Back by request: Heirloom Garden in Colored Pencil

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art classes, botanical art, butterflies, colored pencil, creativity, drawing, flowers, gardening, how to draw, illustration, sketchbook, Val Webb

Old-fashioned flowers! Veggies! Butterflies, bees and dragonflies! A new session of my popular online class, Heirloom Garden in Colored Pencil, starts Nov. 3. Work at your own pace, with five months to explore all 10 lessons. No experience necessary. Click here for more info.

Sometimes staining can be a good thing

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art, art classes, botanical art, creativity, flowers, how to draw, illustration, sketchbook, Val Webb

Speaking as someone who once spilled an entire mocha latte down the front of my shirt 15 minutes before I was due to speak before a workshop group, I can vouch for the staining power of coffee. But it’s that very characteristic that makes coffee a terrific alternative painting medium — it stains white paper with a gorgeous (and delightfully aromatic) brown tone similar to a watercolor wash. This page in my 2008 sketchbook is painted and lettered with three varieties of my favorite beverage:

I love drawing and painting on stained paper, with its raw warmth and sometimes-bark-sometimes-leather texture. We used earth-based acrylic pigment to stain sheets of watercolor paper in my recent North Carolina workshop. Dogwoods were blooming in the mountain coves, so we drew them in layered colored pencil and charcoal:

This week, I’m staining lots of paper in front of a video camera in preparation for the upcoming Botanical Sketchbook Painting course. The best part is the fact that you never get the same result twice — each sheet is uniquely smudged and pocked, each with its own rustic beauty. The second best part is the fact that… well… someone has to drink all that leftover coffee.

Heirloom Garden in Colored Pencil

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art classes, botanical art, butterflies, colored pencil, creativity, drawing, flowers, how to draw, Val Webb

Old-fashioned flowers and their pollinators, including bees and butterflies, are the focus of a 10-lesson online course available on demand. “The Heirloom Garden in Colored Pencil” will provide detailed, step-by-step instruction in seeing and accurately drawing a wide range of flowering plants in graphite and colored pencil. No previous art experience needed.

The course is designed to be “work-at-your-own-pace.” Lessons are hosted on a password-protected site, and students have a full year to complete all 10 lessons. Personal instructor feedback and guidance is provided through email, as often as you wish.

The cost of the course is $50 for a limited time. To sign up, email studio@valwebb.com.

 

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD SUPPLY LIST

 

 

The fun of drawing iridescent feathers

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art classes, birds, colored pencil, drawing, how to draw, illustration, Val Webb

There’s nothing fancy about the boat-tailed grackle, a lanky relative of the blackbird and the oriole. Grackles populate the coast from Texas to Long Island, and are the goats of the bird kingdom — they will eat just about anything they find, from small crustaceans to scavenged dumpster fare.

But if you have a hankering to try drawing an iridescent surface, the boat-tailed grackle is your ideal model. A sheen of shimmering blue, purple or copper play over these birds in sunlight. Microscopic structures on their feathers break light apart, like a prism, and create a reflected rainbow.

(This fellow was drawn with Prismacolor colored pencils on medium-weight Bristol vellum. He was the demonstration drawing for my online course, Birds in Colored Pencil.)

Drawing, drawing, drawing

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art, art classes, birds, cats, dogs, drawing, how to draw, illustration, Val Webb

I draw lots of printable instruction pages for my online courses, which means spending hours each day pushing that 2B pencil. So what so I do when I need a break? I draw. I can’t help it — it’s my favorite thing to do!

 

How to draw eyes

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art classes, drawing, how to draw, pencil, Val Webb

Eyes are challenging to draw, but they are also a lot of fun — and the eyes are often the key to expressing human emotion in a drawing. Here’s a short, step-by-step tutorial on drawing realistic eyes in pencil. For your model, cut a pair of eyes out of a magazine photo or crop a pair from an online image. Cut away the rest of the face so that you won’t be distracted as you concentrate on this drawing exercise. When you have finished, I’d love to see your results! My email is studio@valwebb.com.

For the aspiring artist on your holiday list…

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art, art classes, botanical art, colored pencil, creativity, drawing, fairies, how to draw, illustration, Val Webb, workshops

Last night, I finished up the drawing for my new gift certificate. Sign someone else up for the online course “Draw & Paint Six Culinary Herbs” and I’ll send them one of these. (I will add hand-lettered course info and your message – and I’ll even decorate the envelope with a little sketch!) Starting Jan. 7, the course is 10 lessons with video and personal feedback, work at your own pace. The cost is $50. No experience necessary… something fun and different for the aspiring artist in your life.

Draw & Paint Monarch Butterflies

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Alabama, art classes, butterflies, colored pencil, drawing, how to draw, painting, Val Webb, watercolor, workshops

I’m delighted to offer a new workshop, “Draw and Paint Monarch Butterflies,” at beautiful 5 Rivers Delta Resource Center on Saturday, January 12. Working from actual specimens, with step-by-step guidance, learn to create a realistic monarch using gouache and colored pencil on handmade buff paper. No experience is necessary and all supplies are provided. Class size is limited to 10. The cost is $65, and illustrated gift certificates are available if you plan to use the workshop as a Christmas gift. Email me to reserve a spot.

Two more things about the workshop: We’ll meet from 10 to 4, so bring a sack lunch to enjoy on the deck during our midday break.

Also, it’s important to me that you know our butterfly specimens were not wild-caught and killed. They were raised from egg to caterpillar to cocoon to adult, allowed to live a natural life and then after they died were carefully collected for our use. Butterfly farming preserves habitat and discourages destructive land use; it can also be helpful in supporting threatened species. Just so you know.

Orange you glad it’s colored pencil?

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Alabama, art, botanical art, colored pencil, drawing, how to draw, illustration, Val Webb

If you’ve been wondering whatever became of those pencil studies of citrus fruit, here’s a peek at the final result. This old-fashioned fruit crate label was commissioned by Mobile Botanical Gardens to promote a slate of upcoming events celebrating citrus. Like the labels of old, the image measures 10×11 inches. It’s all in colored pencil, using a “speed pencil” technique that I love — all the shading is done in an “underpainting” layer using just Dark Umber pencil, then the color is added at the last in a single layer. The wonderful shadows and highlights are simply the result of the umber drawing showing through the color. Below, the peeled orange is still in the umber stage but the shiny satsuma orange next to it has already received a layer of color… just a single layer of orange pencil! Thanks to the textures and shadows already shaded beneath, you get a lush and complex result. It’s a great alternative to the traditional slow layering of different colors to build depth.

New online course: Draw & Paint Six Culinary Herbs

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art classes, botanical art, colored pencil, drawing, gardening, how to draw, illustration, painting, tutorial, Val Webb, watercolor

It’s not your typical botanical drawing course. My new online class series, “Draw & Paint Six Culinary Herbs,” will incorporate all the things that make the humble kitchen garden a place of a thousand small delights. In addition to learning to create softly shaded pencil studies, spirited ink-and-wash sketches and richly layered color renderings that combine watercolor and colored pencil, we’ll also explore the history and folklore associated with our six herbs. Each lesson will include art demo videos, printable illustrated instruction pages and photo tutorials posted on our private class website — as well as illustrated tips on growing, harvesting and using our culinary collection. I’m also sharing my own stock of organic herb seed (from my garden, while supplies last) with anyone who asks when they sign up. Email me for a list of available varieties.

The course is designed so that you can work at your own pace, without ever feeling rushed. Lessons will appear weekly beginning January 7 on a private, password-protected website. All 10 lessons will remain there until May 6. During those four months, you have access to the lessons anytime you wish to work on them. Feel free to take a week off (or even a month) for other activities. You’ll still have plenty of time to complete the course. Each lesson will include:

• My video demo with step-by-step guidance for each new technique
• Printable color instruction pages
• Examples for each lesson, created to guide and inspire you
• Personal help when needed, and feedback when each lesson is completed
• Access to our own private online group where you can share comments and images with others taking the course around the world. (Participation in the group is optional. No instruction will take place there.)

Art topics covered in the course include:

• How to develop the habit of looking deeply at your subject, so that you clearly see and understand its structure
• Three steps to creating a quick and accurate foundation sketch
• How to draw leaves in perspective
• My “gentle pencil” technique for softly shaded pencil studies
• How to combine ink and wash for fast and elegant herb drawings
• Traditional layering of watercolor and colored pencil to build a richly detailed rendering
• Color matching and color mixing – including highlights and shadows
• The structure of an herb plant, and some basic terminology

Absolutely no experience is necessary. The supply list is simple, and contains no exotic materials. (In fact, if you recently took my online watercolor lettering course, you already have the brushes you’ll need. You can check them off your list!)

What about technology? Well, you will need four basic tools to “attend” this online class:

• A computer, or access to one
• An email account to receive informative messages or send in your work for feedback
• A way to print out your illustrated instruction pages
• A way to send images of your completed projects to me for feedback. You can use either a scanner or a digital camera to create an image, then email it.

The cost of the entire course is $50, which is payable by personal check, money order or through PayPal. (To use PayPal, let me know you want to join the class and I will send you a secure PayPal invoice with an embedded “pay now” button.) Email me to sign up, or if you need additional information. See you soon!