painting

The Abominable Snow Dog

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 27 Comments

Yesterday, I was bit by a mosquito, the no-see-ums were out in full force and flowers were blooming.

Today I walked out and saw this.

Well Helloooo Winter..

While I was admiring the snow and wondering how that tree in the back manages to stay at a 45 degree angle I heard a loud roar.

Roarrrr!

Oh no! it’s the Abominable Snow Dog…


Grrrrrr..Look at those teeth, those claws!!!

He’s attacking!

I”ll distract him with my boot..

Run Away! Run Away!!

Wait a minute, come back.

It’s okay.

Apparently he only wants to Conga.

Bum bum bum bum bum chhh, bum bum bum bum bum chhh….

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Zeus pondered life’s oddities and wondered why his brain was cold.

And here’s to warmer days on the South Dakota Plains or wherever I was.

This is an acrylic, 4×6 inches.

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog, 2012

Blue Moon…

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 10 Comments

“I saw you standing aloneeee….”

Love that song.

The moon was not blue this morning but it was big and cold…brrr..

I took this in my backyard about 6am as I was braced against my house. This photography thing would probably be a lot easier if I had a tripod.

 

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog, 2012

Happy Groundhog Day!

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 18 Comments

And a Happy Birthday to my stepfather Hartley, a lovely man.

I phoned Hartley this morning and he did not see his shadow.

Hazzah, hazzah! Spring is coming.

Which I pretty much figured seeing as I have 59 irises coming up. That’s right 59. I don’t know why I counted them but I am a bit worried about them so Hazzah! again for not seeing a shadow. I didn’t count the tulips and daffodils though, they can take care of themselves. Oddly enough, I haven’t heard a peep out of the crocuses.

I made Hartley this card. I was out having a chat with the local groundhog, Jack Fickle McRumplestein, when I mentioned that Hartley was born on Groundhog Day.  Jack insisted on posing for me. I think he may be under the impression that Hartley is part groundhog and all the better for it.

I should have taken this photo before I varnished it. Ahh well.

I also did a few more miniatures. Except for the leopard, these all have new homes. As always these will appear larger than they actually are.

This is an acrylic of a path near my house. It’s 2.5 by 3.5 inches (ATC/ACEO size) I used a pointillism technique which is quite fun to do on something that is the size of a playing card.

This is the Point Abino Lighthouse which I grew up near. It was operational until 1989 and then fell into disrepair. It’s being worked on now and has been declared an Historic building with a capitol “H”. It’s the only one of that style. I used to love hearing the foghorn at night. Nothing makes you feel more secure than knowing someone is up in the middle of the night keeping an eye out. Especially as I thought that there was Loch Ness monster lurking in the bay and we lived far too close to the lake for me to be happy about it.

I was trying for a more painterly simple style with this one. My perspective is bit off but that’s ok, I like the effect.

Acrylic 2.5 by 3.5 inches.

This is a church in Prince Edward Island that my sisters and I came across while rambling through the Maritimes.

Acrylic, 2.5 by 3.5 inches.

I threw perspective right into the wind on this one too. That’s right I got down and crazy on the perspective. Rebel with a paintbrush, that’s me.

And now some sad news. A lovely lady passed away and left our zoo which you all know I’m fond of, $250,000 to either get a panda, which can’t be done without giving China the Mississippi or the money is to be used to fix the black bear habitat. Last year they had to hire a new zoo director. Well this guy showed up in an Indiana Jones outfit complete with hat and in his infinite wisdom he decided last week to give our bears away.  He said they are and I quote “nuisance animals” as opposed to the other animals in the zoo like porcupines, various rodents, reptiles and such, all of which are adorable but none of which are fun to find in your kitchen. Then he said that the Will says the money is to be used for a black as in color of the bear as opposed to the black bears as a species. He also did this without consulting anyone including the forestry board which has authority over the zoo. Guess what the favorite animal of the Commissioner of the board is…

Needless to say, he is no longer director of the zoo. And the zoo needs to get a black bear.

Here is a photo of the bear that is now gone but who was a sweetie and comical. I’m sorry he’s gone.

The moral of the story is to never underestimate the silliness and ego of a person who dresses up like Indian Jones, complete with hat.

While I’m on the topic of zoos, here is another miniature, this one is a bit bigger being 3 x 5 inches and is acrylic. This one is based on a photo of the black leopard that is somewhere back in the blog.

Now I have to go find Dummy, he’s been a bit sulky since the tape from his Santa hat is stuck all over his head. He does hold a grudge. I think a nice photo shoot will cheer him up, he’s a vain little Dummy.

Take care!

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog, 2012

Bigfoot, puffins,turkeys, the Hokey Pokey and a castle in Germany.

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 22 Comments

Happy New Year’s all!  I know people usually make resolutions at this time of year. I was going to make a resolution to stop procrastinating. “Going to” being the operative phrase. Instead I was distracted by a marathon on the Animal Planet abut Bigfoot hunters. I learned much that day. I learned from this show that grown people can freak out over a infrared camera image of a cow. The cow did not appear to be offended and continued to chew grass looking mildly interested while these people danced around and claimed to have a “Squatch” on film. It was a very zen-like cow.

They also claimed that Bigfoot shuffles in the woods, knocks on trees, uses echo location to find each other (they must share a common ancestor with bats) , prefers to intimidate women, eats berries and deer and mumbles when they’re not yelling in exactly the same way that the Great Horned owl in my backyard does. But the most interesting thing I learned about Bigfoot was that Bigfoots (Bigfeets?) like to swim underneath waterfowl and drag them under the water. Now I don’t mind sharing the woods with a large mumbling, shuffling, misogynistic, omnivorous, apelike creature with bat ears but I draw the line at a large mumbling, shuffling, misogynistic, omnivorous, apelike creature with bat ears who thinks it’s funny to pick on innocent birds while they swim along minding their own business. That’s just mean.

Therefore when I went out the other day and heard some shuffling in the woods which was obviously being caused by something with big feet I was all ready to go out and have at it with the bird bullying Bigfoot. I was quite happy when I found that the noise was not being caused by a Bigfoot by instead was by a wild turkey doing the Hokey Pokey..

You put your right feather in,
You put your right feather out,
You put your right feather in,
And you shake it all about,

Turkeydance©Virginia Spencer,2012

You do the hokey pokey
and you turn yourself around
That what it’s all about.

turkeywings©Virginia Spencer,2012

Yay! You do the hooo-key pokey..you do the hooo-key pokey…

Ahem. excuse me, the hokey pokey always get me carried away.

I have done a few paintings. I took a break for a bit seeing  as I hand painted about five million Christmas cards. Yup I did.

I did this miniature, ATC or ACEO size (2.5 by 3.5) in acrylic. As always, it will likely appear on your screen bigger then it actually is. It’s of some cliffs in Prince Edward Island which were covered in puffins. Unfortunately underneath the water a Bigfoot is lurking, giggling at the thought of pulling puffins under. Sigh.

The following mini is also acrylic and is 2.5 by 3.5 inches. It is of a tidal cave in New Brunswick. During low tide, you can wander into it and collect rocks. During hightide it is full of water and Bigfoots often snorkle inside it waiting for unsuspecting gulls.

The following mini is acrylic and is 2.5 by 3.5 inches. It is of Schloss Seehof in Bamberg, Germany which I visited many years ago. I don’t think there’s any Bigfoots there but we did have some German visitors last year and they were all obsessed with buying shoes so it is possible.

I hope you all are enjoying the start of your year!

Till next time….

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog, 2012

Snow what!!!

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 18 Comments

With many regards

To my dearest and beloved Mother Nature…

You scurrilous psychotic malevolent witch!

Listen lady, I get that screwing around with us is fun for you.

Tsunamis, earthquakes, super storms, tornadoes.

Making sure it’s cloudy every time I have even the slightest chance of seeing an astronomical event..

Seriously I had my camera and my most powerful lenses all set up to see the asteroid 2005 YU55, had my game plan set and then.. Clouds!?!!

Always with the clouds. Jeez.

Anyway I get it, you’re mad. I’ve seen photos of the Pacific Ocean Dump . It’s disgusting.

And I get it, politicians are talking about building a huge electric fence along the Mexican border which will disrupt the migration patterns of several animals including the jaguar. Now I’m sure the politicians, since we all know how clever they are, will come up with a plan to allow jaguars to cross at mandated checking points provided they show proper ID and have visas. But although cheetahs read quite well and are often spotted curled up with a nice cup of tea and a mystery novel, jaguars don’t read. Filling out all those forms to get a visa would be out of the question. And even if they were given the visas and had ID, they wouldn’t be able to carry them.  They don’t have pockets, though I suppose a lanyard wouldn’t be out of the question.

Yup, you do have a point, Mother Nature.

But to make it sleet, than freeze, then snow!

That’s just mean.

Thank goodness Dummy can fit in my tea cozy or he would have frozen to death while trying to clear the ice off the banisters.

He’s being very helpful since I actually managed to let him do his real job and pose for a painting.

This is a miniature, ATC Size (3.5 by 2.5 inches) in acrylic..

I also tried some gouache. Weird stuff, you can use it like acrylic or watercolor.

This is a miniature,  ATC Size (3.5 by 2.5 inches).

Hopefully it’s obvious that’s it’s a pumpkin..

For the pumpkin I used a photo reference from the Reference Image Library on Wetcanvas. Thank you to the contributor.  Normally I take my own photo references but the Wetcanvas RIL, is a useful tool for playing around. Most of the photos I take, I take with plans to use for references. In fact I have spent numerous hours trying to get a photo of the deer in my backyard. But the other day I was only trying to take a photo of this tree for a painting reference.  When I looked at the camera monitor I realized I had been looking at the tree for so long, I had completely missed the two deer who were rudely staring at me.

Apparently being contrary creatures, deer don’t like to have their photos taken unless they think you’re not taking a photo of them. Vain, I tell you.

Oh hey, the sun is shining!

That’s good, I can get my tea cozy back from Dummy.

Thanks Mother Nature. Carry on..

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2011

Ohhh the colors…

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 23 Comments

Autumn is definitely in full swing.

This a twisted maple in my yard.

Isn’t that a gorgeous color.

This is a watercolor mini I did awhile back.

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I watched an interesting show on “60 Minutes” this week about Van Gogh. I’m sure most people have heard by now that there’s a theory that he did not commit suicide but was accidentally shot. It reminds me of the theory that Gauguin actually cut off Van Gogh’s ear (which is more probable than not, Gauguin was there, he and Van Gogh were fighting , Gauguin was swinging around a sword but he claimed he left before Van Gogh cut himself.) Of course the curators at the Van Gogh museum get in a huff anytime someone mentions that Van Gogh might not have been altogether an insane depressed madman. It just gets them in a right tizzy.

Personally I love Van Gogh. I like most art though the religious works of the Renaissance leave me cold (except for Da Vinci’s, but only because he at least seemed to have a sense of humor).  But either way, I have tried several times to copy Van Gogh’s painting (for practice only of course). After studying his brush strokes and color, I’ve come to one conclusion…

That guy was crazy!!

All those little dabs of color, over and over and over and over…

That and the whole walking over to the brothel and handing his ear wrapped in tissue to a prostitute named Rebecca for safe keeping…

Here’s my ode to Van Gogh.

“Van Gogh’s Cat”

(please note this is not a copy of a real VG painting, it’s my tribute to him)

Acrylic, 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.

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Here’s a couple more ACEO’s (Atc’s, minis)

I used to do paper-cutting in the traditional style of Scherenschnitte.

I still do occasionally but this time I was lazy and used ink.

Both are ink on acrylic, 2.5 by 3.5 inches.

“Fish Eyes”

“Mouse Tail”

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And here’s a photo of a llama meditating.

llama llama llama llama llama

Van Gogh should have tried that. It’s very relaxing.

My spell check does not recognize “Van Gogh”. Seriously.

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2011

Giraffes? Girafffes!

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 12 Comments

I’ve always liked giraffes. I had been taught that giraffes are one of two living species (the other being the okapi) of the family Giraffidae which had evolved from palaeomerycids during the early part of the Miocene epoch. I was taught that they are even-toed ungulate mammals and were herbivores to boot. I was taught that they definitely did not dance.

Silly me.

Fortunately I found this book Giraffes? Giraffes!  The book review in that link says it all…

“Giraffes? Giraffes! is the first in the series, and puts forth the following novel theories: that giraffes were not part of any evolutionary chain, but came here from Neptune, by way of very long (but convenient and fast) escalators; that giraffes are expert dancers, but they become angry if you ask them about their dancing; that giraffes control over 90 percent of what we see in mirrors; that the Giraffe navy is as strong as ever, contrary to recent claims in the popular press.”

I KNEW IT!

Well I didn’t really know know it but I had suspected as much.

Imagine my delight when we went to the zoo and the baby giraffe was out. She and her mother were kept out of the public eye until a few weeks ago. She is 14 months old, is 6 foot tall, weighs 105 lbs and is already proficient in tap and jazz. She will eventually reach 16 feet and weigh approximately 2500 lbs. She looks tiny compared to the other giraffes.

She’s such a doll. She pretty stayed in the same spot for about 20 minutes, then she went over to the fence and tried to nibble on it. The poor thing learned the hard way that the fence is electrified. She wasn’t hurt but she was very confused. She went right back to her spot and stood there looking at the fence to see what else it would do.

You can see how tiny she looks in this photo.

Here’s Mom. She’s lovely isn’t she.

And here’s Baby!

There was also a young mountain goat out and about. Unlike giraffes, mountain goats do not dance.

They do have lovely singing voices though.

This is a mini ( ATC /ACEO) in acrylic.

It measures 2.5 by 3.5 inches.

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2011


The tire swing..

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 18 Comments

All over the roads of South Dakota we saw abandoned buildings. I always wonder when I see those buildings why they lie empty. I tell myself endless stories of these lost buildings.

I based this miniature on one such building. A house, a home at one time in a field. And behind that house was a tree with a tire wing hanging forlornly from it.

A little bit sad I thought.

“The Tire Swing”, Acrylic, 3.5 by 2.5 inches. (ATC, or ACEO size)

I’m not terribly thrilled with the painting. It’s okay but it’s not what I meant to do. I like the tree and the swing but not the rest. Goes to show that art like anything else is not all talent, it takes practice and when you don’t paint for a little bit you get rusty. I think that may be what discourages so many beginners. They think you need a lot of talent when it’s more like you need a good eye (or talent if you prefer) and a lot of practice. So if you’re a beginner, or just haven’t done it in years, take your time and and do many many paintings. Don’t be too hard on yourself, it will come.

In case you’ve been wondering Dummy did go on the trip with us. I’m not sure where he’s gone off to though…

Oh there he is!  Climbing around Custer State Park.

He’s so agile.

Oh dear….

©Virginia Spencer,  thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2011

A Farewell

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 30 Comments

My little ball of fluff with the big blue eyes passed away Saturday at the age of 23. She died in my son’s arms with Sampson by her side.

Minou was six pounds of dignity, disdain, fury and frivolity. She was so small and yet she meant so much.

Thank you Minou.

Thank you for the years of love and loyalty.

Thank you for waking me up every day. I now have to learn how to use an alarm clock.

Thank you for teaching every dog you met how to respect a cat. When we brought home a 150 pound mammoth of a dog from the SPCA, in less than a minute you taught him to never chase cats again. And he never did. He chased dogs. So that was helpful.

Thank you for your War on Earwigs. It started way back in ’89 and not once was it funded by taxpayer money. You fought well, you fought hard and you never gave up. Generations from now, tales of the Fury with the ice blue eyes will haunt the dreams of earwigs everywhere.

Thank you for eating my brown couch. You were right. It was ugly, it was old and yes, I do keep things for too long.

Thank you for making senility look fun. In the last year, I didn’t scold you for sitting on the dining room table because I knew that in your heart, you sincerely believed that you were sitting on the couch.

Thank you for biting every vet you met. Especially the arrogant young one in Colorado who insisted that it was easy to give a cat a pill. He tried for an hour and he still bears the scars today. He lost his arrogance and gained a much needed respect for small animals. Good girl.

Thank you for sitting with Max that noble dog as he lay dying, you licked his muzzle and you cried. Thank you for taking every puppy and kitten we brought in to your side. You trained them well, scolded them and babied them. And now they cry for you.

Thank you for sitting in my lap, purring and offering comfort when my child was sick, when my husband was at war, when my Dad passed away. I don’t tend to let people know when my heart is breaking. I’m silly, I make smart ass comments, I carry on. But you always knew. You were always there. Throughout the times of joy and the times of deepest sorrow. You were there. A little brown and black ball of fluff with big blue eyes purring and yowling and fussing.

Now the house is quiet and you lie under the purple mums by the forest’s edge.

And I miss you so much.

I will always miss you.

Goodbye my little friend. Meow.

For my sister…

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 15 Comments

I recently sent my sisters a link to my blog.

My sister Sherry being an excellent sort of sister said “I love it!”.

My sister Yvonne (who is way older than me and don’t let her tell you any different) said and I quote..

“About your blog. How about telling people what paper you use, what kind of brushes you use…expensive or cheap, do you cut your artwork with a border, do you leave it on a big sheet, does it curl when dry, how do you display your artwork, how do you send your work, do you matte it..”

and then…

“Have you considered doing a project where you do the same picture but in different medium, you know, for those who may like water colour or crayons? “

and then…

“Okay, I just got why you call it the purple dog…slow or what”

and then…

“But I LOVED your blog. And I love you.”

She’s an excellent sister too. And she has a point. So inspired by my sister, here’s a personal list of items I like to use. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, Dummy is kindly playing Vanna.

The List!

  • pre-stretched canvas or watercolor paper, the higher the gsm the less likely it is to curl ( and no I never stretch my own canvas, too much work for me)
  • tripod or any firm surface
  • paint, I prefer Liquetex or Amsterdam but use whatever you like, student grade or otherwise, it’s all a personal thing.
  • that being said, having a warm grey and a cool grey is great, I always use both in almost every painting as well as my favorite violet blue.
  • lots of brushes, some expensive, some very cheap, again whatever works best for you
  • Sta Wet palette (but a plastic bin with a lid and wet paper towels with a piece of waxed paper on top works just as well)
  • a sketch pad
  • a corkboard with a photo of my cat
  • pencils, conte, white erasers
  • kleenex, paper towels, rags
  • a pink rabbit
  • scissors and tape (in case you get bored waiting for your paint to dry and want to make some cut outs)
  • good lighting
  • a cigar box full of pencils and pens
  • a good pencil sharpener
  • a water container, I like the kind with the ridged bottoms, they get your brushes cleaner.
  • a worried looking elephant
  • acrylic varnish
  • a piece of cupboard lining cloth, I use it to open up stubborn paint lids, it gives a good grip
  • rulers, straight edges, T-squares, templates and other implements of destruction
  • a good reference, either go outside (au plein aire) or paint from your own photo or use someone’s photo but only with their permission of course (most art forums have image reference libraries)

I’m sure I probably missed a tonne of things but those are the basics I like to use. Any questions?