The Maiden Voyage of the Firecracker!

Many of you will remember this post last April about the pinup girl I painted on hubby's remote-controlled speedboat that he was building. He didn't have much time to work on it due to job commitments, so it took him until now to get the boat finished. On Saturday we went to a favorite pond not far from our house in the Loess Hills for her maiden voyage. We were so excited to see it in the water!

She is powered by a weed-eater mower. Jason is getting ready to start her up!

And away she goes...

Giving her some gas...

The Loess Hills in Autumn is breathtaking!

Full throttle!

More pics:

Hope you enjoyed the ride! :-)

Odds and ends, art and zombies...

This summer has been unseasonably cool so far. In fact, today feels like Fall. To add to the illusion, my red maple is starting to turn color already. This seems really early to me, and as much as I adore its red and orange glory, it seems like Summer has barely started. The weather has been so nice I want to be outside as much as I can.

I have finished with the underpainting on Cloud's portrait, though:


Now to add details and strengthen the darks and lights. Fun stuff!

In other news the neighborhood Zombie War is over (for now,) and we are victorious. The hole in the street where the zombies were crawling out has been filled in, and they are trapped. Waiting... Hopefully we won't see them again until Halloween. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here. :-)

It is also H.R.H. Boomer, The Queen of the Universes' birthday month. Yes, she gets a whole month since I'm not sure of the actual date, only the month. She has been gracing our presence for 16 years now. She will probably be very displeased that I've including something of such great importance as the magnitude of her birth in a post titled "Odds and ends..." If you don't hear from me again, then you'll know why...

And a picture of me and Cloud, just because I like it...

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Cloud has his own blog now!

Dog blogs are popular now, and I think they're so cute. If you know Cloud, then you know he hates to be left out of anything fun! For those of you who want to follow his adventures, you can find them here:

The Adventures of Cloud the Wonder Dog

Zombie spotted in my neighborhood!

Ok, so the sign is from the internets, but this guy is just up the street...

And a pirate zombie, no less!

My neighborhood is outside of city limits, and the roads are privately owned, so even the county doesn't do anything to them. Most of the roads are fine, but it looks like this one is having some problems, lol. Can you imagine the double-take I did when I drove by this guy! Yes, he's life-sized. Crazy goings on up here on the hill!

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go board up my windows now. I knew I shouldn't have read
World War Z... :-P

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! :-)

It's a pinup!

It really didn't take much to convince hubby that he should let me paint a pinup girl on the remote control boat he's building. In fact, the conversation went something like this:

Me: "You should totally let me paint a pinup on your boat."

Hubby: "Uh... SURE!"

Heehee! I wanted to paint my take on a Gil Elvgren, 50's style pinup. I'd never painted on wood before, or painted a pinup girl for that matter. I just jumped right in.... 

Remember the boat from Mondays post?

Since the boat is black, I drew with white pencil:

Then I realized that the colors would look muddy painted on top of the black, so I blocked it all in with gesso:

And sketched the details over that with pencil:

Next I started laying down the skin tones:

And gave her some hair - she kind of reminds me of Jessica Rabbit now:

Starting on the nightie:

And the finished painting :

And a shot of yours truly to give an idea of the boats size. I put the camera on a tripod on top of a desk to get this shot, lol.

I had so much fun painting this pinup. Painting skin is a lot easier than painting fur, maybe I should stop painting animals? Haha, just kidding - I could never stop doing that! 

Next step is to hand letter the boat's name on it's sides. You'll have to wait a little bit to find out the name, lol...

Angry BBQ is angry...

Come on, Angry BBQ. I have Spring fever too, but February in the Midwest means that it can be 60 degrees one day, and the next day we can have our biggest snowfall of the year. I know it's cold Angry BBQ, but just look around you at how beautiful it is...come with me and lets walk around the back yard...

I've never seen the patio lights look so lovely!

The sky looks so blue today.

Everything wears a cloak of white...

that could fall off at any moment.

Logs become figures lying in the snow.

Meditation Bench is meditating.

The simplest things are stunning if you stop to look at them.

Stand under the pergola and look up. Why Angry BBQ, is that a smile?????

See, Angry BBQ, it's a beautiful day.
Lets enjoy the snow. Spring will be here before we know it.