Repainting a vintage sailor whirligig

My Deep Fancy for Sailors 

Love all things NAUTICAL 

I have always had a thing for sailors.  I remember when I was in my early twenties, I used to write the word, SAILOR.   It's not surprising I married a boater.  

So the above whirligig was given to me by my Mother back when my kids were young. I don't think it was overly valuable but it wasn't super cheap either.    At first I liked the painting on it just fine, then all of the sudden,  I disliked it.  I decided that it looked sort of imported...sorry.  

So I repainted it, from head to toe and antiqued it.  However, before it was not a sailor but rather some sort of officer.  (Not in the Navy).   In order for me to want to keep it, it had to be repainted.  Now he fits in just fine.  I think one of my kids dropped it when they were little, too.  It was busted, now its fully fixed and looks awesome with my decor.  

I signed it on the base

Notice that I wrote "hand painted."  I did this because I did not carve it, I just painted it.  Whoever painted it the first time, had primed it a great red.  I just scraped down into the red to get the look that I wanted.  *Don't try this at home, folks, I can't guarantee the results. 

Here's the backside.  I will admit, this was a little more time-consuming than I had anticipated.  It was fun, though.  

Interestingly enough, I dropped this thing while painting it, and the arm snapped off at the paddle!  Nothing broken
but it was toward the end of this process~I panicked for a second needlessly.  It snapped right back on.  It was  dowed.  This thing was made well.  

To prove how much I love sailors, just look at the other sailor art I have done over the years.  If I do a show and it doesn't sell, it comes home! 

I actually have even more 'sailor' artwork but didn't want to underwhelm you! 

Thanks for looking! 

Enjoy. 

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