It’s been a busy summer: over at Drawing the Natural World we have been drawing meadowlarks, pitcher plants, butterflies and snow leopards. When I’m not working on lessons, I have the great pleasure of drawing birds by request. Here are some recent ones:

Postcards and envelopes become tiny canvases:

Ink is a wonderful medium for drawing black feathers – especially when the background has the warm undertones of age. This American crow, ballpoint on an original 1883 New York map, will fly away to his new home on Monday. I’m accepting April commissions now: your favorite bird drawn on any antique state map you wish. Email me at studio@valwebb.com for details.

I have fallen in love with my current work, with the research and the sketching and the final image constructed stroke by single hair-thin stroke across the landscape of an antique map or a forgotten letter. I think about the process constantly, and wake up each day with my fingers itching to pick up that ballpoint pen. Fifty-three years after my first paying art job, I think it’s safe to assume I won’t ever get tired of drawing. (Also, I will have to live to be 103 to draw all the birds on my list.)

Saturday, Feb. 7 10am-2pm
Weeks Bay Reserve – Tonsmeire Resource Center
ALL SUPPLIES PROVIDED $45

Artists around the world are discovering an unexpectedly beautiful drawing tool: a simple disposable ballpoint pen can create rich textures and soft, subtle shading with a look that resembles vintage illustration. In this workshop, learn ballpoint basics (including how to tint your work with colored pencil) and warm up with a short practice exercise. Then with step-by-step guidance, create your own ballpoint bird using a collection of reference images. No experience necessary and all art supplies are provided. (Feel free to bring a sack lunch or snack.)

Tonsmeire Resource Center stands at the mouth of Fish River, overlooking thousands of acres of tidal and forested wetlands. It is located at 11525 US Hwy 98, Fairhope, Alabama.

I have changed the way my drawing and painting courses are offered – they are now more affordable and if you sign up with me, you have access to ALL my courses. Here’s how it works:

My huge collection of previous courses, created over the past 13 years, will now be hosted on a private Substack page called 32 Art Courses. For $8/month you have access to hundreds of videos and illustrated printables to use whenever you like. You can cancel anytime. That site is https://32artcourses.substack.com

OR…

Drawing the Natural World, also hosted on Substack, is my “new courses” site where fresh videos and printables are added constantly, I conduct monthly art and book giveaways, and you also have access to all the videos (drawing owls, painting fall wildflowers, drawing small furry woodland creatures, and much more) for the past year. It costs $12/month or $120 for a year. You can visit and look around at https://valwebb.substack.com

Thanks for your interest! Hope to see you soon.

Warm wishes,

Val

This week, I have the pleasure of hosting a morning of nature journaling at a beautiful natural reserve. For everyone who ventures out to join me – and for those too far away to attend – here are some illustrated printable pages with tips on sketching birds and plants. Click the button beneath each image to download your own copy. Enjoy!

The bad news: All 30 of my online courses vanished yesterday, when my longtime web host Typepad crashed.

The good news: All 13 years of content, 400+ lesson videos and 1200 printable pdf pages, were already safely backed up on other sites, so the classes will be reappear with a new host platform. As soon as they have been reformatted and all the links checked, I will email fresh links.

Why did this happen? Early last week, Typepad announced that it would discontinue service on September 30. Immediately, thousands of users (including me) began the huge job of migrating content to new web hosts. The traffic overwhelmed the website, and it crashed. At first, Typepad reported that the outage was due to maintenance, but today it became clear that the problems ran deeper.

Typepad says it is working to restore the lost content. This means the courses may suddenly reappear today or tomorrow and continue to work until Sept. 30. Or they may not.

It was a shock to discover that everything was gone, but I’m so relieved that the interruption is temporary. Thank you for being patient.

Val

p.s. My Substack community, videos and printables, are completely unaffected by this – this is totally separate. In fact, I chose to post my new content at Substack because it is a much stronger platform.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everyone who has become a paid subscriber to my new nature drawing course+community, Drawing the Natural World. My work would not be possible without you.

We’re drawing owls all through December. For some reason (perhaps it’s the slightly humanoid flat face or their haunting night calls?) owls seem to exist in a different category from all other birds. It’s easy to understand why they have been associated with wisdom and mystery throughout human history.

Best of all, they are fun to draw. Here’s a sampling of our owl month, so far: