The Illustrated Garden: Val Webb's art studio

Nearly 15,000 pen strokes and the brown pelican is finished. Whew! A commission for Southern Roots Real Estate in Fairhope, Alabama, this fellow stretches across a 1901 map of Alabama, an 1896 map of the southern states, and an 1899 map of Mobile Bay. Ballpoint, white gouache and earth pigment.

A simple Bic pen can make a line almost 2 miles long, write 50,000 words or draw a gazillion pelican feathers. Making progress on this fellow.

Available this morning in my online shop, verytinystudio.com - ballpoint blue jay on an original stamped 1941 envelope.

Available today in my little online shop, verytinystudio.com - cardinal in ballpoint on an original 1919 postcard. I love how a detailed layered ink drawing looks like an antique lithograph. ❤️

American kestrel, ready to fly away to his new home tomorrow. Ballpoint on original antique map.

Feather by feather, a bird appears.

Special: available this morning at verytinystudio.com - I am offering smaller originals in between my big commissioned drawings. This week it's a pileated woodpecker, the largest in North America, easy to spot due to his fiery red crest and raucous, laughing call. Free domestic shipping.

One of my favorite spring wildflowers has covered the fields in a soft purple blush this week: toadflax (Linaria canadensis). Not only is it beautiful, but it's a larval host plant for the common buckeye butterfly. The plant's whimsical name comes from 16th Century herbalist William Turner, who wrote that it was "a wild, useless flax, a flax for toads."

Newly finished American crow, ballpoint on an original 1887 New York state map.

Good news! Fine prints of the 2026 Alabama Audubon Bird of the Year art will be available for pre-order through alaudubon.org in a few days. The first print run sold out - thank you for supporting threatened birds.