Maud Lewis

July 22, 2022July 22, 2022 ~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ Leave a comment

Maud Lewis was a Canadian artist who created beautiful folk art despite suffering terribly from rheumatism. The film “Maudie” detailed her life. I think it’s still on Netflix.

She was a talented folk art painter even going to the extent of painting every surface of her tiny one room home. Her entire house is preserved inside the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. There’s even a virtual tour which is worth looking through.

On WetCanvas, which is still alive despite the owners, we have a monthly challenge in the acrylics forum. The theme for May’s challenge (I know I know I’m late posting but I don’t think anyone is reading this, blogs seem to be passe but I’m good with talking to myself!) was to either do a study of one of her paintings or do your own inspired by one of her paintings.

Folk Art seems easy but funnily enough more people had a hard time with this than with other genres or subjects in past challenges.

These are mine. The first one is based on her “Snow dog” but instead of her white dog I used my Tallie. This is 2.5 x 3.5 inches.

A happy folk art painting of a yellow labrador retriever, dog, in a garden of tulips with plum blossoms overhead — Tallie in the Tulips

The second is a copy of “Eddie Barnes and Ed Murphy Going Fishing” 13.7 x 12.5 inches. I used some crackle on it as I had a tonne left from another project.

Folk art painting of a ship going out to fish. A landmass with a lighhouse and several other buildings can be seen in the background. — Study of Maud Lewis’s “Eddie Barnes and Ed Murphy Going Fishing”

The big one is 20 x 16 inches and is the top half of the inside of her storm door as seen in the museum. I had fun painting the canvas to look like wood!

Folk art painting of a door with a painting of a blue bird and flowers in a red vase. — Maud’s Door.

I enjoyed this challenge so much. Folk art is a genre I rarely do but appreciate more than any other.

I hope you enjoyed looking. As always, if you have a question, please ask in the comments below.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2022

Abstraction and impressionism

September 21, 2021 ~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 3 Comments

This whole year has been an abstraction and I’m not impressed with it but I hope it’s finding you well.

I did these as part of a challenge over at WetCanvas. I got right in there with fingers and palette knives and large brushes. These all started out as innocent sheets of 12×18 watercolor paper, they ended up being various sizes depending on how much I tore the paper. I ruined a couple of brushes and one shirt but it was thoroughly entertaining.

These are some of my favourite places.

Let me know in the comments what you think. If you’re on Instagram, give me a shout over there, so I can follow you, I mean that in a general Instagram way not like a deranged stalker or anything.

Stay safe and healthy.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2021

Some odds and ends

March 21, 2021March 21, 2021 ~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 3 Comments

I’m still getting used to the new editor on WordPress, It’s been around for while but I’ve been using the Classic option which seems to have disappeared. I have to say, I very much dislike this block editor.

Anyway, I’m still missing Sammy. I think I probably always will. My sketchbooks are full of small sketches of him. I turned one into a small embroidery.

While I’ve been crocheting more than anything, I have also been having fun collecting Victorian drawing books. Many of them are out of copyright and some companies have been reprinting them or pieces of them. I love looking at the old drawing prints. I tend to leave a good bit of white space or implied backgrounds, you know a few squiggles here and there. It’s a bad habit. The Victorians are the opposite, looking at their prints reminds me to fill things in, not every thing but some things.

I started this, which is a fairly small drawing, in a fairly small sketchbook. It’s a tree, thought I’d tell you that in case you didn’t recognize it as such. (I think I’ve using emojis too much, I so wanted to put a little face with it’s tongue sticking out there.) (oh no and then I wanted to follow that parentheses with a rolling eyes emoji!) Anyway, I digress, this tree is enormous, It’s one of the biggest trees I’ve ever seen. You can see in the background what I mean by an implied background, a few squiggly things here and there. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s only that I tend to do that every time.

I’ve also been on twitter too much this last year. Now it’s not what you think, I do occasionally get sidetracked by the political drama for sure but mostly I follow the museums and archeologists and such. They put such fascinating things out into the twitter world. Lately I’ve been looking at old Roman coins. It’s interesting how modern and stylized the designs are.

This is a drawing from a coin that was minted in Lyons around 330-337 BCE. It’s the Wolf with the twins Romulus and Remus (the founders of Rome who as infants were sent down the river in a basket to drown, instead they were found by a wolf who suckled them and a woodpecker who fed them until a shepherd arrived and took them in as his own).

I’m going to make an embroidery out of this as well.

I hope you are all safe and healthy.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2021

Return of the eagles.

January 31, 2020January 31, 2020 ~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ Leave a comment

The eagles are back!

I live in an area where bald eagles flock to breed. They come back every year in the hundreds.

I haven’t been taking too many photos as my camera’s shutter seems to be wearing out but I did take these while I was walking Sampson. This one seemed very interested in Sampson.

This one did too. His claws are in such sharp focus.

I was playing with some white ink on black paper. The paper seemed a bit soft, it wanted to absorb and absorb which ended up working in my favor, I was able to put many layers. Now in my first eagle here which is about 5×7, I went a little too crazy with my top layer and lost some of the shading.

This one is better. I would have continued down the shoulders but it ended up in a card frame for a friend who likes eagles. The one thing I love about ink, is that it tends to look complicated but it’s all just little dots and lines. Pretty relaxing to do.

I used a dip pen with a G nib on it. I buy the ones that are marketed towards anime online. They flow well and you can make thick or thin lines depending on how much pressure you use.

Since I mentioned Sampson, here’s a quick one of him in white ink on card stock.

I also did a squirrel in the white and grey ink who looks a bit of a know it all.

I did a polar bear too but had to weigh down the paper afterwards as it buckled. He looks like he’s fretting, given that the icecaps are melting fast, I can’t say I blame him.

If you have questions, please ask in the comments.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2020

Ink ink ink…

November 29, 2019 ~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 2 Comments

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

Zinnia Madness

August 25, 2019August 25, 2019 ~ 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

Hello my baby…

July 14, 2019July 14, 2019 ~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 4 Comments

Ribbit

December Acrylics

December 26, 2018December 26, 2018 ~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ Leave a comment

These are some cards I made for a trade. They are all acrylic and in various card sizes, all smaller than 5×6. The first five were done with palette knives, some have a bit of brushwork.

It’s a challenge to use a knife on small pictures but it is entertaining.

This deer makes me laugh, he looked rather affronted at being painted.

“Deer Interrupted”