Thanks to my daughter, Katy, Shotgun Angel is framed in the wood that I want for her. I cut one side too short and we replaced it with another piece of screen door. I thought I had wrecked the frame, but no.
I am still looking for 2 skeleton keys to hang from the door handle.
Shotgun Angel framed
I think I might lighten the sky a little in the darker parts… sitting with that idea for a while.
In the last 2 weeks, 2 women told me that they wanted to paint, but don’t. I would like to tell anyone that wants to paint:
Show up.
Start anywhere.
Keep painting.
I have taken classes on and off through the years. I got serious about painting when I took a class from Shiloh Sophia of the Cosmic Cowgirls. She empowers women and teaches a spiritual side of painting.
I learned how to draw proportional bodies from Jane Davenport.
A drawing class at the local junior college helps teach you how to see objects by their lines and curves. Wherever you see your next place to grow, go there.
For inspiration, I take a class called Lifebook from Tam Laporte. It is only $99 a year and you get weekly on-line tutorials from different artists.
We got a verbal thumbs up from the IRS for non-profit status of NOLA Groundswell! Two years of proposing and waiting. We will have our paperwork within a month and can start writing grants for Samuel Square Park. For some reason, my grant thoughts float towards Pepsi.
On a whim, I grabbed Gator Girl off of my wall and painted, repainted and painted. Now I do think there is a limit of how much paint a girl can wear. I pushed that limit.
Gator Girl
I am happy with her sexy new look and her new hair style. I have always loved the painting except her expression. I used Effy Wild’s beautiful lips as an inspiration. (Thanks, Effy.) I still have a little skin tone to work out… maybe. Maybe I am happy. I hope she is still your favorite painting, Stacy.
I might also be finished with the Mermaid. I struggled with having the tail be a little camouflaged in the water or popping. I decided her tail should blend in. The blending is probably why we rarely see Mermaids.
Mermaid
Maggie thinks she needs a shell painted over her breast, but loves her tiara. I like to talk with Maggie, because we can discuss what Mermaids really wear.
I painted all day, every day this week because next week is the beginning of company coming to New Orleans. House guests will taper off sometime in June. It will be a blast.
And if you are worried that we are full up, just let that thought go. There is always room for you.
Happy Super Bowl Sunday! We have the honor of hosting the game here in New Orleans. It is still pre-game and everyone is happy.
I completed Justice.
Justice
I don’t know how the idea for a painting comes to me. It must be a muse. I just have a flash of an idea and I need to get it on canvas. I do not know any two women who look like these women. For the life of me, I could not get the dark-haired woman on the right to smile. Maybe she is a bit upset with our government.
I am also upset with our government. I choose to remain hopeful. I believe in the wise words of Theodore Parker, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
Now the fun part.
If you and your partner look like these women, send a photo to me, nancy@gatorgirlart.com and I will send you a print. I really hope to see a photo or 10.
I feel like I am finally back after the holidays and the flu. It might seem like a crazy thing to say, but being ill and sleeping 12 hours a day, does give a person time to reflect.
My word for 2013 is VISIBILITY. This word by itself might have thrown me back in bed for a few days. I plan on making my art visible to the public. I am thinking restaurants and a gallery. On the first of January, I was totally freaked out by this word until I realized 2013 is a whole year. I am currently making myself visible in my fish nets and corset. Pussyfooters is turning out to be a fun way to give back to the community. We make events sparkly and pink.
Orpheus 13th Night
I found out at this event that the Pussyfooter women are totally nice. After this picture Miss Camille and Miss Becky tightened my corset until I looked like Miss Scarlet (in my mind). I was grateful. I had no idea you weren’t suppose to breathe.
I am nearly finished with Shotgun Angel.
The first thing I did was spray the canvas with Ink Spray Dylusions London Blue. If you want to try this, it gives a nice continuity to the painting, but be forewarned, the blue bleeds through as many layers of paint that you put on. At some point you might want to stop the bleed by painting some parts in clear gesso. Otherwise, your yellow house will keep turning green.
Next, I dropped paint on the background, straight from the bottle: white, yellow and purple. Then I sprayed alcohol on the paint drops and walked away.
I put layers of paint, drops of paint, sprayed more alcohol until I liked the background.
I drew the wings on the painting with white chalk. Then I laid the cellophane on top of the chalk outline. I drew the wings on the cellophane with a black sharpie a little bit bigger than what I wanted.
I painted her wings by spraying a mixture of glue, Pearl Ex violet powder, and alcohol on the underside for sparkle. I learned this from Bonnie Rose Bryan on Lifebook 2012. On the front of the wings, I painted featherish stuff with Golden Acrylic Titanium White. As an added bonus, the cellophane glows in the dark. Cellophane adds just the right amount of transparency for wings and lays totally flat.
I cut the wings out mostly inside the black lines. They are adhered with Golden Gel Medium.
When I look at the photo of my painting, I don’t like her dress outlined in white.
I do love how the stoops turned out.
I had to resist adding tiny details like birds and cats.
I am planning to frame this in old wood from an old shotgun house.
If there is anything that I left out, that you would like to know… just ask.
Shotgun Angel
I was listening to Billie Holliday Pandora when I painted this. The angel must have been listening, too.
I have my next painting in mind. It is a political statement.
Thanks for checking out my blog. It makes me feel grounded and happy to connect with you.
On a beautiful winter day and the longest night of the year, Happy Winter Solstice.
I am painting my favorite painting. It has all the elements that I love. It is definitely New Orleans and full of magic and attitude.
Shotgun Angel in progress
It is a little know fact that Shotgun houses have their own angel. When she appeared on my canvas, I immediately fell in love. She is going to have cool cellophane wings. The nice people at Rouse’s Market gave me a cellophane sleeve without buying the flowers.
Here is Alligator Bliss in progress.
Alligator Bliss in progress
The glitter paper on his leg shows through the glass, but you can’t tell what it is with the glass on top.
This is my finished Alligator Bliss. I tried building up the background with molding paste. It made the swamp grass look pretty cool. I wanted parts of the painting raised to balance the safety glass I used for scales. That is also why I put tile along the bottom.
Alligator Bliss
Do you notice the yellow dotted paper on the alligator stomach? It is the same piece of paper I used on the curly hair of women. I am on the look out for another piece of bubble paper, now that I am hooked on its usefulness.
I made this little Christmas decoration for my daughter and her girlfriend. It is their dachshund with antlers and one of their rats. Cami, the dog, looks like a deer in headlights. The rat is quizzical. I painted it on a left-over piece of our dining room table.
Cami and rat
Wishing you all the blessings of the season. Time for this gator girl to look over the past years events and make plans for 2013. Time sure does fly.
It is November. Traditionally a time of extra gratefulness for all of our blessings. I think it is especially important to practice gratitude when life is difficult.
I have a super great assignment. A friend wants me to paint La Virgen De Guadalupe. I am currently painting the Madonna and feeling grateful with every stroke of my paint brush. I like knowing who will receive the Blessed Mother because I can ask for blessings for her family, business, happiness, etc. while I paint.
I don’t want to post in-progress pictures today. Instead I am going to post glimpses. I will post the finished painting in two weeks. I plan to be finished for December 12th.
Madonna sneak preview
A cool thing happened by accident when I was painting. I started out spraying Ranger Ink Spray, Dylusions in London Blue, all over the canvas. I painted with acrylic paints for a few hours, and when I came back the blue was coming to the top. This happened for a few days. I really like the effect. I would just leave the painting with a bluish tinge to her complexion, but I don’t want it so blue because it is the Madonna.
Madonna sneak preview 2
It worried me that the blue ink would re-surface indefinitely, so I painted her face and neck with clear gesso as a barrier. I am going to paint some more skin tone colors over the gesso, leaving just a touch of blue.
Last glimpse
This is her neck. You can see how blue, even after 5 coats of Golden Acrylic Paint.
I am happy for the assignment. I am happy for so much to be grateful for.
It is Saturday, the last day I allow myself to blog. I don’t know why the procrastination. I am also procrastinating finishing Dancing in the Moonlight. I am enjoying the family so much that I don’t want it to be over.
(The father’s cigarette ash is my favorite part. He is waiting almost too long to tap it off. )
Dancing in the Moonlight, nearing completion
I also call it Happy Family, but that is not the real name. I was going to sew buttons on for eyes and sew their mouths shut with embroidery thread in a cross-stitch. I am not going to do that now, because I think they would look too scary. I want the family obviously visiting from the other side, but not scary. I did put the cosmetic bag material on the mother’s dress and daughter’s tights. You can’t really tell, except for the shimmer and it feels lovely to touch. The moon has glow-in-the-dark paint as the last coat. Awesome with the lights off.
Right now, my favorite people to paint are recently dead. I like the colors better than skeletons or the living. With that in mind, it is odd that my next painting will have dragonfly wings.
My daughter and my daughter’s sister-in-law (let’s just call them Katy and Antonia) went to the Green Project and saw a lot of broken glass. They put it in a bag thinking I could make a snoball painting with it. How sweet of them. Some of the glass is from a car wreck and looks just like dragonfly wings. I am looking forward to trying it out.
We are having a little trouble decorating for Halloween this year. Maggie and Raffi don’t like anything scary. Maggie says when she has a Halloween store, she will only have unicorns and puppies. She has asked me so many times to change the hand that scares her in the candy bowl so it will give the candy instead of grabbing the hand that reaches in the bowl. Finally, I get that they don’t want to be scared.
This is the bowl that I am talking about.
I told Maggie that I had an idea. When the little kids come to the door, I will hand them some candy with my hand. She said that is a great idea.
I need to write 2 distinct blogs on this beautiful day in October. I have been consciously putting off adding Shiloh Sophia to my list of Artists I Adore. I don’t believe I can do her justice. Today, I decided to offer my best and that will be enough.
Shiloh changed my life. She helped be to discover my dream and gave me the tools to get there. Shiloh is the founder of Cosmic Cowgirls. The idea came to her when she was just a girl. She has always wanted to empower and connect women. One thing that I remember vividly is when she needed two other women to help her run her growing business, she painted 3 women standing together. The perfect women showed up in the perfect time.
When I wanted to move to New Orleans, I started painting alligators. Alligators were all I wanted to paint for 2 years. To me alligators were the symbol and the means to adventure.
One of the classes I took with Shiloh was called Leading a Legendary Life. It was a 6 month Internet course that we begged Shiloh to continue for a year. In that course, we painted the 4 directions of our life. My Southern direction was Louisiana, being an Artist and living in New Orleans. My Northern direction were my Roots and my desire to stay connected to my family. Eastern was health. In the East, I was led to a group where I released 100 pounds. My Western direction turned into Vacation and Travel as California would no longer be my home. All of the canvases came to life.
Since this is a blog and not a book, I will let you follow Shiloh’s linkto learn more.
Part II
I am painting a family from the other side of life. The happy family is dancing in the moonlight. I love celebrating Dio De Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. I will include a picture of my altar at the end of the month.
Dancing in the Moonlight, in progress
I am taking an online class from Jane Davenport. I am feeling more confident painting bodies. I am also trying some new techniques. I rolled a thick coat of Liquitex Professional Heavy Body Phthalocyanine Blue over the whole canvas. Next, I brushed in swirls. The moon is painted on dry gel medium applied with a motel key card. Swiping the card made some nice grooves. For the girl’s tights, I used a trick I learned on Pinterest. I put a nail in the eraser part of a pencil and used the head of the nail to make black polka dots. I am going to apply a shiny fabric, that used to be a gift bag for bath products, over the mother’s dress and the girls tights using acrylic varnish. I think the fabric will seem a little other worldly and add some shine and movement.
I am going to say good-bye now. I trust that if you need Shiloh in your life, you will find her. She is a genius for helping you to realize your dreams.
If you have your dream, carry it, nurture it, speak it, do something towards it every day.
My mind is on a theme that is creating power within me. I want to paint about change. My reoccurring thought is… Why can’t things be better? Why should anybody go to bed hungry? Why do innocent people die in the name of war every day? Why don’t we stand up for health care and be our own advocates for our own bodies?
I am working on a new painting. I tried sketching out what I wanted to paint instead of diving right in, but I had just as many start-overs (3). This painting is a fair-skinned woman with ginger hair. Weirdly, I had a lot of trouble yesterday thinking of white women as soulful and wise. I shouldn’t even say this, but women of color come easier for me. So… I started listing in my mind the 100’s of soulful and wise women I know. I chose one strong and intelligent woman I admire to loosely model my painting after. Now I am over-the-top in love with the process.
I need to remember, and you might find this helpful… the time that seems wasted and unproductive is not ours to judge. I think the down time leading up to something is the time we need to process and see the signs, feel the intuition, and even wait for the materials to show up.
Stand Up in progress
The words say, “The time I used to spend worrying about my image, I now spend in revolution. Stand up.” I don’t ever like red and blue, except to make purple, but it is what it wants to be.
I am painting over my original words in total, so they will be only there in spirit later on. The words that I am going to put on the painting I read in another blog called, “The Diary of Kitty Cavalier”. This is the link to Kitty’s website. The words are as follows:
When a woman chooses to source her truth from within her very bones, rather than looking to a set of rules outside of herself, she is truly wise. When she can stand up and speak a truth that is boiling up inside her no matter how big a risk it is to speak it, she is claiming her wild soul, perfect and untamed. When 5,000 years of conditioning is telling her that her way is wrong, but she decides right then and there that her way is right, and in fact, always has been, she is finally free.
Let it begin with me. is done. I like the muted look of the bee’s wax around the woman. I glazed her with varnish 3 times to make her shine and be safe from the dangers of the world.
Let it begin with me. You can’t see the very bottom of the painting, but there is a little slip of paper that has the title.
I have 3 questions for you.
I might add another layer to the background to make the painting more uniform. What do you think?
Also, I am deciding if I want to sell prints and Giclee’s any more. I like the energy and the textures in the original paintings. What is driving me to continue selling reproductions is that I want people to have something affordable. Any thoughts? Do you think my Etsy prints are affordable?
Last, but not least, wise words from a 4 year old, “Nena, you might want to spend a long time on your paintings, but mine is done!” Wise beyond her years, she is already listening to her heart.
Wow. I feel like I can hardly breathe with excitement. Thanks for reading.
Either my husband is so sweet or I am risking my marriage to write to you. Time will tell. It is our 28th anniversary today and he helped me to nail on the trim to a dresser that I am reclaiming and now I am blogging about the process.
About 2 weeks ago, I was looking for a dresser on Craig’s List and found the perfect one for $20 in Mid City. I didn’t have a car that day to pick it up. By the time David got home with the car, the dresser was gone. I thought, maybe I will find one closer and less expensive. I didn’t quite believe it. Then… last weekend, our neighbors moved out and put a cheap dresser on the curb. This dresser didn’t have the same quality as the one I saw on-line. But it made me happier, like getting a dog at a shelter happier. This dresser was going straight to a landfill. Besides being cheaply made, it was missing a drawer and the front of a drawer. To me this was perfect. I needed a flat place to store my prints instead of on the top of everything And I always need more general storage.
I painted the top, framed the open drawer with molding from the neighbor’s trash, bought two baskets at Target (exactly 17 inches deep) for a grand total of $30. This total does not include painting with Golden Acrylic paints. I couldn’t wait long enough to buy less expensive paint.
Aerial View of Dresser
I saw the idea for putting baskets in place of the drawers on Pinterest.
Let it be me. In progress.
I am not quite done with Let it be me. I am going to try something new (to me). I am going to paint melted bees-wax around the woman to soften the background. I tried painting something small with bee’s wax before, but not one of my paintings. Wish me luck. I really operate on a combination of luck and divine intervention.
This painting is representing the moment of surrender. The giving up of self to the greater power. Big step.
I am hoping to heal the world with painting. What are you hoping today?
Gator Girl Art 