June’s twitter portrait winner!

I sincerely thank each and every one of you for taking time out of your busy day to enter my contest. My eyeballs are exhausted after looking at all of your fabulous photos. Even though the odds were fantastic (about one in 40-ish) the competition was STEEP. But enough about that. You are reading for one reason only. To find out who is…

June’s Free 140 Minute Twitter Portrait Winner!

Winner Lulabelle, taken by twitter follower, Sara (twitter name: stinkerpants)

Congratulations…stinkerpants! (Not her real name) Sara, your lovely photo of sweet Lulabelle won! I cannot wait to paint this for image for you. I am sure many of you are wondering what it is about this photo that made it the winning shot and I will be blogging about that in the next day or so. But before I do…

Because there were so many great entries, there’s few honorable mentions just for fun. These tweeps will receive a handful of my postcards for free (email me your snail mail address to aimee@aimeehoover.com if you’re on this list).

Honorable mention #1 goes to agilespots (aka: Kim) for entering one of most beautifully lit photos I received (plus the expression is priceless). This photo is the official runner-up. Stinkerpants is lucky that it was a Dalmation: the only reason this pic did not win is because I couldn’t pull off painting all those spots in 2.5 hours of work. (I’ve painted dalmations before and those spots really add to easel time). But agilespots, be forewarned: the is the kind of photo we artists drool over. So in the very near future I’ll be trying to convince you to hire me to paint it for you. An effort soon to be referred to, by you, as “the harassment.”

Submitted by agilespots (Kim)

Honorable mention #2 goes to kimsmitty (aka: Kim) for sending in a photo of what I think are the longest eye lashes I have ever seen on a dog:

Submitted by kimsmitty (Kim)

Honorable mention #3 goes to kingzleyking and involves just two words. “Best” and “Beard”:

Submitted by kingzleyking

And honorable mention # 4 goes to ittybittybag (aka: Jen) for making me think of fond, old-timey Christmas memories in the middle of June. And more importantly, for introducing me to a dog that actually looks happy to be wearing an antler headband:

We WISH you a merry CHRISTMAS submitted by ittybittybag

Honorable mention #5 goes to gingela5 (aka: Angela) for “Cutest ears-to-head-size ratio.”

And I am adding a last minute honorable mention #6, which goes to lisaquill (No aka, that’s actually her name) in honor of her insanely last minute entry. 2pm exactly. Phew!

Submitted by lisaquill (Lisa)

WHY YOU SHOULD ENTER (AGAIN) NEXT TIME
Well, stinkerpants actually came in 3rd in the last contest. The contest in which I couldn’t decide on just one photo and ended up giving away two portraits: Cali and Speck. I loved Sara’s photo (it was those ears) but I couldn’t quite see Lulabelle’s eyes clearly enough. And there was a human hogging the frame. Humans…

Lulu - First attempt by stinkerpants

But I suggested she check out my photo tips and try entering again next time. Well, she did. Then she WON. So please enter your pooch again in the next contest. You seriously might win.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered. Especially those of you who went out and took pictures especially for this contest. Some of you even crawled on your stomachs to get the best shot. The effort does not go unnoticed on this end.

And agilespots, I’m coming for ya.

-Aimé