Coming up in January
Snow animals, phenology wheels, live workshop info and more
Ballpoint Birds workshop at Weeks Bay Reserve
Imagine a classroom on stilts, built at the mouth of a beautiful river and overlooking thousands of acres of forested wetlands. Imagine dozens of brown pelicans wheeling and diving at the end of the pier just outside. This is the setting for my upcoming Ballpoint Birds workshop on Saturday, February 7. If you’re on the Gulf Coast then, join me to explore the beautiful effects a humble disposable pen can make. No experience necessary, and your supplies are all provided. Find out more HERE.
January Book Giveaway: The Comfort of Crows
This month’s book giveaway is a balm for your soul. The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl is a beautifully written collection of 52 essays - one for each week - exploring the natural world through a lens of family, loss, and hope. Trust me, you will love it. One paid subscriber will be randomly selected on January 10. Good luck, everyone!
January Art Giveaway: Sketchbooks from 1949 Seed Packets
When an east Texas feed and seed store went out of business in 1949, hundreds of empty seed envelopes were packed up in boxes and put into storage. Now they are back in circulation, their vintage graphics as bright as ever, repurposed as the covers of pocket sketchbooks. I have filled them with 40 sheets of archival heavyweight Bristol vellum from a heritage mill founded in 1903. One free or paid subscriber will be randomly selected on January 10. Best of luck to all!
New: Join me for Phenology Fridays!
I’ve always wanted to create a phenology wheel - a circular sort of visual journal to record seasonal changes in nature over time. Through drawing on your phenology wheel each month, you make a very personal record of cycles in your local ecosystem. It’s a wonderful way to practice mindfulness and deep looking.
Your phenology wheel can be as simple or as complex as you want. Typically, it focuses on a single subject: a changing landscape, the various birds you see through the months, weather conditions, wildflowers… there are so many possibilities!
For example, I’m going to concentrate on butterflies and their host plants. Each month I’ll draw the predominant butterfly I see on my daily trail walks. I plan to use ink and watercolor for my phenology wheel; feel free to use what YOU like best. (I chose my subject because I live where there are butterflies year round, and different butterflies at different times of the year.)
On the fourth Friday of every month, I will host an online meetup for anyone who wants to get together and work on our phenology wheels. The first Phenology Friday will be January 30.
If you still aren’t quite sure what a phenology wheel looks like, there are some truly inspiring examples online. A typical pattern looks like the wheel on the left in my photo: basically a shape that resembles a pie with 12 slices. I’d like to suggest a modified design (on the right in the photo) that will save you from trying to draw inside all those awkward wedge shapes. I have eliminated the lines, and the names of the months will be lettered between the notches around the outside ring. This way, you can allow your months to overlap a little, just as plants/animals/conditions overlap in nature. Here is a pattern, if you’d like to use a similar approach. I’ll be posting more about my phenology wheel in the next few days, as I transfer it to watercolor paper and label the months in preparation for drawing.
Our next Substack projects
Snow animals! I have been looking forward to our next four drawings: arctic hare, arctic fox, snowy owl and snow leopard. Their fur, their feathers, the unique way each creature moves. We’ll begin next week.
THANK YOU to everyone who has emailed to suggest topics. I love hearing from you, and it’s tremendously helpful. There have been multiple request for combining ink and watercolor. I’ll get busy on that. :)
…And my studio news
The 2026 Alabama Audubon Bird of the Year commission is finished and has flown away to be framed before the big reveal at a gala on February 1. That was an exciting project, and one that will help raise funds to protect threatened species in our region. My current commission is a big turkey vulture on an 1889 Oregon map. Nature’s cleanup crew, vultures are impressive birds and are a lot of fun to draw. With the collector’s permission, I’ll post images soon.
I am honored to be teaching a session within a seven-week mini course on nature journaling, offered by Janisse Ray over at Trackless Wild. Starting Jan. 11, the course meets on Sunday afternoons and includes journaling luminaries Clare Walker Leslie, Susannah Fisher, Alma Ramiro Alonzo, and more. It looks fascinating!
To see the type of work I take commissions for - detailed drawings in ink on antique maps and other antique paper, click HERE.
To visit my online shop and see miniature paintings of birds, wild creatures, cats who drink coffee and knitting mice, click HERE.
The lineup of snow animals sounds fantastic, especially the snow leopard with all that textural complexity in fur and movement patterns. Phenology wheels are such an underrated tool for building ecological awareness over time. I started tracking bird migration patterns last year and was suprised how much the ritual of monthly observation changed the way I notice seasonal shifts. The vintage seed packet sketchbooks are gorgeous btw, that kind of material history adds soemthing special to the drawing experience.
Hi Val. I love your work so much - I wish I could go to one of your workshops, especially a miniature one. Please let me know if you ever come to Australia - I’d love to introduce you to our wildlife (I too donate a percentage of my art sales to support animal and environmental charities).