Portrait of Grandmother with Chevrolet Bel Air

This post is about my recent portrait featuring a woman and a Chevrolet Bel Air. This portrait was drawn from old photographs assumingly taken in early 50's. The person featured in the portrait is the grandmother of the woman named Jen who commissioned me to create this artwork as an original gift for her mother for the upcoming Mother’s Day.

The portrait of the grandmother was drawn from old photographs

The younger generation is luckier than our parents and older ancestors when it comes to preserving time and memory of their loved ones. Today almost anyone can make and share hundreds of photos and videos of decent quality without having to visit specialized studios and even enable real-time remote communication with his or her mother using free Internet tools when she is far away. Our parents had not all those technological benefits we enjoy today living in the digital age. Very often our parents have to content themselves with a few poor quality photos of their fathers and mothers. It’s pity those photos oftentimes do not look good enough to be hung on a wall or be displayed in a conspicuous place.

The custom gift for Mother’s Day – the grandma portrait with a Chevy car

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Custom Pin-Up with 3 Cars

I knew that after I had made a few custom pin-up drawings featuring cars along with actual pin-up girls (see my previous blog posts dedicated to the rat rod pin-up, the Chevrolet pin-up and the pin-up portrait featuring a girl changing a tire on her car) there would be more clients with a particular interest in cars who would commission me to draw personalized pin-ups with automobile theme.

Soon after the posts about my car pin-ups had been published on my blog I was contacted by a guy named Brandon whose business was related to cars. The guy also had a beautiful wife whose beauty he admired even more than cars. He had an idea to commission an artist to create a cool artwork combining two most common passions of a man – a beautiful seductive woman and powerful cars. Well, pin-up is exactly the type of art which purpose is to stimulate men’s passion. So Brandon thought that a personalized pin-up portrait featuring his beloved wife and his favorite cars would be a great and unique gift for his spouse (and for himself, of course), especially if his wife shares his passion for auto & moto. The custom pin-up poster I created for Brandon features his wife with three vehicles – a 2004 lifted Ford Excursion, a 1981 Corvette and a 2011 Corvette Grand Sport.

Custom pin-up portrait featuring Ford and Corvette cars

Brandon also wanted another version of the pin-up incorporating the logo of his business (Auto Adrenaline).

Another version of the pin-up incorporating the Auto Adrenaline logo

I’ve also made a time-lapse video showing the work in progress. The video is set to some cool rock’n’roll tunes to reflect the character of this particular pin-up and to let readers of my blog feel the beat and the passion of the pin-up art in general.

Watch this video on Youtube

As you can see in the video, I used art supplies from Pentel (brushes) to paint some basic parts of the pin-up. these tools are really handy and I try to expand the usage of Pentel brushes as much as possible.

Click here to see all my custom pin-ups on this blog
All my pin-up videos

Related posts:
Pin-up with a rat rod
Pin-up artwork with a car
1956 Chevrolet pin-up

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Cowgirl Pin-Up

Cowgirl pin-up is probably the most American custom pin-up I have created so far. This drawing had been commissioned by a woman named Sarah as a gift for her husband who was a military contractor in the Middle East.

Personalized cowgirl pin-up

If you look back to the history of pin-up art, you will notice that paintings of pin-up girls became extremely popular during World War 2 when they were source material for American nose art – a painting on the fuselage of a military aircraft. Paintings of beautiful pin-up girls reminded soldiers about their most important goal of getting back home safe and sound to meet again their wives or girlfriends. What else can be more stimulating and exciting for a young trooper than thinking about the beloved woman waiting for him somewhere far away? Pin-up nose art was a kind of a representation of woman’s grace and beauty so much missed by soldiers fighting overseas. This art can also be regarded as a symbol of peace and joy of life which, for men, is usually built upon comfort and delights only the woman can offer.

Watch this video on Youtube

Thoughts about the history of pin-up helped me realize that my personalized pin-up drawings could be a perfect gift idea for wives and girlfriends wishing to surprise their men in the army and to get them something to keep their moral and spirits high in tough times of military service.

Sarah’s cowgirl pin-up gift was even wiser than that. Cowboy / cowgirl culture is one of well-known symbols of America. Therefore the pin-up not only evokes tender feelings in Sarah’s husband’s heart for his beautiful wife but also stimulates his patriotic ardor and love for his motherland. Furthermore Sarah and her husband, living in North Carolina, seem to be big fans of cowboys / cowgirls style of life. They even have a horse trailer which they promised to decorate with the pin-up by turning it into a vinyl sticker (and I am very much honored). So, by giving a custom cowgirl pin-up portrait of herself to her husband, Sarah made him appreciate even more her beauty, their country and the way of life they enjoy together. Isn’t it a wonderful gift?

Click here to see all my custom pin-ups on this blog
All my pin-up videos

Related posts:
Rat rod pin-up Military pin-up

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Colored Pencil Portrait of a Sweet Couple

I have recently created a colored pencil portrait which can serve as another demonstration of how I use color pencils to make custom artworks.

The portrait was commissioned by a man named Dominic living in the USA and whose girlfriend was in Ukraine (the country where I live too). Thousands of miles dividing this sweet couple prevented Dominic from spending as much time and giving as much attention to his Ukrainian girlfriend as he wished to. Therefore the guy decided to commission me to draw a big portrait of him and his lovely girlfriend in order to remind again about his tender feelings for her and how he was missing the joy of the moments when they were together while his visit to Ukraine. The original portrait was eventually mailed by me to the girl’s address in Ukraine. I’ve made the drawing progress video which background music, I believe, pretty much reflects the feelings of these young people longing for the time when they reunite to experience their sweet romance close to each other’s loving hearts.

Watch this video on Youtube

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