The camellias have arrived

It’s camellia season on the Gulf Coast and big, showy blossoms are everywhere. Unlike the azalea’s brief explosion of riotous color followed by ten months of weedy-looking shrubbery, the camellia’s glossy greenery looks robust year round. Some varieties bloom for months and can survive, essentially neglected, for centuries.

But I like them because they are such fun to draw. Simple or heavily ruffled, their flowers range from snowy white to delicate pink to intense crimson — or speckled and spattered combinations of these colors. And their crepe texture is perfect for colored pencil. Here’s a recent preliminary drawing using a dark umber Prismacolor pencil:

And here’s the same drawing, with layers of color added. I used five colors in addition to the umber “foundation drawing” :  Crimson, Cream, Chartreuse, Canary Yellow and Dark Green:

Did you know…

…”Nar” is the Old Norse word for corpse. These whales are named for their mottled resemblance to drowned sailors. A bit of cetacean trivia for your day!

Pencil Overdrawing

On a steamy Alabama evening a few years ago, I saw something desperately flopping on the pavement in front of the local grocery store. At first I thought it was a small bird, but when it suddenly looped into the air I saw that it was an enormous moth. It struggled upward, scissoring the air with its wings, and then — to my surprise — it flew right in through my open truck window and landed awkwardly on the seat beside me.

This wondrous visitor was Antherea polyphemus, the largest moth in North America and one of a gorgeous retinue of silkworm moths whose beauty rivals that of any butterfly. With no functioning mouth parts, they live only about four days after emerging from their silken cocoons. My polyphemus moth friend appeared to be at the end of his short lifespan. He was missing a leg and a generous wedge of one wing, evidence of a harrowing escape from a hungry bird or the jaws of a gecko.

I let him rest on the seat during the drive home. He died somewhere along the miles of country road and so, after unloading the groceries, I placed the moth gently on my drawing table and sketched the graceful arc and lush patterns of those huge wings. A few weeks later, the sketch became the inspiration for a set of fairy wings:

Few artists use the technique, but pencil overdrawing (drawing the shading and details over a thin, flat layer of watercolor) is perfect for the subtle patterns and textures of a moth’s wing. You build the layers slowly and gradually, barely touching the paper with strokes as light as a moth, and the drawing becomes a deeply relaxing process.

We used pencil overdrawing in this week’s Draw Paint Letter email video lesson. If you like to draw, but are intimidated by realistic watercolor, it’s a good way to get your feet wet (so to speak).

Happy drawing,

Val

Almost done…

…with a new design to be printed on garden flags and greeting cards.  An art festival this weekend, a garden show next weekend, then another art festival on the following weekend — after the solitary task of drawing and painting my garden themed illustrations, it’s fun to meet customers face-to-face.

Landfill fodder… or art supplies?

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art, recycling, Val Webb

Finished print (top) and cardboard plate

Early tomorrow morning, I’ll load my trusty etching press into the truck and head out on the first of 19 school visits to do printmaking with students at inner city schools. Over the next few weeks, we’ll save lots of scrap materials from an unhappy fate in the local landfill, and use it to create collographs instead. Bits of fabric, paper, textured vinyl, leftover ribbon… feathers, felt, pieces of worn-out straw hats… anything that can be glued to a cardboard square, rolled with printer’s ink and cranked through the press becomes eligible for a quick reclassification from “unwanted garbage” to “art supplies.”

In the sample print, the base is a throw-away scrap of mat board. The borders are ribbon, and the horse is made of cut-out paper scraps. His mane is a piece of a paper doily. The background patterns and the row of circles up one side are the result of drawing on the mat board surface with a sharp school pencil. A little ink, a spin through the press…

You never really know how your image will turn out!

2009 Holiday Open Studio – Nov. 22

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art, Val Webb

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

Tutorial: Tips on drawing animal eyes

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tutorial

Blooming

Sketchbook: Mississippi Sandhill Crane

Tags

art, birds, ecology, Gulf Coast, illustration

Pencil, gouache and recycled postcard on buff drawing paper.

The letter for today is ‘M’

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art, illustration, Mardi Gras, mermaids, painting, watercolor

This Mardi Gras mermaid mixes a marvelous martini.

She’s only half finished, and her entire body wouldn’t fit on my scanner, so I’ll post a photo of the fully completed mermaid in a couple of days. Fun!