'Displeased' MerMay ArtPark Edition 2023

Hi, everyone!

Hey, y'all, welcome back to emanate artworx. This post was originally going to be a submission for ArtPark's week 1 #MerMay, but after a long battle with the mermaids (🧜‍♀️⚔️🧜‍♀️), I came to a different decision. Before I get to that - the mermaid battle:

Week 1 prompts seemed pretty straightforward (easy?), so I made some sketches to flesh out some ideas. And it went downhill from there, lol. To be fair, I don't draw or paint fanatsy subjects, so no surprise it was such a challenge! I scrapped the hope of making a week 1 mermay. On to week 2.

Betta tail sketches (pencil, marker and crayon on paper)
Betta reference

Mermaid pose sketches (pencil on paper)
Mermaid reference

Week 2 sketch (pencil on paper)

Week 2 painting attempt (IbisPaint)

For the second week's prompt, again, I thought it wouldn't be a problem to bust out something nice. So I went to my app of coice, good ol' Ibis, and started working to make the week 2 mermaid a reality. About two frustrating hours later, again, I threw in the towel on this challenge 😅🥹.

But I didn't accept that defeat, and decided I would have another go at this mermaid thing, only this time I would cut out all the gobbledygook and just make a portrait in my familiar way to achieve some kind of small success with this mermaid thing.

#Mermay ArtPark Edition week 3 finished product
emanate artworx
2304x3072
2.5 hours

"Dark" is the week 3 prompt I applied. As in she's pissed that I only showed her head and not the rest of her body and tail 😂, let alone the other 2 prompts for this week ("elemental", "zodiac"). But actually, it was sort of fun to make a different facial expression and the hair is nice and flowy, too. Underwater hair. But no eyebrows.

I used the gouache mix 2 brush and fewer layers than normal to try and get that "blended-but-not-too-blended" appearance. And the skin, sheesh. I'm still learning how to use color theory to make live-looking skin. Blue skin kind of looks dead anyway, though, no matter how it's rendered, so 🤷‍♀️. We're good there, lol.

Welp, that about wraps up my adventures battling the mermaids for this month. It was fun-ish. I learned some things about technique and about my tolerance levels for failing 🤣. Maybe by next year, I'll have a better grasp, and I'll participate again, but as for 2023 #mermay, I'm out!

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else has got up their sleeves too. : ) Thanks for reading!
Ema

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Thanks to @crimsonowl-art and ArtPark for initiating this challenge 🧡

MerMay 2023 ArtPark Edition