Native plant folklore meets the golden age of children’s book illustration – all levels of art experience welcome. This course is designed to make you smile.

Storybook Botanicals in Watercolor & Colored Pencil
6 Lessons – Videos + Illustrated Printables
Limited Enrollment – Lifetime Access $65


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This lighthearted course will launch April 29, combining hand lettering, gentle botanical drawing and storybook illustration in a guided, step-by-step process designed for all levels of art experience. Using a simple three-step technique for adding details on top of color, we’ll create cozy and whimsical botanical images for old-fashioned plants including rabbit tobacco, foxglove and catnip. (Along the way, we’ll also explore some botanical facts and folklore.)

Storybook Botanicals will be six full-length video classes, divided into two modules and housed on a password-protected website. Each video lesson is approximately one hour long, with its own illustrated printable pages.

Module 1:

  • Storybook Pencil Drawing – how to draw soft fur and appealing faces, tips for pose and proportion, pencil drawing exercises, and a toadflax garden project to get you started
  • Soft Watercolor Botanicals – how to create accurate and gently colored plant studies, watercolor warmup exercises, and a cozy candyroot project
  • Handlettering Basics – how to plan your letters, what size and style to use, pencil lettering warmups, step-by-step watercolor lettering, and a practice project

Module 2:

  • Rabbit Tobacco (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) Besides having the world’s longest scientific name, this maple-syrup-scented member of the daisy family is fun to draw. It is also popular with pipe-smoking country gentleman rabbits who wear tweed jackets.
  • Catnip (Nepeta cataria) A member of the mint family with sweet purple flowers, it is a great favorite of well-bred cats who dress up in Victorian finery to host tea parties in the garden.
  • Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) The actual meaning of the Old English name for this plant was “fairy glove” and had nothing to do with foxes. Even so, they are popular with certain bushy-tailed gardeners who wear work gloves to tend their flower beds.

This is a lifetime course and you may work at your own pace. Questions or comments? Email me at studio@valwebb.com

Here is the supply list:

Click to access storybook-supply-list.pdf