Alligator

152cm x 40 ½ cm x 1 ½ cm
Acrylic on canvas
This alligator went through several transitions as a painting. First I had conceptualized that I wanted to paint a three-canvas alligator long before I had begun painting it. The initial silhouette of the alligator got painted during a full moon ceremony during the meditation portion of the Zoom call. I was strongly pulled to paint at that time. The canvases are powerful canvases as each one is a reused canvas from a half-finished project that was meaningful to me. After the first layer of paint was down this painting sat in my art space primed and ready but not being painted for months. I had too many contradicting ideas of how I wanted to paint this alligator. When I began painting this painting it was first a realistic alligator, then I painted over with an extremely dreamy almost dragon-like alligator after I did geometric shaped filled alligator, then an over-the-top cartoon alligator, I ended with colourful scaly layers and grass that came out much thicker than I expected. Somehow it works, and as the artist, I love the end result and the journey I took to get here.