Yesterday was Auction day for my beloved Hubby Trapped Inside the Fish. Only 15 of 20 were “For Sale”, and there were so few bidders at the event that some of them didn’t even get put up on the auction block.

The auction started off with one selected by the Auctioneer, and it ended at $400. After that one ended, the auctioneer asked which one the bidders wanted up next, and guess who’s was chosen? Yeahhhh baby! A few people hollered out for Trapped, so mine went up next. The excitement wasn’t less than it was for my Frog, but it didn’t last as long (my frog sold for $4100). Starting bid at $100, upped in increments of $50, a few people fought over it and it ended at $650. This was the trend for those that sold at auction yesterday.

I was not disappointed. Sure, it didn’t end where I would have liked for it to end, but given the number of bidders and the sheer lack of publicity, it went well. The new owners of my fish bought 3 total, and they will all be placed in a very nice business in downtown Rock Island.

I’ll be adding a detail page with all the info in my (new) gallery sometime today!

Remember the ding? Alllll gone! Can ya see it? No? Then I did a good job. Phew. Mission accomplished.

Wanna hear something fancy? As if I’m famous or something, I get to spend an hour on Saturday signing my autograph. Yesiree bob, I have graduated from “signature” to “autograph”. I’m waaayyy famouser than I was just a couple of weeks ago. How about that! Aren’t you so glad you know me now?

Do you see that? There’s a ding on my catfish! Oh noooo! (And have you voted for him lately? Huh? Have ya huh? Well go on, vote!)

I noticed the ding at the VIP party a few weeks ago. Last week while my sis was in town, I took her down to Minuteman Press (my sponsor) so she could see it in person. I studied the ding, fretted over the ding, and this week I must repair the ding. I’m not happy about the ding one little bit! This coming Sunday, August 21st, the Catfish will be on auction and each one will get a permanent owner and home. My catfish will be ding free when this happens.

That, my friends, is my dingy little topic of the morning.

Oh! How could I forget, I should also find out the results of the MRI today. Wahoo! (/sarcasm) ouch.

And over here to the right you see a fine plate of food, which isn’t fast food, either! I cooked! This is Mark’s favorite home cooked meal (at the moment). It’s super easy too, because I’m a lazy cook, in case you want to try it. I marinated a couple of chicken breasts, pan fried them until the outsides were done in a stew pot (chili pot, whatever you call that thing, I’m no expert!), then followed the instructions on two boxes of PastaRoni cooking the chicken in with the noodles. Yummmmmy stuff there! We use the angel hair pasta, one parmesan and one of the herb sauce. Those little yellow pellet things on the plate? That’s corn. I’m serious! It comes in a can! Isn’t that COOL?

Okay enough horsing around, I better get back to work! Happy Monday to you!

Voting has begun!

This morning my Chiro’s office let me know that my Catfish “Trapped” is featured in the Life section of today’s paper! YAHOO!

So here’s the scoop:

The Catch-A-Catfish art, environmental, education and tourism project was created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Rock Island Clean & Beautiful.

More than 30 of the area’s top artists submitted drawings for selection by sponsors and many of the nearly 5-foot catfish have been on display in front of businesses, in lobby areas and/or at not-for-profit organizations since Memorial Day.

On Aug. 21, in conjunction with the weekend activities of the Xstream Cleanup, a Catch-A-Catfish auction will take place on the Great River Plaza in downtown Rock Island. The event will run from noon to 8 p.m.

My catfish is waaaay on the bottom of the page, and there’s only one picture of him. So, for those of you searching for the Rock Island Clean & Beautiful Catch-A-Catfish project, I give you the full view of my catfish “Trapped”, when it was on display in Davenport. Also, have a look at the painting in progress (the whole Catfish Category)! Unfortunately, the image shown in the paper and on the voting page does not display the most important details of my painting, the belly!

I’m asking you to vote. Yep, I sure am! VOTE VOTE VOTE! And if you like mine, vote for MINE! I’d like that even better! And tell your friends to vote, and tell your friends to tell their friends to vote.

10:08 AM: There are 46 Votes!
11:32 AM: The votes and percentages are screwy, they’re looking into it!

Tuesday, 8/9
3:26 PM: There are 69 Votes, I’m #4 out of 20 with 11% !
4:47 PM: There are 144 Votes now, I’m still #4 but JEEZ hello! I have 8% and the lead has 39%! :gurgle: I’m drowning!

Wednesday, 8/10
5:13 PM: There are 743 Votes. I’m #2, which is great! But still! JEEZ, ummm… judges? Can we check the IP address of 400 of those votes? 😆 I have 10% of the vote, and um.. Blue Cat has 68%! So go tell 500 people to vote for Trapped, would you? Thanks!!

Lastnight was a little VIP party and public “coming out” of the Catfish that were done for the Catch-A-Catfish program. These fish are all going to be auctioned off to the highest bidder in August, and I’m hoping mine comes in 1st place as far as charitable dollars goes. We shall see. The comments people were making were amazing, everyone was so nice and complimentary about my painting! Kids who passed my fish smiled and pointed at that guy trapped inside.

It looks stunning with its clearcoat, so I took a bunch of pics. The colors are really enhanced, the gloss works perfectly with the glass reflection I painted on the belly. I am very pleased that it did what I thought it would do!! (See category archives for previous pics.)

The skywalk is really beautiful too, so I’m throwing a couple of pics of it in here, too! It’s a “new feature” to the Mississippi Riverfront in Downtown Davenport, Iowa. It connects a parking garage to a casino (which, ahem, I broke even on lastnight.), and it has moving lights at night. It’s really nice for a big expensive sidewalk suspended above an occasionally busy road. LOL

Lastnight I also learned a lesson, but it’s kinda one of those lessons you learn the next day, you know what I mean? Tequila – not my friend. 😛

It was the first night out with my hubby alone in forever – I think Caitlin had to have been about 3 the last time we were out together. It was very nice date, I think I’ll have to go out with him again sometime. 😉

Yayyyy finally!! I’ll have professional pics to share as well, but for now, these are my final pics. He’ll be picked up tomorrow and clearcoated, then photographed professionally for the brochures & whatnot that they’ll have out all summer. He goes on display in a couple of weeks for everyone to see (and mess up, the worst part, grafitti jerkoids) for the entire summer. In August he’ll be auctioned off to the highest bidder (C’mon, Bass Pro Magazine guys!) Click “read more” for the remaining pics.

I added metallic gold along his side, highlighted his eyes, and put reflections over the “fisherman” to make him look more like he’s inside the fish.

Almost done, I’ll let him dry for a day or so and then add some sparklies and twinkles and highlights and stuff. (I’ll be glad when he’s finished, I feel like I smell like fish! LOL) Click “read more” for the rest of the pics.

Last work in progress shots of the day on the Catfish! I’ll finish up the area around Mark er.. the fisherman tomorrow, he’s got a few whiskers under his chin (the fish, hehe), paint the fins and the base and then I think I’m done. But I’m not sure. I’m never sure on that one until I pull my brush away! Have a great evening everybody!

two more pics here:

Here’s another shot, his fishy skin is coming along nicely! Ooh! See the Lion sketch on the canvas in the background? That’s my next piece! I might get to start that one tonight.