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

Ink + Brush = Appaloosa

For decades, I have loved the lively illustration work of that master of historical illustration, Victor Ambrus. And so it was Ambrus — and his lovely smudges and splatters — I had in mind when producing this demo for the online class, Draw Horses and Ponies. And when the technique includes lots of round inky droplets, the spots on an appaloosa seem like the natural place to go. I have experimented with fancier brushes, but this sort of serendipitous messiness seems to work best with a 50-cent chip brush from the hardware store.

Be yourself (and make some cabbage soup)

Tags

angels, art, illustration

On this cold, wet windy evening… here’s a cheerful thought and a delicious recipe for vegetarian cabbage soup. The cheerful thought took shape this way. First, a sketch:

Then, some paint:

And the cabbage soup recipe is from one of my favorite foodie sites, the ever-tasty 101 Cookbooks.

Enjoy!

Garden angels

Tags

angels, art, gardening, illustration

Too rainy to garden today, so I painted garden angels instead…

 

 

From the studio: My 2008 Holiday Print

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angel, art, Christmas, fairy, illustration, inspiration, peace, print, Solstice, Val Webb, watercolor

Dear Illustrated Garden readers,

Wishing you peace, here’s my Holiday Print for 2008. She’s painted in watercolor and gouache, and will arrive nicely matted and backed with acid-free museum stock. This is an annual edition of 100, and each piece is numbered, signed and also bears a remarque (a tiny just-for-you original sketch, drawn on the print next to the signature). Matted dimensions are 10×12 inches.

In thanks for a year of friendship and good gardening advice, I’m making my holiday print available to my blog readers for $20 + $3 postage. (International postage will be based on location.)  Let me know if you would like a special message added with your remarque.

To request a print, email me:   studio@valwebb.com

Val

Garden book give-away!

Tags

Anne Leuck Feldhaus, Books, contests, free books, gardening

There was a wonderful surprise in my email inbox last night: a message from amazing Chicago artist Anne Leuck Feldhaus. No one on the planet paints a dog quite the way Anne does. Her vividly colored canines leap and fly across the canvas, a kaleidoscope of paws and ears and wagging tails. I dare you to look at her artwork without smiling.

Not long ago, Anne asked for feedback on her web site. She entered all the commenters in a give-away drawing for a signed black poodle print, and to my delight (it’s a beautiful print) and complete amazement (I never win ANYTHING) my comment won. Thank you, Anne!

Now I’m inspired to have my own give-away. Here’s the deal:

1.  Leave a comment at the end of this post. (If you have a favorite garden-related book to recommend, I’d love to know about it.)

2.  One week from today, on Nov. 21, I’ll use random.org to select the winner.

3.  The give-away goodies include The 20-Minute Gardener by Tom Christopher and Marty Asher; a Garden Days Journal by Karen Strohbeen and Bill Luchsinger; and a handbound blank book I made. (It has cream-colored writing paper inside, and is covered in fabric purchased several years ago in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I have written and drawn some inspirations on one page of the blank book … and to round out the whole package, I’m also including a raku kitty cat ornament from the clay studio.)

 You can never have too many books.           Good luck!

Gardeners and journals

How to paint (quickly) a rapidly vanishing butterfly

Meet the Bay Checkerspot butterfly, an ethereal creature with wings as richly intricate as tiny little two-inch Persian carpets. Biologists are struggling to save this species, which has fallen victim to nitrogen emissions from automobiles and the nearly complete build-out of its natural habitat in coastal California. I painted this one for my show, Postcards from the Edge of Extinction, which will open May 5 at the Mobile Arts Council gallery. Here’s how to paint a Bay Checkerspot: first, roughly sketch the main shapes in pencil. Then…

…block in the undercolors. I used gouache, an opaque watercolor paint beloved to illustrators because it is nonreflective and reproduces well. White or ivory wings, dark blackish body, and some leaves to provide a place for him to rest.  Next…

…begin developing the details. Paint the outlines of his segmented wing patterns. Add some furriness to his thorax and his plump abdomen. Introduce some shadows along the lower edges of the leaves. Finally…

…work from left to right, using a small sable brush, and add the patterns on the wings. Take time to notice that each fresh row of “checkers” has its own repeated motif. Some look like gothic arches, some like round dots. Comparing the symmetry of the opposing wings will help keep you on track. Each side is a reflection of the opposite wing. I added a halo of soft orange and brown to help blend the whole image together with the old postcard beneath the paint.

(If you liked this step-by-step post, check out my instructions for making your own image transfers.) Enjoy!

P.S. The new year brought the first killing freeze to our Gulf Coast garden. We bid farewell to the broccoli crop and brought in the last of the savoy cabbage for soupmaking. But the collards, which only grow sweeter as the temperature drops, are still big and robust… and the snow peas, as thick and tangled as campaign promises, cover their trellis. Tucked in under a layer of compost, rows of garlic, leeks and onions dream of springtime.

Looking forward, looking back

                                                                      Black Swallowtail – gouache on vintage postcard      (c)Val Webb

The narrow, still space between Christmas and the New Year is a contemplative time… a chance to cast one final glance in the direction of 2007 as it trudges away over the horizon and then enjoy a brief rest while waiting for 2008 to arrive on the doorstep.

Out in the damp chill of the winter garden, the crucifers are ripening faster than we can eat them: friends and neighbors are finding themselves the recipients of bagged broccoli crowns; crinkly savoy cabbages were distributed along with Christmas gifts. I plan to test the theory that tender collard greens, consumed with blackeyed peas as a New Year’s Day meal, attract prosperity. Our cauliflower and snow peas — unhindered by the swarms of borers and chewers that plague warmer seasons — look like the pristine pictures in seed catalogs.  Ahhhh. The garden almost seems to tend itself. I love winter.

Contemplation is also the common thread connecting three books I’m reading now. The first is Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau, the great-granddaddy of simple living. It was written during Thoreau’s two-year sojourn living in his tiny, handmade cabin at the edge of Walden Pond. I’m glad I somehow missed being assigned to read this book back in my high school American Lit days, because Thoreau’s insights on community and closeness to nature would have been lost on my globetrotting teen-aged self. This is a book to be nibbled at and digested bit by bit. I enjoyed this 1845 comment on vegetarianism:

One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;” and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.

The second book is Elizabeth Gilbert’s rich and satisfying Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. It’s the fun and constantly surprising account of the author’s journey in search of life’s deepest lessons (and world-class pasta). Stitched into this crazy quilt of a travel memoir are flashes of pure insight. If this book doesn’t fill you with wanderlust, nothing will. Enjoy!

My current garden-related read is a visual feast, a kaleidoscope of scribbly botanical art goodness by Manhattan urban gardener Abbie Zabar. Her year-long illustrated journal, A Growing Gardener, is a thoughtful (and very, very colorful) account of her work to transform her apartment building’s rooftop into a garden paradise. It’s peppered with recipes, garden plans, lists of source material — lots of interesting stuff. If you happen to live in one of those unfortunate climate zones which are currently snowbound, this is some seriously inspiring fireside reading. Entertaining, too. And beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

Pausing briefly

Merry Christmas to all! I’ll be back after Dec. 25.