While her two brothers and other neighborhood kids were looking for snakes and other wildlife, Jill Webber was gazing in appreciation at the beauty that surrounded her. When she was in early elementary school, her family lived by a lake and wooded area, a perfect place for kids to explore. "I was preoccupied with how beautiful the rocks were, how beautiful the leaves and the trees were," said Webber.

It was around age seven that she asked for art supplies and was given some Prang watercolors and regular paper. "I would ride my bike down to the lake. I had a little wire basket on the front of my bike. I would put my paints in a little glass jelly jar because back then plastic had not been invented. I would go down there and spend hours painting the woods and the scenes and the trees, the leaves and the weeds," she said.

Webber says she has continued to do that all of her life. "It's what I'm interested in and what I'm drawn to."

After graduating from Oklahoma State University with a degree in fine arts, Webber taught art at Stillwater High School. "During that part of my career, I was really overwhelmed with just the teaching part of it, taking care of curriculum and learning new curriculum and teaching the kids and exposing my students to art in all the different areas and professions that are available with an art degree," she said.

Now that she is retired, Webber finally has time to create her own art. "I have a studio in Stillwater, and I paint five and six days a week full time," she said. "I show around Oklahoma mainly, but a lot of my art comes from my travels."

She travels a lot in Oklahoma but also goes into Colorado and New Mexico. Three of her paintings in the exhibit at Graceful Arts Gallery this month come from just east of Alva at Ingersoll.

"I am also a member of a group of professional artists called the Rattlesnake Gang," she said. These nine artists make an annual trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas to paint for a week. Quite a few of Webber's paintings in the Alva exhibit are from there along the Rio Grande.

"I paint mostly in oil. I have some in pastel and I also paint in watercolor," she added.

During May, Webber is one of the featured artists at Graceful Arts Gallery in Alva. You can also view her work at http://www.JillWebber.com