Illinois

Techno!

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No, not the music kind. I do love that though.

Thwomp thwomp throw your arms around! thwomp thwomp (that’s me dancing to the beat)

Anyway…

I received a new Ipad and Apple pencil. I’m quite enjoying them. I downloaded both Procreate and ArtRage. I haven’t tried ArtRage much yet but I’ve been having fun with Procreate.

Procreate has a symmetry option which I’ve been having fun with.

digital artwork showing a symmetrical line work image of doves, swans and fish kissing
Kissing Kissing Kissing
digital art image of a colorful snowflake on a black background
Snowflake in pastels
Digital art image of a mermaid ticking the chin of a friendly sea dragon.
SeaPet

To create something similar.

This is what I did.

Layer 1: random color splotches then used a Gaussian blur to smooth the edges. I saw one lady online used the smudge tool to make it looks like those ones we used to do in school with colored pencil under crayon, I liked the smoother vellum sort of look. You could really do anything or even one bright color.

Layer 2: filled with a dark then set the drawing guide to whatever symmetry option and then used the erase tool to draw.

I like the monoline brush for these it gives a nice smooth edge.

Hope your enjoy!

Any questions? Comment below and I will get back to you ASAP.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2022

Zinnia Madness

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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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art by the Foot Project

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We are still reeling from the unexpected loss of Zeus. We have lost family, friends and pets before as many of you have but this loss was such a shock. We still find ourselves reeling from it. We all miss him terribly.

Poor Sampson is of course devastated. They hadn’t been apart in over ten years. We know it will take him some time to adjust but for now we are taking extra care with him, the poor guy.

I did this acrylic of Zeus, it’s a foot square and will be on display at the Figge Museum in Davenport as part of a community art project.

This piece is also on display. It is again on a one foot foam square. The museum gave each artist two to paint on. This is a mixed media piece with acrylic, a linoprint and pen drawing.  It is the lino print of the north wind but reversed from the one I showed you in a prior post. I added it to a stormy acrylic sky with a pen and ink drawing of the man that the Sun and North Wind were toying with.

I did it at the last minute over another painting so I hope that it holds up on display. I’m a bit nervous about it.

If you’re in the Quad Cities area,  The Art by the Foot exhibit is open and it displays art made by artists of all ages and abilities from the Quad-City area. The works were collected this spring and were required to be made on boards provided by the Figge. All of the works will be on view in the Mary Waterman Gildehaus Community Gallery from June 20th to September 1st.

I have to say, I love this idea and I thought it so clever of the museum to give artists this chance. I also love that it ranges from professionals to small children. That sort of encouragement is priceless!

.

©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

Sampson the Dirty Dog

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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!

.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

But otherwise, Mrs Lincoln…

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We recently went to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois.

As I love embroidery, I was very much interested in the dresses of Mrs. Lincoln. I would never want to wear one but the workmanship on them is incredible!

Mrs. Lincoln, looks a bit stout in her photos but she was surprisingly tiny.

The bodice though of course they would have used real flowers.

A close up of the embroidery.

The following are dresses that belonged to Mrs. Lincoln’s contemporaries. 

This one is my favorite, how heavy it must have been!

In contrast to such finery and displays of wealth is this display showing the separation of a family at a slave auction, a scene Lincoln witnessed and was haunted by.

On a lighter note, this display showed Lincoln seemingly amused by his sons’ shenanigans.  They said, the other people in the law offices did not like the boys coming to the office as they reigned terror over all while their father ignored the chaos they created.

The outside of the museum.

This mural was a block or so over from the museum.

And yes he is staring at you.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2018