Win this piggy bank on Moorea-Seal.com!

*Update 3/5: The contest on Moorea-Seal.com has ended. Thanks to all of you that entered! And congrats to Ari!

*Update 3/2: If you've found your way here from Danielle's blog, Sometimes Sweet, don't be confused! I'm offering two separate piggies, but with the same design on both blogs (the other being Moorea's blog, which went up earlier this week)...I got lazy and used the same picture for both featurettes (plus I had no idea both giveaways would overlap each other). Good luck to all of you!

So if the title of this post intrigued you, yes, I currently have a giveaway being hosted on the blog of fellow Seattle-ite and amazingly talented lady, Moorea Seal! The pig featured below is the actual one that is up for grabs and it can be yours if you enter!!! Be sure to visit moorea-seal.com right now and check for my sponsor-featurette-and-giveaway-post to learn how you can enter!

I got really inspired by this clip from Portlandia.....oh Pacific Northwest, how I love you:

This design was actually a remake of the first pig I ever painted (the second thing I've ever painted overall), which got me onto the path that I'm on today with my artwork. The original was done about 6 or 7 months ago and I felt redoing a slightly modified version of it was a good gauge of how much my technique has improved in that amount of time. From how the whole painting process went and just looking at the finished product as well, I confidently feel the second pig was an overall step up from where I was at 6 or 7 months ago.

Some of the obvious differences being how much cleaner the second one looks and how much finer some of the details are, which comes from a much better understanding of how to apply and manipulate the paint.

One HUUUUUGE difference I must mention is how much less time it took to complete the second one compared to the first, which was about 6 hours vs. 11 hours....nearly half the time. This could be largely attributed to already being familiar with the general design, but I also felt that having a more refined approach in my technique is the biggest contributor. I'm a person of habit and I usually follow a very strict methodology if it works well for me the first time around, and without really realizing it until comparing the two experiences, it appears my methodology has adjusted and adapted quite nicely. Practice, practice, practice........EXCELSIOR!!!!!!