Stingray Blues...

I just finished this for a surprise 4th of July birthday present this last Friday.

Photo: "Stingray Blues"; watercolor and ink on 9" x 11" paper.
Commissioned Piece

A wife wanted to surprise her husband with a painting of his 1971 Stingray.  It was a fun project to work on.  I worked up four different layout drawings and she rather had a tough time deciding on which one.  But finally got it narrowed down to Option #1 below.

It's always fun trying to surprise someone with a piece of custom artwork, or at least I think it is. :) Thanks for visiting and I welcome any feedback you may have!

Split Front Bumper...

It's been almost a month since I've put anything on here.  Yes, I've been bicycling with the nicer weather and painting has taken a bit of a back seat.  This is a fun piece that I've been working on bit by bit. It's base is a poured watercolor, then a bit more regular water coloring, and then some finishing with red ink.  I call it "Split Front Bumper". The base car is a 1970 Z28 Camaro that I did some commissioned artwork on last year. The idea has been "simmering" in my mind for awhile of collage of doing a little something different.  Here's the little different....

Photo: "Split Front Bumper"; 11" x 14" Watercolor and Ink on paper.
Available for purchase.

I welcome any comments and thanks for stopping by!

Chevy Breeds Racing #1 and #2

Another commission finished just in time for a Christmas gift.  These 2 paintings are based on a father and son's cars and was commissioned by a daughter/sister for the pair.  She wanted both the paintings to look as much a like as possible and have the cars racing.  The loaded question was whose car should be out in front.  She said her brother's which is a 1968/1969 Chevelle SS.  Her father's car is a 2012 Camaro. Here's the final paintings...

"Chevy Breeds Racing #1"; Watercolor on 8" x 10"

"Chevy Breeds Racing #2"; Watercolor on 8" x 10" paper

I started out with this as an original photo to work with...

Original Photo worked from

 From there I worked out 3 options and this was the one that was decided upon...

Option #3- drawing that was chosen.

It was decided that there would be a "grill focus" in the upper corner of each painting to make it special gift for each receiver.  Here's one of the paintings in process...

"Chevy Breed Racing #1" Watercolor painting in process.

Then I took what I thought were the finished paintings to show to the Sister/Daughter and there were a couple of things that needed to be fixed....

"Chevy Breeds Racing #2- What I thought was done?

It turns out that the father's car had a black stripe for part of the hood.  That was an easy fix.  The other error that was discovered is that the brother's car now had a 496 engine instead of the 396 engine that was showing in some of the other photos that I was given.  Oooopss!  That was a bit more of a challenge.  Because it's not so easy to erase or paint over with watercolor.  I ended up doing a bit of improvising and this what was the result...

"Chevy Breeds Racing #2"; final Watercolor on 8" x 10" paper

Thanks for stopping by and I welcome any feedback you may have!

Shawn's 1970 Camaro...

Shawn is a friend of Mr. Motorhead, my boyfriend, and I was rather excited when he asked if I would do a painting of his car.  Shawn has a 1970 Z28 Camaro that is a beauty.  It is a Sea-green color with black striping with a bit of pin striping.  It's in mint condition and I just jumped at the opportunity to paint it.  Here's the finished painting...

The challenge with this painting was narrowing down on a layout.  The front grill and the split bumper is very unique to this car.  I wanted to do it justice.  But at the same time, I wanted to do a view of the whole car.  Mr. Motorhead and Shawn were playing with a few ideas one night over dinner and the idea of a two shot of the car came into being.

I did three different lay out drawings for Shawn, but he had a hard time visualizing it.  So I took the one that he seemed to like the most and did an ink shading drawing of it.  That seemed to help him out with what it would look like.  Here's the ink shading drawing that I did...

This really was a fun project to do and it went relatively quick once the layout was figured out.

Thanks for stopping by and I would love to hear any comments or feedback you may have!