stinkerpants design

I am interrupting my regularly scheduled blog post for some major AW-ing (that’s Attention Whore-ing).  I am SUPER excited about this and I cannot WAIT to tell you guys about it!

A few weeks ago, Lulu, Y and I won the best contest I’ve ever seen, let alone participated in!

We won a dog portrait by the amazingly talented Aimée Hoover.

A few years ago, I saw this portrait in a magazine in a doctor’s office and fell madly in love:

Isn’t it GORGEOUS?! I emailed Aimee to find out about her pricing and was sad (but not shocked) to see that she was out of my meager college student budget. However, I became a big fan of Aimée’s and signed up for her mailing list to receive updates on her latest portraits.  Awhile ago, I found Aimeé on Twitter and was REALLY excited to learn that she is not only an incredible artist, but an incredible person.  And with a great sense of humor, to boot.

Then I found out that she was running contests for a free custom dog portrait, painted in 140 minutes.   So I entered!  And I lost.  My photos were kind of crappy.  Ooops.  So the next time around, I entered these three photos:

And the last one WON!!  I never win anything (Y likes to point out that, technically, Lulu actually won.  I’m choosing to ignore him).  I was thrilled at the idea that I would be getting a free portrait from someone that I have literally admired for years.

And then, yesterday, Aimée posted this:

I was so excited, I very nearly peed myself.

Then, a few hours later, she posted the finished painting.

OMFG, right?!  It’s GORGEOUS!  I was speechless.

Well, sort of.  I kind of squealed, then sat and stared.  Isn’t it amazing?!

I am so lucky.  And every time I look at it, I’m speechless again.

Aimeé also posted the progression of the portrait (these progressions are actually my favorite part of being on her mailing list!):

Needless to say, I am totally and completely thrilled.

Aimée is intensely talented, don’t you think? Shower her with love, people!!  Visit her website, follow her on Twitter, and subscribe to her blog.  She rocks!!

She’s also doing another dog portrait contest in just a few days, so join Twitter (you should anyway, because it’s fun!  And also, to follow me!), follow Aimée, and enter her contest!! Or, better yet, commission her for a custom piece.  She’s worth every penny.  If I had any pennies, I’d give them to Aimée to paint all twelve of our pets.

Interestingly, poor Y is having to suffer a LOT since we won this portrait. Why?  Well, because I keep bragging about how I’m now an award-winning photographer (since I happened to have snapped the photo that won).  This might be a slight exaggeration on my part, but I take my bragging rights where I can get them!

But even worse than me is Lulu:  she has turned into a total and complete DIVA.  She no longer feels the need to respond to our requests, and I even caught her standing on top of our picnic table, helping herself to cat food!  Apparently all of our praises went to her head.

Anyway, needless to say, our entire little family is VERY excited about this, and very, very thankful to Aimée.

PS: if you’ve somehow managed to read all of my excited ramblings in addition to looking at the pretty pictures, I’ll tell you this: one of the rules for this contest is to do something nice  for someone else, and “pay the freebie forward.” Great rule, right?!  So pretty soon, I’m going to be running a contest of my own.  :)

THANK YOU, AIMÉE!!