humor

Hello..it’s me..

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 1 Comment

I was wondering if after all this time
You’d like to see my blog…

I have been neglecting the old blog, there’s all sorts of cobwebs and paintbrushes laying about in here.

Sampson the purple dog is doing well. He is 13 now.  He had to have surgery on his leg to remove a tumor but it was benign, thank goodness. It was a ruff operation but it didn’t take him long to get back into his yoga routine.

He’s been pretty lonely since Zeus passed away. He grew up with three cats and Zeus of course was his nonstop companion. He was having fits every time we left him alone and let me tell you terrier fits are very very loud so in March we got him another friend.

This is Tallie, she’s a little girl lab. She loves Sampson so much even though she finds his chipmunk obsession bewildering. He seems to find her entertaining too.

She’s growing quickly and is already bigger than Sampson. She won’t get as big as Zeus was but she’s big enough now that she can reach the countertops and that has been loads of fun.

Arts and crafts wise I was so sure, I’d have all sorts of time with the quarantine to do stuff but nope, Life was like “Hey! You! Busy! Busy!”.

I did make a few animals. This is from a pattern on “All About Ami“. She has such great patterns. Check her site out.

This turtle is a combo of a few different patterns.  I really wish I had written down what I did but I think it’ll be easy enough to redo. The hat I made up with scraps.

I’ll be back soon with some experiments and such that I’ve been doing. Until then pass this lemon Bundt cake around and I will talk to you soon.

Recipe from King Arthur Flour’s website. Check out their advice on making Bundt cakes, if you’ve never made one before. I doubled the icing recipe because why the heck not.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

Zinnia Madness

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 1 Comment

And wouldn’t that be a great band name..

I love to plant zinnias. They’re beautiful, they’re easy and best of all they attract these beauties.

A white garden butterfly, some call it a cabbage butterfly. They are so fast!

Another speedy one, a Silver Spotted skipper which is a pretty fancy and deceptive name. I would say that that spot is white but who am I to rain on someone’s parade.

Another kind of skipper, it’s either a Sachem Skipper or a Zabulon Skipper, I don’t know enough about them to tell the difference but both are super fast and surprisingly cuddly looking.

My, what big eyes you have…

An American Lady Butterfly, what a beauty. She’s a subtle one but stunning nevertheless.

It was a big difficult to take a photo of this Red Spotted Purple Admiral. As you can see her wing is damaged and she was quite rightly spooked. They mimic the Pipevine Swallowtail which are poisonous but someone grabbed her. She still flew quite well though.

This is not on a zinnia, this is a hummingbird hawk moth on a lilac. The colors on this one were so cool and again very cuddly looking. Maybe that is why they are all so fast, everyone would hug them to bits if they could catch them.

This one is not for hugging, they can bite when annoyed. She’s also not on a zinnia but such a beautiful color and she looks so wise, I think that’s known as the Jiminy Cricket effect.

Green Katydid.

Please don’t spray!  And please watch out for caterpillars and worms, many of the creepiest and ugly turn into these beauties.

 

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

Groundhog

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This is a 6×4 pencil crayon drawing on pastel paper.

Now if you’re wondering what pencil crayons are, they are what Americans called coloured pencils. Even though I’ve lived in the States for many years and sometimes use color instead of colour, and I almost never say toque and I  rarely drink a mickey or two-four… sure rarely sounds about right…anyway I can’t give up my pencil crayon terminology ..

Anyway here’s a grumpy groundhog. Not sure what he’s grumpy about unless he’s an American groundhog and would have preferred to be done with colored pencils. Sorry buddy..not in this house!

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2019

Linocuts of “The North Wind & the Sun”

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These linocuts were done on a 5×7 inch “Easy-to-Cut” lino from Jack Richeson & Co.Inc. It claims that it “Cuts like butter” and it does! I quite like it.
Apparently you can carve on both sides as well but I haven’t tried that yet.
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This lino is based on Aesop’s fable “The North Wind & The Sun”. You can find the story with sound effects even at  the Library of Congress’s website. Check it out, it is a fantastic site.
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I’ve experimented with different color papers, they are framed in the matte colors shown here though I added these with the computer as the original colors wouldn’t scan well.
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I was trying for a folk artsy sort of style. I think the smudges add interest.
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That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
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This one is my favourite, the black and red ink melded into an interesting pattern I thought

These two are so bright, heck yeah!

This next one is a bit more subdued color wise, I added a bit of embellishment with acrylic markers.

If you have any questions, ask away.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2019

Sampson the Dirty Dog

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 7 Comments

Sammy recently had surgery on a tumor on his tush.  Unfortunately it was malignant but fortunately they were able to remove it with a clean margin.  We will be keeping a close eye on him and hoping for the best.

In the mean time, Sammy is supposed to be staying dry, clean and being a respectable puppy dog while he’s healing.

So of course he did this.

Yup, in the middle of a drought, within minutes of being let out, he found the only bit of mud for miles.

And he’s not sorry at all!

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me me me me me!!

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I recently participated in an art trading card (ATC) project.

The theme was “All About Me”

That’s right. Me me me me me..

The cards are all 2.5 by 3.5 inches and painted with acrylic.

This one is a still life of flowers. I love flowers.

I also love tea and grow my own mint.

These art deco bottles belonged to my grandmother.

My gardening shovel.

One of my oldest and dearest friends. His name is Spot and we went on many an adventure together.

One of the Lincoln dresses, from the display at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield.

My breakfast, blueberries and peanut butter on a waffle. That’s right, I eat that.

My favorite color of nail polish, green!

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2018

The Super Blue Blood Moon

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 1 Comment

There should be dramatic music played every time someone says that.

And it should be said as if a wrestling announcer is saying it..

Laaaaaaaaadies and Gentleman….

(and the crowd roars)

Here in the night sky, hanging around that planet we call home, waxing and waning and dragging and pulling the water in and out and in and out and in and out..

It’s not just great..

It’s not just blue..

It’s not just bloody..

It’s the…

Supppppperrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue

Blooddddddddddddddddddd

Moon!!

Dum Dum Dum Dahhhhhhh….

Then all the Goths cheer! (do Goths cheer?)

This is not the greatest photo, a little fuzzy but I took it at 4am when I was also a little fuzzy so it’s all good.

Anyway Happy Super Blue Blood Moon Day. Congratulations on making it through the first month of the year. Woo hoo.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

A beautiful ghost and a rather silly swan.

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Over on WetCanvas in the Fantasy/SciFi forum, there was a challenge for the month of January. The theme of the challenge was to create something, in any medium, that had to do with a song.

Mine is from a Canadian singer, Loreena McKennit. She wrote and sang a song called “The Bonny Swans”. Loreena McKennit has such a beautiful voice!

The video is a bit long but the gist of it is that a girl is drowned in the river by her jealous sister. Her sister wants to marry the girl’s love. The body is swept around where the swans swim and eventually is laid out by a miller who thinks it’s a swan. A harpist comes sees the body and makes a harp of it. He is invited to the sister’s wedding to the girl’s love. At the wedding the harp sings the story and tells everyone what the sister did to her.

I’ve been looking at tapestries and have been on a medieval binge so I did this, in a naive medieval style in material ~ embroidery floss and linen. I did a quick sketch on paper and then pretty much free styled this as I went along.

It shows the sister in her wedding dress as the ghost comes out of the harp to tell of her murder and a swan is attacking the sister as well.

The swan cracked me up, it’s a silly thing.

Please ignore the fuzz by the swan, I didn’t realize it was there till after I took the photo. (and can I say how much I loathe how long it takes and the manner in which Windows 10 downloads photos)

This is on a 12 inch hoop.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2018

Merry Christmas!

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I was involved in a Christmas card trade on WetCanvas with a few other artists. It was so much fun and I received some beautiful cards from all the world. 

These were the ones I made. They’re ink and metallic watercolor. The metallic are so much fun to work with but they are hard to photograph!

christmas art painting watercolor ink

I also did a Science Fiction ~ Fantasy Christmas trade. I made this dragon for a wonderful friend of mine,  who is a guide on the Science Fiction & Fantasy forum on WetCanvas. She does monthly challenges there that are so much fun and very clever. If you like scifi or fantasy, check it out!

This is watercolor, ink and a whole lot of glitter. 

I hope you have a happy holiday whichever one you celebrate!

Much love and good wishes to all!

 

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2017