I recently bought some dip pens and have been playing with them. I love the G Nib though for some reason it’s hard to find in my area. I ordered some online since I’ve already killed the one I had.
A fish.
A quack.
A grrr.
A hedgehog with a little teeny tiny woof and a flower.
The sausage woof that I live with.
©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2019
…from my sketchbook. The sketchbook itself is 5×5 inches.
Ink Spider
Watercolor donkey
Pencil, Watermill Ruin
Sammy in pencil.
A lopsided acorn in ink.
The Alamo, in ink with my finger making a surprise appearance in the left bottom corner.
A squash which has long since been eaten in ink.
©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2019
Hmm, one minute it was August and now it’s almost December!
It’s time to get a sandwich and buckle down to the blogging thing.
I did this on leftover matting, the beauty of acrylics is that you can pretty much paint them on anything.
I did this ATC sized painting of roses on a small canvas. 3.5 by 2.5 inches.
This a 3×3 inch canvas.
This is another ATC size that is 2.5 by 3.5 inches.
©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2019
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
Ribbit
Ribbit
.
©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2019
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!
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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2019
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
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
I recently did an ATC trade on WetCanvas.com. The theme was “Painting from the Masters”. We weren’t picky on what master/artist it was as long as the work we were copying were made before 1923.
An ATC is an artist trading card. They are 3.5 x 2.5 inches, the size of a traditional playing card.
This card is based on Berthe Morisot’s “Woman at her Toilette”. Morisot was an impressionist. She studied with landscape painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corotin and in Paris under the tutelage of Joseph Guichard who had her copy Masters at the Louvre. I’m sure she would enjoy knowing that people are copying her! My version is in acrylic on 300 gsm watercolor paper.
This card is also in acrylic on watercolor paper. The original by Canadian, Helen Galloway McNicoll, was called “Buttercups”. McNicoll studied under William Brymer in Montreal. She also painted in Britain as a member of the Royal British Society of Artists and was vice-president of the Society of Women Artists. She was one of the few impressionist who was able to make a financially secure living from her art. She was deaf since childhood and died young from diabetes at the age of 35.
This card is based on a wooden panel painted by John La Farge simply titled “Fish”.. He was a member of the Arts and Crafts Movement and was noted for his stained glass windows. He designed windows for the Trinity Church in Boston and Memorial Hall at Harvard.
To make this card look like wood I first did a ocher undercoat. When that was dry I painted over it with a thicker coat of an ocher/red mix. When that was almost dried, I gently scratched out wood grain like patterns with the edge of a palette knife and let it dry before adding the fish and decorations.
It was interesting copying the works of others but I have a tendency to change them to how I would like them to look, very cheeky I know but I can’t seem to help myself!
©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2019
My beautiful dog has passed away.
We are heartbroken.
Zeus in the garden enjoying the sun and smell of herbs growing.
the purple dog painting blog 