His fur is finally done, phew! I finished it yesterday. I also did his undershirt, since it will need to be done before I add any clay details.
Today I will be working with the clay for his clothes and accessories. This will be the fun part!

The weather hasn't been cooperating. It's been very chilly on the porch, too cold for painting. Finally it occurred to me to bring a little heater out! Viola!
So here he is after some more work on the fur. The fur is going to be the longest part to paint I think. The rest is much more simple. He looks a lot darker than he will be. He's going to be a red squirrel.
I was worried his tail would be too plain, it's a huge part of him and so far I hadn't come up with any design elements to add to it. So even though squirrels' tails don't really look like this, I love the pinwheel design.

Here he is after the first 2 days of painting. Not much to really look at yet. I'm just trying to get some of the texture for the fur into the base coat.

This is the sketch I submitted. The actual squirrel will look a bit different. After going over ideas from the sponsor and program director we came up with some pretty neat ideas for this project. I'll be adding a lot of details from Jimmy Buffet's songs.

Gettin' a Little Squirelly

I'm so excited. Today I will start painting a squirrel. A giant fiberglass squirrel. So I will be posting work in progress photos of him. This is what the squirrels look like unpainted.

The city of Olean, NY is host to these cuties. The project is called Woodland in the City. You can see completed squirrels on their website. Aren't they neat?

Area sponsors signed up to "adopt a squirrel", local artists signed up to paint them. The project coordinator had the task of matching us all up, that had to be interesting.

My sponsor is the Prizel family of Prizel's Pharmacy. They chose a Jimmy Buffett theme. I couldn't of asked for a more fun idea. I sent out some sketches, and then we brainstormed for ideas. I've got to say the Prizel's are a very creative bunch with a great sense of humor. I don't want to give away any of the surprises, so just think "Jimmy Buffett", hum a few lines, and see if our squirrel delivers.

Little Jimmy arrived yesterday, he's a biggun'. He's now camping on my front porch where I will be working on him. When my family got home, they burst out laughing. All they have heard for weeks is my out of tune singing of, "I'm gettin' a squiiIIRRrrel, I'm gettin' a squiiIIRRrrel !". (Too bad you can't see the dance involved, It so completes the theme)

Ok, I'm done with my coffee and raring to go paint.