour.
It was Saturday, and we were rambling around Pensacola’s first New Urbanism neighborhood — a whimsical 20-acre community called Aragon. We turned a corner and there it was: a lovely community garden, divided into individual family plots and hemmed all around with a white picket fence. Each family has a rectangular plot in the public space, and about two-thirds are currently under cultivation. The garden appears to be designed to encourage its use as a gathering place, with porch swings on one side and a big playground on the other. Brick walkways and trellises of sweet-smelling Carolina jasmine bisect the garden property (our friendly gardener pointed out that the jasmine probably wasn’t the best choice for this location, though, since its big woody roots keep snaking into the vegetables).
Some Florence fennel and a big ol’ rosemary.
Florida summers are hot, hot hot. The community garden at Aragon has a sprinkler system that comes on automatically, three times each week.
They sat there on our potato plants in the early-morning fog, tiny coffee cups raised high, waiting for The Perfect Man to drench them all in their favorite new breakfast beverage. Unlike the slugs in that Hawaii study (the one where coffee was toxic to the slimy little potato-plant-munching devils) apparently Alabama slugs LOVE caffeine. I’m pretty sure I heard one of them request extra froth.
It seems that everyone has their own favorite anti-slug strategy. Sympathetic gardening friends left suggestions on my Facebook wall: cayenne pepper and garlic oil sprinkled around the base of the nibbled foliage; nifty copper tape that mysteriously repels the slimy marauders. Or, if you have the culinary fortitude, you can even cook them up and eat them just like Tim Pearce.
Pearce, the assistant curator of Mollusks at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, shares handy slug recipe tips in a strikingly unappetizing post on Tribe.net. It’s a pretty good bet you won’t ever hear Rachael Ray exhorting the importance of slitting open your future lunch to peel back the translucent skin and pull out the “foul-smelling digestive gland” located in its posterior. And, if that tidbit of advice isn’t enough to inspire spontaneous vegetarianism, there’s more. “It is a very good idea to cook land mollusks before eating them,” Pearce advises, “as they are good vectors for human parasites.” Yum.
Just for fun. Watercolor and colored pencil, one of the small pieces I’ve been making and setting aside for an upcoming Art in the Park event.
