There is a woman in Texas named Sue Shefman who is crazy about hippos. Back in 2000, at the turn of the last century, Sue found me and commissioned me to transform her two year old RAV4 into the purple hippo car named Harmony, that has had a great life transporting Sue, often dressed as a clown. The gig helped me to gain the resources to move west at the beginning of 2001.
About eight years later, Sue contacted me and asked me to build her a second hippo car. She liked her first one so much, that she pretty much wanted another one much like Harmony, but this one would be red and named Cheerio. Normally, I am not interested in doing the same thing twice, but this was a beloved repeat customer and it would be my first art car created onto a brand new car. I am happy to say that Cheerio the hippopotamobile is almost finished. Haideen Anderson fully collaborated on this one and it is turning out extra special because of her contributions. I hope Sue has this car for a long time, and will be sharing images of the finished product soon. In the meantime, here are a few process pics!
The new hippo car will have two baby ‘roof rider’ hippos, one named Shalom and one named Aloha. We are almost ready to paint everything and are finishing up the mechanics of the two winking eyes.
