Mermaid Princess

Mimi the Mermaid is back! This time she’s got a gold crown on with a cute outfit dressed as a princess and surrounded by a pretty background filled with sea flowers. Spring is here, and I’m in the mood to introduce even more vibrant colors into my work. Another thing that inspired me to create this piece was the use of the collage paper I had incidentally created a week ago.

The Accidental Collage

And why “incidentally”? A week or so ago was another intuitive painting session, and as I decided I didn’t like the painting anymore, thought it would be better to stop there. Then by chance I discovered the idea of recreating it by making it a collage paper instead and recreating from the pieces! Have a read about it on my last blog So What Happened? And here is what I did: Half of the newly-formed collage paper was glued with some acrylic medium onto a page from my Strathmore’s Mixed Media sketchbook. The other half will be used at a later painting.

Further Developments

And here starts another intuitive mixed media painting! I still had no idea what to recreate but I knew that I wanted to, as usual, include a cute character. Thus I left the middle part empty of collage but began brushing on some acrylic ink and more collages. The Manganese Blue Hue by Golden Fluid Acrylic is a new one, and I love it. Recently I’ve also discovered Mulberry paper for collages, the orange ones you see here. I then continued with Juliette Crane’s method of using some old newspaper and colored wrapping tissue for the face and hair of my upcoming character. For those who don’t know, Juliette Crane is an artist from the U.S. whose classes I follow on-line.

It’s Mimi Again!

I was so excited about continuing with the painting that I forgot to photograph what happened in between! First I painted the face and hair; the face was a blend of Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Titanium white, the hair and eyes were in Payne’s Grey and the purple from Molotow acrylic markers. I further had a play around with my Molotow markers and in the end decided to add the gold crown. The gold Relief Paint by Amsterdam Acrylic is recommended; it comes in a tube with a small opening and when squeezed out it releases some thick paint with which you can draw and line with. As finishing touches glitter glue was also scattered on the eyelashes and parts of the costume. So here we go!

A fun and spontaneous collage painting! Although it was a matter of putting together some odd bits of paper and adding some paint, the point I wanted to make here is that with any piece over which you feel helpless or even hopeless, there is a way. You make an effort on a painting, and it is a shame to trash it. Why not improve it by recreating? Had I not done so, this piece on kawaii Mimi the Mermaid would never look the same! And now I look forward to working on another painting using the other half of this collage paper.