Prince – Gator Girl Art

Hi all y’all,

I have “met” the nicest people. They live in Florida and have purchased 3 paintings. That is not why they are nice. (Well a little bit why.) We have 33 messages between us. I have high hopes for this relationship. They are coming to New Orleans in February 2017.

Seriously, I work alone all day and words of encouragement are priceless.

This is exactly how I met Rene and Amy. It started with a Rene buying Feathered Friends and turned into life-long friends. You can read about Rene and Amy. I highly recommend it. It is one of the coolest things that has happened in my life.

This is Melissa and Phillip’s wall in their house.

The following is how I made the frames. If you aren’t into making frames, feel free to skip this.

I framed the two Prince paintings in red oak plywood. The part you see in the front is nice looking red oak. The sides looked like plywood. I gessoed the sides to mimic the sides of a canvas. Then I painted them black with the same acrylic paint that I used on the paintings.

I bought some purple stain, but the oak was too hard for the stain to sink in like I wanted. I went back to my comfort zone and thinned out some permanent violet dark Golden acrylic paint with Liquitex varnish. I think the color is wonderful. That same violet is in some of the darker areas of the paintings. Lastly, I sealed the frames two times in varnish. Next time, I won’t even shop. I will just use my paints.

The bad news is… even with my new blade, I made a couple of errors in the cutting. It takes some practice to cut enough, but not too much. If you don’t look too closely, you won’t notice.

Melissa and Phillip are happy and that is what I wanted.

And I want all y’all to be happy, too. Let’s have a happy summer.

With loving wishes,

Gator Girl

Hi all y’all,

I am pretty excited. I had a custom order for a portrait painting of Prince. I was finishing Big Freedia when I received the request. I am still a little hesitant painting real people. I want the subject to like their painting and see themselves in it. Maybe this is just unreasonable. Musicians keep coming up in different ways, so I am going with it.

After I see how big their eyes, nose, ears and mouth are, what shape, how spaced from each other, etc . . . I can just paint what I want.

Anyway, I painted two versions of Prince. I told her to pick one if she was happy with it. She wants both! This is the same person who bought Shotgun Angel. I am so happy that she likes them.

Prince 2 Prince

I told her that I would frame them. I think the framing is going really well, but I am on hold waiting for the photographer. I need the paintings here to finish the frames. Framing is a process for me. It seems that every time something is challenging, I can use that information later. I upgraded my miter saw blade from 40 to 84. The numbers are the size and closeness of the teeth. Because this is new wood, I want the edges to fit smoothly together.

If it sounds like I know what I am talking about, that’s good. 🙂

I planned on only talking about Prince, but I noticed that Paw Paw Gator (aka Grandpa Gator) has never been on-line. I decided to put my last batch of paintings in this blog. This is almost a year of painting, maybe 10 months. They are different sizes and different prices. I have prints for everything. I keep 11 x 14 in stock. Shop Etsy or Where Y’Art.