Mermaid in progress

Paint Party Friday

This is a follow up on my mermaid sketch from last Sunday.

I’ve started painting.

First up after sketching the design onto canvas with a watercolour pencil, I used some heavy gel/modelling paste to build up a surface relief and some texture on certain parts of the painting.

Mermaid WIP1

Mermaid WIP1 angled close up

And today, I finally got to start adding some colour. it is only the first layer so hardly indicative of what it will look like in the end, but it is a start.

Mermaid WIP2

Sorry about the poor photo. Shiny and red aren’t my camera’s favourite combination. also, we are slipping into winter here and the light is not as good as it could be.

I’m doing all sorts of things I’ve never done in my life before and flying by the seat of my pants. I’m using a lot of iridescent medium and I’ve never used the heavy gel like this before (or at all much really). In fact, I’ve never done a painting remotely like this before. So who knows whether it is going to work or not, but it is great fun finding out.

My four year old daughter, the client, has so far complained that she wanted to paint it, that her fin should be red-pink, not the red she previously ordered and that the mermaid’s eyes are too big. I scanned the original sketch into the computer and printed out a copy she could colour in, but apparently she wants to paint the canvas. Sorry, love, give it a few more years before I’ll give you canvas. You have more art materials now than I ever dreamed of as a kid, I have to draw my budget line here.

But yes, despite the criticism from the client 😀 I am enjoying myself and am looking forward to even more experimenting as I add glass beads and other three dimensional objects to the composition 😀 More to come on this little project.

And don’t forget to check out the other Paint Party Friday peeps. They have some fantastic art, definitely worth a gander.

See all my Paint Party Friday entries!

Best wishes,
Liz