Paint – Page 3 – Gator Girl Art

Art is 99% Heart

Posted on July 13, 2012 by gatorgirlart

Good morning all y’all!

Rain is dripping off the tin roof outside my window. I love that. I heard recently that if you say out loud something you love about someone, something, or some situation thoughout the day, your life will change dramatically for the better. It makes sense to me. Which brings to mind that I love all y’all reading my blog. It warms my heart.

I wish I could share my completed process of my painting, but I think I am 60% done.

The words say: making amends for the brutality of the human race, sending love, praying for a brighter future for all people. She is painted on a thin canvas nailed to the top half of a door with square nails repurposed from old shutters.

The woman is young, holding her baby in front of the house she lives in. Her baby is wrapped like a cocoon. She is either working for no or little money. Her hope is for her baby’s future. This woman is of African decent living in America. The painting is for all people in this situation in all the world.

The woman and the story that the painting is telling unfolded for me. I feel like if I went back in time, and ran into this woman, I would know her. The painting is a little unusual, because it is divided completely in half, with the young mother standing on the line. I painted the woman and waited for what was going to be in her arms. The baby showed up in a cocoon wrap.

I didn’t know what was going to be in the upper right corner and Miss Maggie said that sunflowers need sun. I painted the hot, African, or maybe Louisiana sun. The dots represent souls. Maybe they are supporting her journey, maybe they are waiting to be born, maybe both.

Mags wasn’t happy with the darkness of the cotton field and repeatedly suggested pink flowers and butterflies to lighten it up. I stopped and explained that not to long ago, as crazy as it may seem, the people with darker skin, right here in America had to work for free for the people with lighter skin. My painting is telling that story. She said, “Oh, just like the Pharaoh!” then she broke into a song… let my people go… no, no, no. She got it.

Next week, I will post the completed piece.

One of the interesting things that happened while painting…the words making amends could not be covered with 10 coats of all colors of paint. Maybe this is the name of the painting?

For the exciting update on our park project, please visit nolagroundswell.org.

We have a Facebook page called, Friends of Samuel Square Park. Please “like” it.

Keep doing what you love,

and remember to pour your heart into it.

With unreasonable love,

Gator Girl

Uncategorized

Between Roots and Wings

Posted on June 15, 2012June 15, 2012 by gatorgirlart

Good morning all y’all!

We are mid-way in the year of the dragon, the year of possibilities. It is kind of overwhelming in an exciting kind of way, don’t you think?

Today, I decided to share the finished Raven Wisdom and the young woman with revolving names. I call her Hopeful Anticipation, but I will explain that later.

I delivered Raven to California last week. I don’t have a picture of him framed. The frame was really cool. I used dark green reclaimed wood from the Green Project. The best part of the frame was a shelf along the bottom to put shiny trinkets, gems and crystals that Raven might like. There are hinge holes on the right-side bottom of the frame where I hung a string of burlap with dangling wing and heart milagras.

I can see my painting becoming more urban. I like it. I offered a contest to name this painting. I liked many ideas. I decided to leave the words off of the original, because I like the painting this way, too. I didn’t want to limit her. Limitless Possibilities? See, her name keeps evolving.

My idea is to send the photo to the print shop for prints and giclees and add different words to the copies. It will make each copy an original. I will post later what that looks like. I will send a print to those people who sent me words that I use. It’s not too late for you!

I am totally engrossed with my new painting of Freida Kahlo as a skeleton. I don’t know if I will make prints, because the frame is totally part of the painting. I will post the process of Freida next week.

Until then,

With an ever expanding heart,

Gator Girl

Really Beyond Excited about Raven!

Good Morning!

When I wrote in my profile that I am living, working and thriving in New Orleans, I am.

I have been painting for Raven Wisdom Studio in Chico. That is my sister’s place. I kept putting Raven aside and working on it little by little. When I started looking at each area of the painting. One of my favorite parts of the painting didn’t please me any more. It looked too dark. Raven’s can be a little dark, themselves, and I didn’t want to portray that. Also, it was lacking whimsy, which I really like.

Today, I could feel the excitement of creating pumping through my veins. I ripped up paper and painted without even a sip of my coffee.

Right now the frame is drying. I don’t love framing, because I am not confident with it yet, or competent. I am too impatient to wait for help so I just push ahead. I am liking this frame.

Part 1 of Raven Wisdom — Part one of Raven Wisdom

After I cut the old wood, I scrub it with soap and water. I love old, but don’t think dirty is good in a house.

This was super fun. I painted the heart, filled it with love, turned it upside-down and sprayed it with water. When I turned it over it looked like flames.

Raven Appears Like a Shadow — Raven appears, timid at first.

I left the wood this color. It looks like old houses I remember fondly. The frame is going to have a shelf to hold Raven’s favorite trinkets.

I painted Raven with a lot of water and rolled the canvas with a roll of paper towels. I learned this technique from Effy Wild. It left the outline dark, and picked up the paint in the middle. Nice effect.

I painted Raven bigger, to be more of the focal point. Along his back is part of a Rumi quote, “be the soul of that place”.

I tried a new technique. I painted black, sparkly embossing powder mixed with acrylic varnish and melted it with a heat gun. It made a nice, black texture. You can see where I added it on the blackest parts of Raven.

The nest is made with corrugated cardboard that my sister insisted I needed to pack when I moved to New Orleans, lichen from the Lake of the Woods, Oregon (our favorite place), a red thread for the sisterhood, a fortune about friendship, and a flaming heart from Mexico.

There are other things making up the nest, like sheet music and journal paper. I added gold, brown, red and black paint for depth and mystery.

I am so sorry that the words do not stay put when I hit “publish”. I will keep working on this.

Thank you for reading about my process. Painting is pretty solitary business if you don’t count spirits chiming in. I appreciate the togetherness of my on-line family.

Where are your thriving in your life? What makes you lose track of time? Where do you feel your heart expand? I would love to hear.

Lovingly,

Gator Girl

Uncategorized

Life in Progress

Posted on April 20, 2012 by gatorgirlart

Good Morning all y’all!

I hope this Friday finds you well.

I need your help.

I am so excited about the painting that I am doing and am just waiting for some words to find me. I started looking for words and realized that I just need patience.

I started 2 new paintings this week. And the one I am going to show you is the one that grabbed me yesterday and I painted like fire all day.

I started out painting on an old canvas of MMMM’s from when she was one. It is 16 x 20 inches. I printed out mostly black and white photos of my past and applied them with Golden Gel. The pictures are a little random. I have my grandmother and parents which would be expected. But then I have a golden chipmunk from our cabin in Lake of the Woods, Oregon. The catholic church in Red Bluff, because I have wanted to be Catholic since I was 5 when my best friend Carol got to go to catechism classes on Saturday and I had to stay home.

I just went with my intuition and as you will see, it doesn’t matter in the end, because I cover it all up.

When I really got excited and couldn’t paint fast enough was when I saw this bubbly paper in my paper drawer and saw her hair. I cut it into strips, put it on with gel medium and voilà! I love it.

I painted her hair with my favorite Golden Mars Black. It is such a rich and mat color. She has a small nose, because in the beginning, she was a child.

I covered the pictures with paper. Some ripped and some cut with scissors.

The skin color is equal parts cadmium red and yellow oxide, with a little blue to make it a richer brown.

She is almost done. Just a little tending and she is waiting for words. You can see she is waiting expectantly.

And she is willing to make a deal.

If I use your words on the painting, I will send you a free print from my ETSY site.

With exuberant love and anxious expectancy,

Gator Girl

Uncategorized

Gator Girl Art is on Etsy!

Posted on April 12, 2012April 12, 2012 by gatorgirlart

Good Morning all y’all,

If you would like an original Gator Girl painting, but need to wait a while for the opportunity, there are prints available on Etsy. My prints start at $30 and there is a special going on for the month of April. Go ahead and check it out. You can also send me your email address through my email account at nancy@gatorgirlart.com and I will send you an email when I have a new painting, OR you can also see all my paintings in progress by following my blog.

And thank you, thank you for reading my blog!

I have completed 3 paintings.

The original of Monsieur Gator was painted on commission and is not available.

The collector asked for a French Gator. Painted in French around the outside edge of the canvas are the words “Strolling at Sunset, Dreaming of z Camembert”.

I listened to Chante France on the Internet. M. Gator loved the music. It seemed to put him in the mood for a portrait. What an attitude he has!

La Femme Fatal is mixed media, 12 x 36 inches painted on wood. She is standing on the street in the French Quarter after the parades have passed. She still has “it” after all these years. She sells for $800.

The Mardi Gras Muse or as MMMM calls her, Princess Masketier is mixed media on reclaimed wood, with a reclaimed wooden frame. The original is $800. The frame is part of the painting, so a small portion of the frame was also photographed.*

There are words about Mardi Gras running through her hair, and a 3 dimensional king cake baby. She is wearing a raven mask for my sister who owns Raven Wisdom Studio in Chico, California. (She is a clay artist.) The music is from the song “Mardi Gras Mambo”.

Mardi Gras Muse started out clearly in my mind’s eye, but took over a month to complete.

Now that these 3 paintings are complete, I will be starting a new painting from scratch. The options are swirling around me as I type.

Please stay tuned,

All my love from an ever-opening heart,

Gator Girl

*The photography is by the amazing Dorka Photography in New Orleans.

Uncategorized

Spread the Love

Posted on March 23, 2012March 23, 2012 by gatorgirlart

Good Morning and Happy Friday!

Sometimes a kind gesture seems to go unnoticed, but makes a positive ripple in someone’s life. Today, I celebrate two fabulous women who do kind things every day. They both happen to be my aunts. I think aunts and grandmas are like moms only without the baggage. Unless they raised the child, they are free to just spread love.

My Aunt Ruth is in her 90’s. She is the older sister to my mother. She took the time to send me a card that someone had given her with an alligator on the front.

That simple gesture validated me as an artist.

It was double nice because Ruth is an amazing photographer and artist.

Another Aunt, Grace, lives an hour away. She came to my Gator Girl Launch Party and gave me a lamp that she bought at a garage sale. She thought it would be fun to paint. And it was.

It says, “This lamp offers no promise of enlightenment. It is only a lamp.”

I painted the shade with acrylic Mars Black. I love that black. I strung some glass Mardi Gras Beads on the shade. I love the beads, but maybe not on the shade.

I painted the words on the base, then went around them with a black paint pen to make the letters crisp.

I gave it to my husband for his bed side table. I thought the red would be good Feng Shui.

Aunt Grace and me at Gator Girl Art Launch Party. Isn't she cute!

Grace has 5 adult grandchildren and she still took the time for me.

Update on my art:

I have painted and re-painted.

From experience, I think the paintings that take a while end up being closer to my heart. I am starting to like this one.

The music is “Mardi Gras Mambo”. There are small words about Mardi Gras woven through her hair.

I started painting people from photographs for fun. I like them a little edgy, not like their photos exactly. I bordered this painting with dragonflies, because Maggie is in the dragonfly class this year. And a little crown for my princess.

Raffi looks so different now that he is 2. Such a little baby face here.

This is Katy’s Facebook picture. My husband, David, doesn’t like it because she has sunglasses on. I think she would appreciate being incognito.

All of the people paintings are about 10 x 10 inches.

I was totally long-winded today. Thank you for letting me share.

Until next time,

All my love,

Gator Girl

Uncategorized

A picture is worth 1,000 words

Posted on February 10, 2012February 10, 2012 by gatorgirlart

Hi y’all,

Choosing a word for the year has been so powerful for me, I thought WOW, pictures would be incredible. I have never made a vision board before. I always thought that it would take too much time. It’s kind of weird to think that, because I watch television. That should probably be the first thing to go when you think about wasting time.

I am going to show you in pictures step by step my process and what supplies I used. I had little regard for the visual outcome. I stayed loose and had fun. You can watch with me as the reality of the pictures unfold for me during the year.

Vision Board 2012 — What 2012 holds in store.

I used a piece a cardboard 26 x 40 inches. I didn’t want to use so much expensive paint to cover the background, so I covered it with spray adhesive (kind of glued my flip-flops to the floor in the process) and applied a piece of fancy red paper from the art store for $2.90. I bordered it with black and white checkered duct tape for about $5.00. I love the tape.

Next, I lit a candle and thought about what I wanted to see in the coming year. I Googled an image. When hundreds of images came up, I chose the one that spoke to me (not literally).

My daughter, Angie and I are adopting Samuel Square Park. You can click on the tab “Give Back” and see pictures of the park as it is today. We have a lot of plans, but are just in the beginning stages of development. We got the OK from Annie at the New Orleans Park Commission to start a booster club.

Just saying, there is an uncanny resemblance to Brad Pitt.

David and I traveling — Traveling with David

I drew a hat on David, because the picture had too much hair. I like this picture, because I have a rolling suitcase and David is carrying his. That is just how we like to do it. The picture has so many places to see!

For our sister road trip, I required a convertible and an open road. I colored the blonde woman’s hair red like my sis.

Year of the Dragon — Powerful, Change-Making Dragon

I have been loving Caran D’Arche water-soluble crayons. You can use them as is, wet them after you apply them or paint with them by rubbing your paint brush against them. I also used acrylic paint. Paint is still my favorite means of expression.

Let me know if you have been inspired to change your life using pictures.

You rock!

Until next week, in unending love,

Gator Girl

Uncategorized

What’s not to love about eternal love?

Posted on January 21, 2012January 21, 2012 by gatorgirlart

Good Morning y’all,

You know how it feels when you think you are on the right track, when all the pieces in your life are just falling into place? I feel like that about our move to New Orleans. At my launch party two weeks ago, 2 paintings sold and I was asked to donate a print to the Pussy Footer’s Ball. My friends Heather and Mimi are each putting my name in the drawing for the opportunity to be chosen for the marching krewe.

The Blush Ball is an event for charity. They are raising money for the Metropolitan Center for Women and Children.

This is the painting that I donated for the raffle. I decided on a mixed media original designed for the Ball. I put my mother’s glasses on the person in the painting. I have always loved these glasses from the 50’s. I said “person” because she could be a woman or could be a drag queen. It just depends on how you see her. I love how paintings have their own intentions.

One of the paintings that sold at the party is Eternal Love. Both paintings had to have emergency photos taken at the print shop. The turn around was too quick to have Dorka take the photos.

These two happy campers are pushing up daisies. The semi-transparent butterflies are emissaries between worlds. I painted this with my husband, David in mind.

I hope that 2012 is starting off fabulously wonderful for y’all.

Talk with you next week!

Gator Girl

Uncategorized

Gator Girl Launch on January 7, 2012

Posted on January 12, 2012January 12, 2012 by gatorgirlart

Happy New Year!

2012 has started off ridiculously wonderful for everyone I have talked to. My sister-in-law is a brand new citizen of the United States. My daughters both got great LSAT scores. Katy got two job offers and free health care. I hope that 2012 is going the same for you. This will be one of the few times that I might have trouble keeping the blog short and sweet.

The opening of Gator Girl art was a ginormous success. I wanted a reverse retirement party. I wanted to feel viable in the world of art. I believe that celebrations and rituals are important. The act of ritual begins or ends something. I am going to tell you what worked, so you can have your own celebration of whatever you want to begin.

My sister and her boyfriend came from California to New Orleans to help. My brother coincidentally flew from Argentina for a job out of Houma the day before. So already it was amazing. We went to the Green Project to find some reclaimed wood to make frames for 3 of the paintings.

Making Frames — Angie, Jan and me looking at a shutter frame.

Working in my pajamas. — Framing in my pajamas. An artist perk.

The above picture is of the entry table. On the right is my bio and artist statement. I put postcards by each painting that talk about the subject. On the piece of wood, sitting on a tiny easel, is a statement saying that 10% of all proceeds from the sale of Gator Girl Art goes to rebuilding parks and green spaces in New Orleans. Next to that is a bamboo box with my business cards. On a pink clipboard is a sign-in sheet for names and emails. Last but not least, is the painting Laughing Out Loud, framed in water-damaged, reclaimed wood. I am happy to say that this gator has a new home in New Orleans. I think it is important to have original art available for sale, so I learned from Shiloh Sophia to offer my original paintings for 1/3 down and you can take it home and pay $100 a month. I like the energy that comes with original art.

We had red beans and rice, seafood gumbo, drinks, king cake and chocolate chip cookies. I bought this really cool cheddar cheese that had sage running through it and made it look like an alligator. There was more food, but this is what I would serve again.

I am working on a new painting to donate to the Pussy Footer’s Ball. I am having so much fun painting it. I will show you very soon, because I am working on a deadline.

Waiting for Dinner, another piece we framed

I am including Were You There to show how important placement is. I didn’t like this painting as much before I put it up over the fireplace on a light-colored wall. I really like it now. I am going to frame most or all the art that I still have since the launch. I like how the frames look and I think people here, versus people in California like and maybe expect a frame.

That is all for now. I hope if you are celebrating something in your life that you would like to share with the world, this was helpful. If you came to my opening, thank you so much for supporting me. If you are following my blog, it warms my heart.

With abundant love,

Gator Girl