Chelsea’s portrait is dry, varnished and scanned. Here’s a nice scan of her and a detail of her eyes & nose.

If you were here with me late lastnight into this morning, THANK YOU! That was SO FUN! Seeing the countdown hit zero was unbelievable. He spent 365 days “in-country”, and now he’s on his way home.

Thinking back to the beginning when I added it, I couldn’t believe that it would ever even reach the bottom. And it did. And then it started climbing back up and I thought “WTH?!?” So I captured the Zero’s forever as a jpeg.

😆

Here’s a list of the very cool Owlies who made their presence known. You all need to drop me an e-mail and let me know what you’d like me to paint for you!

Karen – Angel
Michael
Erikie – Squirrely III in miniature
Paige – bluebird
Sue – wolf scene (coooool)
Barb – alligator, eh?
Taba – harley mouse, flag bandana
Carol

Maybe, maybe I will do this one more time before the day we go pick him up to bring him home. I’ll chew on that, since a few of you couldn’t keep your eyes open. 😉

Ok folks, here’s the scoop. After much thought and deliberation, I’ve decided to do something super cool and, as always, labor intensive to commemorate the arrival of ZERO HOURS on my lil “Homecoming Countdown” ticker. I love giving stuff away. I’m strange like that.

This countdown has been on my blog for over 300 days. Many of you have been with me the whole time, watching it dwindle down to nothing. To you, I send warm sqwishy hugs and lots-o-love. Some of you stumbled upon me halfway thru and hung in here with me, but pretty much everyone who visits can see by first glance what’s been going on in my neck of the web for the last 18 months.

Here are the rules: if you’re here with me tonight when it hits zero (and I will know, because I will be here too!) to celebrate the occasion I am gonna GIVE each person a mini-custom-painting. Just for you. Just to say “thanks”, for being here, for hanging out with me, for taking the time to check in on me to make sure we’re all doin’ ok.

Now I’ll know you’re here when it hits zero, and I’ll keep a record of that. BUT, in addition to being here, I still need you to leave a comment (preferably just after the momentous occasion) so that if you’re new or just haven’t commented before, I know who you are. You do not need to link to any page, and I will be the only one with your e-mail addy, but ya gotta do it if you want a painting.

It gets even cooler. What you’ll get is a 4×4 (inch) painting, a lil bitty thing, in oil, of whatever you want. Animal, vegetable or mineral, person, gumdrops, candycanes, a purse, a shoe, whatever. I will, on every painting, add a touch of patriotism so that when you look at it you will always remember and get warm fuzzies that you were part of celebrating the homeward-bound joy of at least one soldier’s family.

So set your alarm clocks, have a look at the time, and be here or NO SQUARE FOR YOU! hehe!

I can tell you this – I will paint every single one of ’em. I may not get them to you in the next month, but I will get them to you. Another lil perk: you’ll get to see everyone else’s paintings right here as I paint them!

Everybody clear on the rules? Ok. Now go do your thing. Hope to see you tonight!!!

COMMENTS WILL CLOSE MARCH 5, 4AM CST FOR THE 4X4 PAINTING GIFTY! THANKS EVERYONE!!!

Sheeba is also a little tacky (her nose is wet, isn’t that just like a dog!), I managed to scan her as well. I also created a very cool wallpaper for Sheeba’s mom of her portrait!

(Karen, if you’d like a wallpaper, I will wait until all of your babies are done and make a nice collage for you!)

Barkley’s edges are still a little tacky. I had to scan him very carefully, as I couldn’t wait anymore to show you a better representation of his portrait!

Here’s the final scan & eye close-ups on Luke & Ella’s portrait.

I’m going to be pretty busy today, so I’m not sure when I’ll be postin’ those sketches for you of my next portraits. Stop back again later tonight!

The completed, varnished & scanned painting:

Ellie’s scan turned out perfect. She’s such a pretty girl! I’m including a close up of her face too. The photograph I had to work from was pretty teenie, it was a 3×5 photo but Ellie was only about 2 1/2 inches tall in that photo, I scanned it in at a super high res so I could get as much detail from it as possible. The rest, well, I made it up!

Ellie will ship on Monday – along with The Horse. I’ve been doing paperwork, packing and shipping all morning. My poor mailman is going to freak out when she sees what’s waiting for her! Ten, Tori, Emily, Nicki, Callie, Possy III and a Christmas gift I’ve finally gotten around to shipping (’cause she finally got around to moving to her new house!). I think I should go hide until the white truck is gone. heh!

Phew it’s taken me a few hours to get this viola scanned and pieced together, but WELL worth it, I must say. Yes I’m bragging again. I don’t do it often, so thank you for tolerating me when I do! I’m “hiding” the detail images, just read on (click “more” beneath the full painting) to see the detail shots. I am particularly fond of (read: proud) the pinstriping along the edge of the viola. That took a steady hand and a lot of patience. I am also just tickled to pieces about how the bridge turned out. I didn’t even have to pull my viola out of the case to check for accuracy on it. Cool.

Without further delay, here’s the insanely awesome and accurate scan of one of the artists’ most favoritest paintings ever.