You may or may not remember that I had been tossing around a design idea last summer for a Catfish project that the City of Rock Island is pulling together this year. I spoke with my old boss about the possibility of sponsoring me for the project, but the project was kindof put on hold for a while, and although I discussed my design with the project coordinator, I never formalized it with a sketch.

Welp, I got a call this morning from the project coordinator, and I’ve got two sponsors (going by the design idea) for a Catfish. So over the next month & a half (they are set to go on display sometime in May), I will be adding another huge project to my schedule, I’ll be calling him “Fisherman Swallowed Whole”. That’s as much of the design idea that you’re going to get right now, and here’s the statue:

You can click on him to see his specs, he’s 5 feet tall and 2 feet wide.

They will go on display throughout the city in May, and be auctioned off to the highest bidder mid-August. It will all happen similarly to the Frogs-A-Hoppin’ project for the City of East Moline, so of course I am hoping that my Catfish also brings in the highest dollar amount for the event. My Mosaic was top frog bringing in $4100 which was disbursed to the non-for-proft of the highest bidders choice!

Fun!! I will of course share the work in progress as I paint this one, and update with more information, links & such as they become available.

Here we go! I went ahead and sketched out 8 of the 11 paintings I’ll be working on over the next few weeks. I am still waiting on a few things for the other three, so I’ll get those up as soon as I get what I’m waiting for.

Since there are so many, and one of them is a PG-13 Pose (yes, it is an animal!), I’m going to “hide” them.

Just read on to see the eye candies!

The completed, varnished & scanned painting:

Here are the digital shots of The Horse. He’s still wet of course, fresh off the easel. I am including a sorta-side shot so you can see the sides (which are green and compliments the painting REALLY well) as well as get an idea on the size. It’s 12×16 gallerywrap canvas. 🙂

The horse is finished, I have to complete the foreground grasses and paint the edges of this one. I’ll do that tomorrow.

(This horse will have a name, we’re still in that thinkin’ mode)

Here’s the underpainting. I know a few of you own horses, I’d love your feedback on anatomy – this is my first horse painting!

I’ll be finishing up Ellie tonight (I hope), I’ll update when I get to that point!

My studio cam is on, I’m going to paint the underpainting for the Horse! C’mon & watch! It should go pretty quickly.

🙂

My webcam is on and I’ll be working on both Ellie and the horse underpaintings tonight if you’d like to stop in and check on me!

I’ll post those first work in progress shots when I finish ’em up.

Here’s another one I’ll be working on this week. Also 12×16, only this is on gallerywrap canvas. This one is going to an 8 (will be 9) year old horse lover!