At Least It's Not Raining...

And here we are at the end of Mermay. Here's the artwork that was uploaded to YouTube earlier this month. Julia is not happy but her friend Sandy tries to lift her spirits.

I was kindly given some more Gouaches by a fellow artist and decided to put them to use for this video. It makes sense to use water based paints for a Mermay illustration. This was however the first time I used gouaches on sketchbook paper instead of canvas, and I think this makes a distinct difference in the quality of my painting.

Some of the colours aren't as spot on as I had hoped, but gouaches are quite easy to mix and the colours I've gotten as a result are very close to what they were intended to be. I had done a sketch of the characters and was painting on top of that, it wasn't until afterwards I went back over with the line art. This is something I can't recall doing since Entry J for the Alphabet Challenge and after that long time gap I seem to have done much better at this method.

There only a couple of big issues with this illustration. One of them is the that fact the text isn't so easy to read since I didn't paint any white for the speech bubble. The other issue, a minor problem is that Sandy's bikini is incomplete, she doesn't have a strap going around her back!

In case you haven't seen it yet, here's the YouTube video showing the time-lapse of this art piece.

That's it for Mermay, I hope you enjoyed it and got drawing some mermaids yourself! Normal content will resume Saturday so be sure to come back to more Droey's Draws content in the future.

Tea With A Mermaid

Contrary to belief, the British are not generally obsessed with Tea! We do have some Tea drinkers though, and here's one of them getting quite a surprise!

Remember Raven? She's back and sporting purple hair today! Raven loves her tea and just getting herself a cup when she found there was an unexpected guest bathing inside... it was a mermaid! This, one of the tiniest mermaids to ever be seen is Gibi and she loves tea too. Gibi finds nothing more relaxing than a warm bath and tea happens to be her favourite substance to bathe in. Raven was quite obviously surprised to see her cup was occupied and despite the fact she had to make another cup to drink from, she was delighted to see the mermaid.

Most mermaids don't like to be exposed but Gibi is quite used to it, given she bathes in cups of tea! It's hard to believe that such a tiny mermaid would be such a big star, at least for being proof that mermaids exist. This caused a theory to spread across Jansterwick that mermaids are not ocean dwellers but are creatures that materialise in cups of tea for a sign of good fortune. Does this mean that Raven will gain luck?

Should I have used actual tea in this piece? I would certainly have made things interesting! Maybe you can try using tea or coffee in your art sometime, you'll get some great sepia tones!

Mermen Will Be Mermen

Boys will be boys and mermen will be mermen. 

Kyle's back at last, and he's got some friends with him! These are his mates Jason and Bob, but what are this trio up to? There's a boat passing by hosting a rather fancy party and these three mermen have their eyes on one particular guest of the party with a starfish styled mermaid dress. This blue haired beauty has no idea that she is being observed by three lustful youngsters who can do nothing but dream on!

This piece came about as a combination of two ideas. I had this concept in mind of the three mermen looking towards something but it felt too much like 'On The Rocks' which I did earlier this month, so I needed something to make this piece more different. This is where the second idea came in, which was a call back to the mermaid dress illustration I did featuring Ariana Sketchbook and Anne Natalie.  This time rather than drawing a dress I drew a mermaid skirt and designed the colour scheme to draw attention towards the skirt, which I suppose would be the vocal point of this entire illustration!

I had no idea what I was doing with Bob's design, other than that he's got a birthmark and that he's meant to be more fish like than Jason and Kyle. I meant to give all three of the mermen warmer colour scheme but again Bob seemed to contradict this idea. Luckily his design still stands out from the background, which is why I intended to give the mermen warmer colour schemes.

Neither of these ideas would have been very distinctive alone, but together they created a beautiful and slightly humorous outcome. Have you tried combining your ideas before to create something new? It could be two concepts or two methods, or more than two of whatever, just don't go overboard!

Beneath The Swanboat

Droey and Co. are out for what was going to be a leisurely ride on a pedal boat but not only does John have other ideas, but they're being watched!

So let's start with what's going on at the top of the illustration. We have Droey and John pedaling Louise the swan boat with Ida and Lottie as their passengers. John would rather ram their swan boat into the other ones and have a laugh while Droey is trying to stop their boat from tipping to one side, with Ida and Lottie feeling they have sat on a death trap! At least this has allowed Lottie to be aware enough of her surroundings to catch Droey's hat as it flies off his head.

But what about this mermaid at the bottom of the illustration? It is Mermay after-all, I can't not include a mermaid! This is a mermaid I sketched last year but never did anything with; her name is Donna.Whenever Donna's around, it isn't usually a good sign for humans. Donna can be a bit manipulative and is usually after something. I don't think she's after Louise the swan boat though, it seems she is more interested in the boat's captains! Will Donna get what she wants?

This illustration was done using ball point pens and water colour pencils. I chose to set the drawing at sunset because the sky could then have warmer colours to contrast to the depths of the water Donna swims in. It's a simple illustration but it's beautiful and I could see it being used in a children's book, having this placed beside a text box to one side.

I hope you're all enjoying Mermay and drawing plenty of mermaids. If you're not doing Mermay, then I hope you're enjoying what is you're drawing!

Star's Hiding Place

Is that Star returning? I can't tell, she's hidden behind a shipwreck!

Star was just sunbathing on the beach as she likes to do by then there was a couple of men who arrived at the beach! Star didn't want to get caught and there was no way to hide just the tail. Normally she would wrap her tail in seaweed and hide it in the sand, the seaweed was to stop her tail feeling uncomfortable, but this time she had forgotten the seaweed. Star decided to continue sunbathing and hope for the best, but then she heard something gently hitting the sand from behind.

Behind her was a beach ball, Star was frantic! Seeing a beach ball always meant someone was going to turn up trying to retrieve it. It was a miracle that a small rowing boat had recently crashed at the beach, leaving half of it nose up in the sand like an arch. Star quickly flipped over to the wreck and hid behind it, tucking her tail in as close as she could while keeping her back as close to the wood of the boat without actually touching it.

A middle aged man, in nothing but his trunks, wandered by in search of his beach ball. His hair was tied up in a bun with an ice-cream wedged within it, it was a miracle how the ice-cream hadn't fallen out of the cornet! He approached the ball and shouted to his friend as he went to pick it up. Star didn't dare leave the wreck until the beach ball game was over. Once it was, she didn't fancy risking the chance of being spotted again so she made it for the sea and was not seen above the water again that day.

Keep this story in mind next time you go out to the beach, if you lose your beach ball somewhere quiet it could be disturbing a mermaid!

Ariana Vs Anne - Mermaid Dresses

Mermaid dresses are quite popular at this time of year and so Anne's decided to design a mermaid dress. However it isn't getting as much love as Ariana Sketchbook's dress which her Nan bought her!

Something I barely focused on last Mermay which I wanted to cover again was mermaid dresses. Originally this was going to just be an illustration of Ariana showing off a mermaid dress but then out of nowhere it became this chance to include one of Anne Natalie's wacky designs and the chance to spark a rivalry between characters was taken.

Taniya, not needing a mermaid dress to look good, is admiring the six thousand pound dress that Ariana has recently put on and is supporting her good friend's taste in fashion. Anne, who designed her own dress is not impressed to see the clown-fish inspired design getting all of the love and affection. But it has to be said, it does compliment Ariana's hair nicely.

It was quite fun to write the dialogue for Anne's speech bubble. I didn't want to go too far with the rage and say anything that could be perceived as offensive, but I did want to make it appear as though Anne was trying to insult her rival. I think how it has turned out is that Anne is trying to insult Ariana but is only paying her compliments by accident, right up until the Paddington mention which is just completely random!

Have you got any mermaid dresses or mermaid inspired designs? If you're an artist why not try designing some fashion inspired by mermaids?

Banksea

I found an image of a drawing on the sand and with Mermay in my head I had a brain explosion. A character called 'Banksea'! I an unlikely to be the first person who has come up with this idea but I'm definitely going to practice it!

Not far from where Droey lives, there's an anonymous beach artist who goes by the name of Banskea, all anyone has ever seen of them is their tail which can be mistaken for a paintbrush. They come by and make drawings in the sand before swimming away into the depths of the ocean again, only to return another time to draw on their sandy canvas.

I chose to use two mediums that I don't often work in; pencils and my brush pen. I don't use the brush pen for line art often if at all because of the lack of control I have over brushes. But given that the tail was a brush shape I decided this was reason enough to draw the line art with a brush pen.

When this was done, I wasn't feeling very passionate towards this piece which is what allowed me to be experimental enough to use pencils for the shading. I tried to vary the tones though I think each section blends into the next too easily, except for Banksea's tail. I used an eraser where I had stopped shading to mark the sun. The eraser allowed me to make a realistic gradient between the sun and the darkening sky.

Not every art piece has to be made at it's best, some are an oppurtunity to mess around with supplies and practice skills you think you need to learn. That's what happened here with Banksea's debut, are there any part pieces where you have just experimented with unfamiliar mediums?

The Little Mermaid

Would it be Mermay without drawing Airel from The Little Mermaid? No it wouldn't, so here's Ariel!

I started out recreating a shot from The Little Mermaid but I ended up drawing it in my own style, hence the different looking head. The rest of the line art is pretty close to the actual shot of Ariel singing. When working on this I realized how much I struggle with realistic lips; I normally just draw the edge of the lip to indicate the mouth but if someone is wearing lipstick you've got another edge to draw which makes the mouth look weird when I try to replicate the look. What I did with this piece was make the lips themselves one piece of line art, which certainly helps to add appeal and resembles Disney's way of illustrating Ariel's lips.

I chose to colour Ariel in just red since the red hair is an iconic part of her design and it would make her better at attracting everyone's vision. Meanwhile the background was coloured with pencil to decrease the saturation and in green to match the colour used for Ariel's tail (on her official design, not this illustration). It also resembles the sea once some teal lines are added to mark bubbles in the water.

I did better at drawing Ariel this year than I did the last but I cheated out of trying to draw that magnificent fringe, is that's what we call it. Maybe if I do next Mermay I'll face up to the challenge of mastering Ariel's hair, is that something you'd like to see? I hope you're enjoying Mermay, but if you're not doing Mermay then I hope you're still getting creative!

On The Rocks

Mermay is back! This time I'll be showing you all of my Mermay content on the month, so let's start with this illustration of Julia, Sandy and Flo.

These are three of the five mermaid characters I designed last Mermay. I had consciously chosen not to work with them until this Mermay came around so it's nice to bring them back. I find I'm rarely drawing characters being serious so I gave all three of the mermaids serious expressions. I couldn't resist making the usually perky Sandy give a wave though, it would have been a bit boring if she was just sitting like the rest of her friends.

There are a couple of Easter eggs in this piece, firstly the lamp that Sandy holds. This is the lamp containing the genie she found on the seabed, in the post which I accidentally referred to Sandy as Star! There is also a sailing boat in the background which has a matching silhouette to the acrylic painting I did a long time ago. Could it be the very same boat?

So what about Star and Kyle? I'm sure we'll be seeing those two in the month as well. Be sure to enjoy this month of mermaid themed content and give a shot at drawing some mermaids this month yourself!