Recurring mermaids

If there's a theme that's recurring frequently in my work (this week's prompt at MMM) it has to be mermaids, and what's most interesting about these sea sirens is that most times they are never what I intended to create. They just sort of appear, rather like their mythical counterparts.

Take this purple creature. I was sitting on a balcony facing the sea last week watching the sun set and searching for a little artistic inspiration. I began by loosely copying a fabric pattern from a magazine but it lacked interest. However, I had planned for this and so with a swish of water rubbed in with fingers, the watersoluble wax pastels began to lift from the page and form little pools of colour. A squish of the pages together left and a delightfully soft mix of deep sea colour that just called out to be... well... mermaid... I drew her in with coloured pencils.

Other mermaids have grown from the page unexpectedly too. One began life as an angel, but she kept getting her wings wet. Another's dress took on such a scaled effect that she slithered off the page into the water before I could catch her. And a third simply wasn't happy until I'd painted out her legs and dripped diamond and pearl drops into her beautiful mane.

Of course, one shouldn't restrict ourselves to the female of the species. Here's a rather handsome merman I made last week too!