November 2013 – Gator Girl Art

Hi all y’all,

I swear, where do the days go. At least the days are beautiful, cool and breezy.

I made business card holders for my Gator Agents. First, I ordered a few slim, aluminum cases on Amazon.com. I paid $7.00 each and should have believed the reviews. These holders are too flimsy. I am still using them for the time being. I can always upgrade later.

Second, I altered a print of King Gator. I used a tool on Adobe Photoshop Elements Editor. (Photoshop Elements is 1/10 the price of Photo Shop.)

Easy peasy, this is how you do it.

In beginner’s mode, click on the picture of a band-aid, then click on “content aware”. The crazy amazing editor grabs the colors from around the brush area and blends it all together. I blurred out the words, “King Gator says Wager it All”. I clicked on “T”, chose a font and added the text, “Gator Agent”.

Then I went to “Image”, “resize picture”, and made it 1.2 x 2.3 inches, with the resolution at 300. This made the photo small enough for the case, but clear.

I made 8 of these images and printed them on an Avery Printable Fabric Sheet. They are about $2 each. I only needed one sheet.

Print of King Gator before changing it:

Print after changing the words:

On the business card holders:

Open case:

I just ironed the image on the case. It seems to stay on very well.

My new endeavor is NOLA Synchro Splash. Yes, indeed… water ballet. It will be at the Tulane salt water pool. Want to join me? I am very certain that everyone is welcome. My latest attempt at water ballet was in high school PE and there was a lot of gasping for air and sinking. I’ll keep you posted.

Until next time,

Always in my heart,

Gator Girl

Hi all y’all!

Here is some music to listen to as you read my blog this morning. I love this song.

Here Come the Girls is one of the songs we march to during Carnival. Sometimes, my sweet darlin’ acts as a Pussy Handler and sweeps the beads off of the street, straddles horse poop, and holds the crowds back. He says the parade watchers see us coming and start shouting, “The Pussyfooters are coming!”. This is a rather fantastic explanation. Even hard for me to believe. The entirety of this explanation is the motivation for my painting. And I just wanted to say, “Pussy Handler”.

The Blush Ball is put on by the Pussyfooters. We are raising $30,000 this year for the Metropolitan Center for Women and Children. I am donating the original painting to the raffle.

I always donate when asked. I usually donate prints and giclee’s. For tax purposes, you can only write off the painting supplies that you used. Time and talent are not considered. Crazy. For the Ball, I am making an exception.

Writing the blog this morning is clearing something up for me. In the beginning of October, I decided I wanted to take my art to a festival or two. This idea and the following actions threw me into a head spin. I am starting to recover. I made jewelry with images of my paintings. I ordered extra prints, many extra prints, and some giclee’s. My inventory was starting to overwhelm me. I started to lose faith. I went into a mind cave.

Danielle Laporte whispered to me through my Kindle, “You’ve never been where you are going. You’ll figure it out. You’re the only one who can.”

Crawling out, I see the light. I am back on my path.

Here are the finished flags for my booth. My supportive sister sewed them together.

Putting one foot in front of the other.

Thanks for being here.

With unrelenting love,

Gator Girl

Month: November 2013

You can use this idea if you want.

Here Come the Girls