Purple Pony Art Blog

Just finished editing this picture despite sending the original off in the mail a couple of weeks ago. The textured paper was a challenge to work with--usually it's not like you see every bump!





Panpastel and pencil crayon ::: 8x10" ::: 2024

I first drew Beckham as a puppy years ago and it was delightful that his person came back to give me an update and order a new portrait!




Marker and pencil crayon ::: 2023

So, back in September I was fortunate enough to attend a local Parrot Palooza as a vendor. It was a wild time and I even met local celebirdies, such as Max the Moluccan.

Originally the show was supposed to be in a community hall, but they switched it to the new VCA vet hospital down the road from us. Somehow I didn't factor in that I would be in a room of screaming parrots for seven hours. It was like "SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM SIREN SCREAM I love you SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM BARK BARK hello", but once people arrived, talking balanced out the noise. All the parrots there were club member parrots--no outside birds allowed. There were so many! Cockatiels, conures of all kinds, cockatoos, one blue and gold macaw, an African grey, a few caiques, several different types of Amazons, a parrotlet, two Quakers, and a grey parrot who someone told me the name of, but that I didn't recognize. I'm so happy with how the portraits of Birdzilla and Yoshi turned out.

I'll admit I'm not the speediest artist, but I began this trio of dog portraits in 2019! It was hard to find a good chunk of time to finish them while I was finishing up school. Naturally there was a lot of things to do and I was only able to sit down and finish the final portrait this month.

Each portrait is 4x6" and was rendered in pencil crayon, marker, and PanPastel. Click through to see the larger version on Flickr.

Happy June!

So, after this post, I'll be caught up on Peaches! I was able to work some more this week and work in a peach and try to decide how big all the elements are going to be.

One of the great things about Clip Studio Paint is that the updates are f-r-e-e! There was an update last week and it was a nice surprise.

Here's my original digital picture of Peaches using a reference photo. I blocked in the colours and was quite pleased with how easy it was to draw lines.

I may make a different drawing of Peaches though. The thing about digital drawing is that I don't recognize it as my style or my hand making the marks, which probably accounts for some of the dissonance between screen and chair.

One of the reasons I wanted to do an art trade with my friend was that I'm so lousy at digital art. I haven't touched Clip Studio Paint since an earlier post with a budgie. I'm old enough where I should have mad skills, but I don't. Putting together a digital drawing isn't very intuitive to me and I struggle with making it "look right" compared to traditional artwork. Practice makes perfect right? I started the drawing in Clip Studio Paint, but just wasn't feeling "it". The problem turned out to be that while I had some great reference photos of Peaches, I just didn't have a sketch to make me excited about it. That turned out to be pretty important because my digital painting skills suck so much. Having that vision of the end picture really helps :-D

I decided to go with a fruit label type design that will have peaches and Peaches. Click for much larger.

I'm teaching myself a new (to me) piece of software called Clip Studio Paint. For years I have seen people rave about this very affordable program and I'm joining that crowd. It's so easy to get up and running and make a decent looking picture. Here's my first real picture that I did in an afternoon. It's by no means a masterpiece, but it was enough to get up to speed on all the basic features and get a little confidence.

LOL, at comic shows I don't mind drawing any animal that people want. I actually drew two unicorns at the Red & White Comic Card and Toy Show. My young customer was quite pleased with how her unicorn turned out. I enjoy talking to the young folk about drawing and always ask them to make sure that I'm getting their idea right. Remember when you see a child at a craft or comic show, they might be a customer too. Please don't push them aside, interrupt or talk over them :-)

I must have gotten tired of practicing dogs and cats for the Red and White Comic and Toy Show on September 8th because a skunk came out of nowhere :-D





4x6" ::: Pencil crayon and marker ::: 2019

I have sequestered myself away to do a lot of drawing. I have a table booked at the Red & White Comic & Toy Show on September 8 and I needed to get real good, real fast! It's a one day show and I won't have the luxury of finishing work after the fact.

One of the sketches turned into this dog. Dogs are a challenge for me as they often turn out to look like little horses :-)





4x6" ::: Pencil crayon and marker ::: 2019