shells

Mermaid Monday #14: Purple Water Iris Mermaid with Yellow Tail

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So yesterday was Mother’s Day, and then I go and disappoint my poor mother by deciding to take Sundays off! Well, I couldn’t not do Mermaid Monday, but this one is dedicated to my mom, since she likes irises. (Yes, that’s what those flowers are supposed to be, water irises. You all should see the irises she draws: they are beautiful and look like irises, unlike mine.)

Right now, sadly, I live over 2,000 miles away from my family, but this summer, we’re planning on moving, Prismacolors and cats and all, from Michigan to Washington State where they live. You all should appreciate that, because I have a feeling that once I’m out there, Mom won’t let me get away with any more half-year disappearances! Seriously, though, I will probably end up drawing more because I can get together with her, or my cousin Becky, and just enjoy drawing. So wish me good luck with that, once I get to that point.

Halloween Costume Series Day 4 / Mermaid Monday #6: Pearl Blue Mermaid Costume with Pearl and Lapis Lazuil Strands and Pink Shells

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You thought I forgot about Mermaid Monday! I never forget about things, I just don’t do them and then become consumed by guilt.

The good thing about my October project is that it’s quite freeing not to worry in the least about what time period something is from or if it’s accurate or realistic. I started sketching for my ghost, ending up with something that looked like a ghostly Juliet (hence the reference in the text) and thought, well, is this OK? Is it like something from that time period? Maybe I’d better look it up… Then I realized it was a costume and I had perfect license not to care. Since with my historical dresses I attempt to stay in the style of the times right down to the year without just copying another dress, it can be difficult to do them properly. This month, I’m winging it! and it’s great!

The bad side is that most of my outfits are costumes in some way anyways, so the energy I don’t devote to thinking “is it accurate?” instead goes to “is it a costume?” There can be no mermaid costume in our world better than the costumes Iris and Sylvia already have access to, since our world does require feet. With imagination, most everything I’ve drawn is a costume already and my October project is redundant. (But fun!)

There are plenty of masquerades in the mermaid world, both among the mermaids and on land with the humans and elves, but the mermaids certainly don’t dress up like mermaids and for any of the others to do so would be in bad taste. No, this costume (really just a hobble skirt with ruffles sewn on the bottom) is most certainly from our world, and since here there are no real mermaids to compare it to it does its job well enough. What do mermaids dress up as for their Halloween, you might wonder? Unsurprisingly, they dress as things that scare them or things they aspire to, although mermaid takes on human culture are becoming popular as well. There are three more Mondays in the month, so we’ll see.

New poll on the 8th! So don’t neglect to take this one…

poll by twiigs.com

Mermaid Monday #1: Golden Kelp Mermaid

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When I look at my site stats, the new blog’s most popular page (besides the doll) is consistently the mermaid one, and a lot of the search engine keywords are mermaid-related. Yes, that’s right, people aren’t searching for zombie paperdolls, they aren’t searching for cupcake aprons, but instead they are searching for mermaids. Now if they were searching overwhelmingly for zombie paperdolls, it’s still unlikely I would have Soulless Saturdays or Flesh-Eating Fridays, but I just love drawing my mermaids.

So, from now until I get bored of it, every Monday is Mermaid Monday! (Except for when it’s not. For example, St. Patrick’s Day next week will not feature a green mermaid, I’ve got plans for that day.) Mermaid Monday might mean old-school shimmery mermaid tails and all the accessories currently fashionable under the sea, or the kinds of things mermaids might wear, should they have to venture on the land for some reason — diplomatic errands, say, or to try capturing the heart of a human, or for just simple curiosity. (What, that just sounds like an excuse to draw pretty gowns in cool colors? I don’t know why you would think such a thing…)

Now, this mermaid, even among mermaids (not renowned for their modesty) is really quite vain. She looks down on those that drape themselves with pearls, jewels, chains and silky fabrics, because to her, all of that artificiality is unnecessary for one with such a shining golden tail. Adding more gold to gold would just be gilding the lily; one might even say “tacky,” and that is a sin with her set. So she goes for a more natural look, for a contrast.