1963 C2 Corvette Stingray Coupe
Up next, we have a really beautiful light painting of a 1963 C2 Corvette Stingray Coupe. The ’63s are often referred to as “Split-Window” Corvettes. 1963 was the only year that Chevrolet produced the Split-Window version, and they only made 10,594 of them! As you can see, we set up the car to showcase that unique rear window – and it looks amazing!
Here’s the “before” image. Just had to wait for it to get dark enough to light paint.
I created this cool project for our good friend, Jean. Jean just happens to enjoy Corvettes (more than a little). She also enjoys other cars and trucks, but Corvettes (really nice ones) are kind of her “specialty”. And, she names each of her Corvettes after one of her adorable shelties.
This one is named “Stormy 3”, after the dog of the same name. In the past, we’ve light-painted her shelties with the cars, but since we were showing off the split-window, there wasn’t really a safe level spot to place Stormy on Stormy 3. I guess we’ll just have to do another version down the road with Stormy on the hood.
Jean also owns a pair of beautiful C1 Corvettes, a ’57 (named “Rebel 58”), and a ’58 (named “Chaos 2”). We’ve had the privilege of light painting those two fabulous Corvettes on more than one occasion (both with and without their namesakes)!
Below are the photographs and the links to two of the light painting project stories that we’ve created for Jean with Rebel and Chaos in the images:
Here’s the one with Chaos posed atop “Chaos 2″.
Chaos looks adorable on “Chaos 2”.
And here’s the one with Rebel proudly sitting on “Rebel 58″.
“Rebel” proudly poses on “Rebel 58”!
Light Painting a 1963 Split-Window C2 Corvette
Jean’s 1963 C2 Corvette is a real beauty, both inside and out! I’d been hoping to light paint this unique Corvette ever since she got it. We just couldn’t find the right time. This evening almost wasn’t the right time either!
Behind-the-scenes photo for our Canon R5, iPad Pro, and Jean’s beautiful Split-Window Corvette.
We got everything all set up, and, as always, we had to wait for it to get dark so the light painting could begin. While waiting, I started to capture the sky as the sun was setting. You never know which one might end up as the sky in the final image. There was also a decent chance that the Northern Lights might make an appearance that evening!
Well, it didn’t take long for Mother Nature to toss a curveball at us – the dew point. I think 2025 officially was the year of “the dew point”. We ran into it on multiple light painting occasions, and in several states, too!
Very early in the light painting process, Stormy started to get wet. Thankfully, I had a pretty good idea that might happen and had begun light painting the Corvette as early as I possibly could. I left the building, trees, and ground until after Stormy’s photography portion was completed. It still was a pain; Jean would wipe a surface, and it would only take seconds to be wet again!
I’m thrilled (and relieved) to say that I had the images and knowledge I needed to pull this one off!
Here’s a closer look at the what the Canon R5 was capturing on our iPad Pro.
Light Painting and The Aurora Borealis
Screenshot from my iPhone of the Aurora prediction from The Space Weather Prediction Center for that evening.
Jean mentioned that she would like to have the Northern Lights in one of her light paintings. Well, as predicted, the Northern Lights did actually come out that night! However, they were pretty faint where we were, so I added a better version in post. The Aurora Borealis image that I used for Jean’s project was one that I captured during Mother Nature’s spectacular display on November 11th this year!
Jean’s 63 Split-Window Corvette looks even cooler under the Aurora!
Split-Window Corvette – The Movie
As we always do, we’ve created a short “Build Video” with the images that were used to create Jean’s one-of-a-kind light-painted artwork. The link to view it on our YouTube channel is below.
All told, we took 393 images that night (many of those were of the sky), and 86 of those images and a total of 112 layers in Photoshop and other programs, were used to create the Master File.
Thank you, Jean, for the opportunity to create something cool for you once again! Thank you to all of you for taking the time out of your day to read our post! – M&J