What's in a name..???

Plenty, if you're the name of a boat with a redhead pinup girl painted on it. To me there was only one possible name for her...

Since she is a hot little firecracker, after all...

I had intended to just hand-letter the name in white, but then decided to paint a firecracker next to it on each side. Then I thought the letters would look better in flame colors, and then it needed pinstripes, then the pinstripes turned into lit fuses, heehee...




I must say I have SO much respect for people who hand-letter with paint! NOT my favorite thing to do, I'd much rather paint pictures, thank you very much. :-)


Now I turn the project over to hubby, for varnishing, motorizing, and 'remote controlling.'
If you missed the post about hubbys RC boat, and my step by step photos of the pinup painting, or you just want to see it again, you can find it here.

Wordless Wednesday - Black and White and Cloud all over

No drink is safe, busy squirrel, and new video

For almost 16 years Boomer has had a thing for my glass of water. Lets just say that I go through a lot of different glasses throughout the day. You can get away with this if you are the Queen of the Universe...

"Gaze at the splendor that is Boom, lowly humans..."

"I said GAZE! Boomer is displeased..."

In other news, a simple hand lettering of the boats name on each side has turned into adding pin-striping and a few more details, so it's taking longer than I thought. Not to mention spending lots of time doing yardwork during last weeks nice weather. Of course now we're being blasted by a sudden cold snap with wind gusts of 40 mph. Ah, Springtime in the Midwest! I hope my rosebushes that I uncovered will be all right. Today I watched this squirrel make several trips to carry some insulating leaves up to her nest. Isn't she cute?

I also made a new work in progress video today:

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...

Wordless Wednesday - Dawn

Painting with friends, Blog Award, and a sneak peak at something completely different...

I spent a wonderful day painting with friends last week. They are both artists in their own right, although their painting experience was "none" and "some" respectively. It was so much fun for me to provide the studio and to watch their visions unfold. Painting can be a lonely business, so it was equally nice to have the company. The group energy is such a different dynamic to work in. I think I'd like to experience it more often. 

Here are some shots of their beautiful bright color palettes:

In other news, I was awarded the "Passion for Painting" blog award from two artists whom I admire greatly - Akiko Watanabe and Sam Dolman. Thank you so much, I am honored. I'm supposed to list seven things that I love, but I've done that a few times already, you can scroll through the older posts to find them if you like. I'm going to pass the award to Mona Connor  (her spiritual portraits are amazing!)

And here is a sneak peak of a fun project I'm working on - I'm painting something for my hubby on this boat he's building. I'm having too much fun with it, and I'll post pictures soon, stay tuned...

Wordless Wednesday - Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy

Rat Terrier Portrait (Marnie V's Hawk,) completed!

Here is Marnie V's Hawk, completed. 8 x 10" acrylic on Ampersand Gessoboard. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I honestly believe that, as artists, what you create has to mean something to you before it can mean anything to anyone else.

And as much as I love all dogs, you know I just adore Ratties!

I hope you enjoyed following the progress of this painting, thank you for all your encouraging comments along the way. I made my very first YouTube video with the WIP shots:

Wordless Wednesday - Reflecting

Wordless Wednesday - Nesting

Work in progress - almost finished!

Here's the latest progress update on Hawk the Rat Terrier - he is very close to being finished. His throat above the collar is still in the underpainting phase. I've saved that part for last so the hair will "sit on top of" his collar when I paint it. All that's left after that is to add some finishing details to the face and do a little more work to the background. I'm really liking the looser, somewhat painterly (for me) look of this piece. Switching paints to Golden Open halfway through was a little risky, but I think it paid off. :-)

If you're a follower of my blog, don't forget to sign up for the giveaway if you haven't already!

Wordless Wednesday - things are looking up...

Old photos of bliss...

I finally got around to scanning some old photos today. Who the heck is this kid? Lol, that's me at my aunts house with a friend I made there. I just love looking at old photos, (even if they're of people I don't know. Is that weird?)

My great grandpa and me at his farm.

Me on our little farm. I think I was about nine here. I was always surrounded by critters - cats, dogs, chickens or goats...to me that was pure bliss. (Can you tell?) To this day this is one of my favorite pictures of me.

Look at this! My father in the '40s with what looks to be a litter of Rat Terrier pups!!! :-)

One of my favorite old photos ever - My great grandpa (left) at his farm leaning against a fence that he built. I really love this picture, it just screams "Good Ole Days!"