'MERMAID'S HEART'
	=

'Mermaid's Heart' is a 14"x18" acrylic on canvas that I did one winter afternoon. I set up my paints in the living room and approached this one full of hope, because I came to it knowing I wanted a mermaid. :)

1. I started by swirling some paint down for 'water' and did a rough and quick mermaid.	2. Fleshed her out and shaded her in and as you can see, added a face. Defined the hair. Loving the boobs in this take. :)
3. Worked on the face some more, bigger eyes, also the 'hip; and tail get some light. The water is busy with white waves for now.	4. Here I add the plant next to her and the water calms down considerably and I add reflection by making feather-light downward strokes into the water. I add a heart because I 'saw' the starting of one in the previous shot, and worked with it. I often see things in the paint that creates an idea to go from. She has some scales now, too.
5. Well as you can tell, I've busied up the painting a lot, by adding all the leaves around her and I'm starting to like it. Still working on her face, and still adding color, light, and depth to the water. I'm thinking she's looking pissed though, haha...	6. ...so I lighten her expression by raising her eyebrows and tweaking her mouth. There, now that's a more approachable mermaid. ;)
7. I add a little 'crown' of flowers around her head. And I decide to add leaves in front of her and work on that for a while...	8. ...only to decide that it overcrowds the painting, to my eye. So it's gone. Paint is soooo forgiving. Don't like it? Wipe it off, re-paint, re-position, etc. There is no way you can lose with paint, it's so fixable. Makes me ponder why folks get constipated about painting, thinking the first stroke has to be the genius stroke. Why? You have forever to paint over it. If you knew how many layers and even full paintings lurked under all my work... well you DO know, because I make no secret of it. I believe it is an important part of the process. It makes the difference between a finished painting and one that never got started. I tell you this to encourage you to make this the day you pull your paints out and play! :)
9. And this, is she. Click on her :)

Sign my Guestbook

View my Guestbook

Back to State of the Art

Contact Lucie