Little One is making the most of the home quarantine by being creative! Today she is dressing up as a mermaid and calls herself Mimi. And how did she get hold of this lovely mermaid costume? Well, it was a birthday present from one of her friends! A wonderful friend from Austria also shares the same passion for costumes and as a surprise made a little cute one for her! How sweet. And of course I had to paint about it!
Sketching and Outline
It was through one of Ady Almanza’s on-line tutorials that I was inspired to go for this mermaid theme. I really like her videos as she goes through the steps thoroughly and talks us through drawing her cute signature doll-like figures. This one was appropriately on drawing a mermaid. After a pencil sketch with aquarelle pencil, I traced the outline with some permanent black marker, in my case Faber Castell’s Pitt Artists Pen. I have to say it was a challenge trying to get my Little One all dolled up as a mermaids. I of course had to add the curves to her figure but didn’t want her too “mature” and womanly. It was importantt that she was still girly and kawaii!
The Ocean Background
I prefer to paint the background first so went for an ocean theme. First I doodled some squiggles and circles around with some white and light blue oil pastels to give a bubbly image. Turquoise acrylic ink paint was then layered on top. I was hoping the resistance against the oil would help bring about the bubbles but they are not as noticeable as I was hoping. Oh well, we can fix that later…
Mimi’s Costume
Now comes the fun part!
- First the hair. I again used some oil pastels first before painting it with light blue acrylic ink, A few streaks of darker blue was drawn in to add dimension.
- I coloured the flowers in the hair with pink and yellow Molotow acrylic markers. To add some texture for fun, I spread a bit of glass beads in the center of the flower
- For the eyes, I filled in with Payne’s Grey acrylic ink. The lashes were coloured in with Faber Castell’s markers in Cold Grey. I prefer not to use black unless for outlines as I find black too harsh
- Mimi’s top was painted in gold! I was in the mood for some fancy bling and thus went for Golden fluid acrylic in iridescent light good.
- I spread some modelling paste along the stripes of the tail then once dry, added the same gold colour on top.
Making Her Prettier
- I added some more bling to Mimi with glitter glue and sequins. Firstly, the scales of the costume were lightly spread with some gold glitter glue as were her hands and end of tail. Then a gold sequin added on the top.
- Pink glitter glue was also spread on the flower
- The eyelashes were dotted in with gold glitter Nuvo Drops.
- Finally for the ocean, I added more details like waves using a white acrylic marker and Shimmering Blue acrylic ink
And now! Doesn’t she look ever so adorable?
Once again, I enjoyed painting this whilst following Ady’s tutorial. It’s so much fun getting ideas and learning new techniques. Also drawing a mermaid and painting Little One’s hair in an odd colour like blue is a wonderful challenge, given they’re out of my comfort zone. Now I can’t wait to do more! Furthermore, Little One looks forward to dressing up more and trying out different looks. And I too am excited to paint about that!
My Kawaii Quarter 