Mermaids

In keeping with my theme of trying to stay cool I did some Mermaid paintings this weekend...Hey it must be working it's only suppose to be 91 today whoo-hoo!!

I've never actually had a drawing class and know there's a lot I don't know yet, but I keep practicing and this time around I can actually see improvement, hey wonders never cease! I'll tell you originally the book that helped me the most was the following book By Linda Ravenscroft:

In the beginning it was easier for me to try and draw fantasy because then I didn't feel like it had to be perfect. Since then I have practiced drawing from looking at catalogs. I was okay if I had something to look at to draw but didn't feel comfortable drawing from my own imagination. This time around I'm pleased to say I drew both of the mermaid paintings from my imagination which to me is a big deal, I feel like I over came a block I had. I confess I've always been a little envious and in awe of people who could pop a drawing out of their head!

Both of the mermaid pieces were done on 8x10 cold press watercolor paper....I used Color Mists with a brush for the backgrounds and then used gouache paints for the actual mermaids and then went over it with pens to give detail. What I love about using Color Mists is that they have a shimmer to them like you'd expect to find on a mermaid or fish scales, unfortunately the scans never do the shimmer justice and just does not pick it up but for those of you that have used Color Mists, you know what I'm talking about :-)

Below you can see my before and then after I turned them into cards using photoshop and adding some text and borders:

So the moral of my rantings is to keep practicing, it will come :-)