Odds and Ends of the year.

This is a horse with tattoos, everyone has them now.

Ink and marker, 8×10 inches.

This is a lino print with Brusho (a watercolor product). 5×7 inches.

A quick drawing of a guy named Steve.

A cat that I embroidered on my apron because I like to be fancy when I’m cooking. This design is an original and is about 5×7 inches.

A photograph of a shadow from a lamp that looks like the Eiffel Tower.

A sepia self portrait, titled “Closer than she appears.”

The Chicago Waterfront.

And the Wells Fargo Bank reflected in the windows of the Figge Museum in Davenport, Iowa. My favourite painting ” Blue Horse” by Marc Chagall lives at the Figge.

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2018

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite watercolors of the year.

I haven’t wrote on here in awhile. I don’t know if people read blogs much anymore but I do enjoy writing so I’ll keep on keeping on even if I’m only entertaining myself. 

To catch up, with everything I meant to post this year, I thought I’d do a couple of year blogs to showcase my favorite creations of the year.

These are some ATC’s, that is cards that measure 2.5 by 3.5 inches. These are all done with watercolor. These were done for a trade. watercolor painting Virginia Spencer vmrs ATC

This is also a watercolor but is a little bigger at 7×4 inches.

Here’s a warmer watercolor,  also a miniature at 4×6 inches.

And here’s a watercolor of a leaf and acorn. I think this one was 5×4 inches.

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2018

Merry Christmas!

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

 

In the garden.

A hummingbird

A Monarch.

A finch, checking out its feet.

A swallowtail.

Another swallowtail.

And  of course, a Lesser Blue Warted Toadgon, native of the Indigo Forest of Cerulean.  It is one of the prettier invasive species though it’s a bit of a pest, stomping about and getting bluing everywhere.

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2017

 

April Showers Bring..

Much smorgasborgery.

Starting with some watercolor cherries from a Challenge on WetCanvas (in the miniature forum, thanks Lil, for the photo).

On this, I used only Alizarin crimson, ultramarine and yellow cadmium light.

Keeping it simple.

This dragon was also for a WetCanvas Challenge (in the Sci-fi/fantasy forum, the theme was wings). It doesn’t have any limbs as I am a bit of a defeetist.

Hahahahahahahahahaa..haha..ha..

*cough cough*

Ahem, pardon me.

This was done from a scanned sketch I did then I added the colors with a photo program. That’s about all digitally, that I know how to do.

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My original sketch of the defeeted dragon.

Next up was this oddity. She’s a masthead that has escaped from her ship.

Metallic watercolors.

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I’m still working on the linocutting. Having a great time of it.

I decided to make rampants for us. I was going to go traditional but then I thought why use a lion rampant or a unicorn rampant when you can use a Westie Rampant and a Labrador Retriever Rampant.

I intentionally left the rough bits in on this. I liked the look of them.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, everything is growing.

I love Spring!

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brusho, Lino carving and other ways to muck your hands up..

Recently I was given a gift of Brusho.  I had never seen it before so I dove into it right away.

brusho-color-art

A few things you should know if you’re going to try Brusho out..

1) It stains like a stainy staining stain. I was green and blue for a good bit. Now I don’t mind being various colors and Sampson of course has a habit of being various shades of color but from what I understand some people don’t think it’s quite normal to walk around with paint and ink all over them. Be careful or wear gloves. Don’t use this over a good rug or table or what have you.

2) Don’t open the lid, tempting as it is, simply take a sharp implement, a nail or such and stab the lid with it. Do not stab yourself or anyone else.

After I punctured the top, I used little round stickers (Avery coloring coded labels for files) to close them up. It’s not necessary but for some reason I have a tonne of those stickers.

brusho-set-art-stickers

3) If you live in a humid area, you might want to get one of those silica gels things to keep in the box with them or put some rice in there. They are a crystalized salt sort of thing. I live near the Mississippi which is a muggy muddy river, I noticed within a week that it was too humid for them.

4) To activate the Brusho, you shake a bit out onto paper then spray it with water. Test your sprayer first. The first one I used was so powerful, it shot the crystals all over the place. The second was too weak and made puddles. I did find a purse sized one that had had eye glass cleaner in it and that worked well.

5) A little bit goes a long long way. Do some tests to see how much you want to use. It’s pretty vivid and of course mixing complementary colors will get you mud. Complementary colors are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel..green and red, blue and orange, purple and yellow and so on.

6)You can use it as a fine art sort of watercolor by dropping a little bit in a palette well and adding water. I did not do that. I did watch youtube videos about it.  There’s a good tutorial here for a fine art landscape. This lady’s youtube channel shows how to use it more for crafts like card making.

I used a white crayon to make a quick line drawing. I then sprinkled some of the Brusho on and sprayed it. I use the thingy that blows dust off my camera lens to move some of the colors around. The whole thing took maybe five minutes.

brusho-watercolor-painting

I also used some on a sketch that I hadn’t finished. That made for a fun effect.

brusho-art-watercolor-painting.

It was entertaining to use but a bit of a pain in the ass.

I also decided to take up lino cutting. I did it once ages ago in high school. I remembered loving it.

Plus I had a coupon.

This is my test piece, it’s 6×2 inches.

lino-ink-art-printing

Then I went a little crazy..

lino-art-first-printing-ink

And I ran out of paper so  I printed on the Brusho..

lino print painting art brusho.

I need to get more paper.

Lots and lots of paper!

See you soon.

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Fancy Flamingos

A flamingo in watercolor, 4×6.

flamingo-watercolor-miniature.

And the same flamingo in pastels, 4×6

I haven’t used pastels in years, made a thorough mess of myself!

flamingo-pastel-miniature.

Thanks to the person who added the photo to the WetCanvas Reference Image Library. This was part of the miniature forum’s monthly challenge.

©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2017

Waspppp Uppp!!

That is…

Wasp up there!

hornet-nest-hanging.

Actually,  it’s a hornet’s nest, a bald faced hornet.  They’re pretty talented,  look at those textures.

blog-hornet-nest-black-white.

We’ve had a busy year in our gardens for insects. The insect world is an interesting one.

I don’t quite know what to make of whatever this bee is doing.

Is he fighting with that bug? Is he eating it? Do bees eat bugs?

bee bug.

bee bug two.

bee bug one.

I have no idea but this butterfly watched the whole thing and kept getting closer and closer until the bee buzzed at it.

moth bee watch.

I watched until the bee flew away with the creeper butterfly in tow. It was rather disconcerting and a bit gross so here’s a cute bee on a pretty flower to wash that taste out.

bee-flower-pollen-photography.

Then there’s the mason bee, they come in varying colors. This one is wearing a sassy blue metallic coat that she picked up at the recent New York Fashion week.

mason bee.

The bees and the wasps were all enjoying the  various flowers and hummingbird feeders. The hummingbirds kept a wary eye…

blog hummingbird green irredescence.

..while Dummy hung out on a mushroom.

blog-dummy-art-photography.

I wonder if he knows that he has a thread stuck in his neck joint.

I guess I’ll go tell him, if I can find him. He’s never around when I want him.

Here’s 4×6 pen and ink with watercolor of a Greenman. Thanks to graymare on WetCanvas for putting the photo in the Reference Image Library there.

greenman-pen-ink-watercolor.

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog.com, 2016