But that tropical water looked awfully enticing. Let's take a swim! Tonight's post is brought to you by a school of mermaids.
Illustration from The Mermaid and the MajorI belong to a couple of Artist Trading Card groups. ATCs are 2.5 x 3.5 (playing card sized) pieces of original artwork that are traded not sold. The following black and white sketches were scanned into the computer, resized, cut out and colored and used to make ATCs.
Tissue paper was torn and pasted to watercolor paper using gel medium to form the background. The fish and shells are a combination of stickers, postage stamps and cutouts from National Geographic magazines.
This ATC is all digital. The image combines a couple of manipulated pictures into something new. Her fins were drawn and colored using a computer program. When the card was completed I printed it out and pasted it to heavy card stock to make a card to trade.
The next 2 pictures are of a painting I made for a friend. He wanted something that was a spin off of the Absolut Vodka advertisements.
This last mermaid picture is from a weird and delightful book I discovered while thrifting; The Mermaid and the Major ...The True Story of the Invention of the Submarine. The story and illustrations are by Francisco Melendez.
Splish Splash !!
Tissue paper was torn and pasted to watercolor paper using gel medium to form the background. The fish and shells are a combination of stickers, postage stamps and cutouts from National Geographic magazines.
This ATC is all digital. The image combines a couple of manipulated pictures into something new. Her fins were drawn and colored using a computer program. When the card was completed I printed it out and pasted it to heavy card stock to make a card to trade. 
The next 2 pictures are of a painting I made for a friend. He wanted something that was a spin off of the Absolut Vodka advertisements. 
This last mermaid picture is from a weird and delightful book I discovered while thrifting; The Mermaid and the Major ...The True Story of the Invention of the Submarine. The story and illustrations are by Francisco Melendez.
Splish Splash !!
Steviewren, I love these...They're so fun and whimsical...The colors are so inviting....
ReplyDeleteAs for LOST, I thought it was a good finale but was thrown with Locke showing up dead in CA...Now, I didn't see that coming...I love that Desmond finally found Penny. For me, that was the highlight of the entire season:-)....And Sawyer doing the honorable thing to save the others in the helicopter?....Now, that was great...
Your mixed media mermaids are wonderful, Stevie! I've always thought mermaids were so mysterious and beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThanks for signing my guestbook! Beautiful pic!! :)
You are a very talented artist. I knew you liked to dabble in art, but as the blogs go by I am begining to see you do more than dabble. I love the look of the torn tissue paper as a background. I think my daughter gave me a book for Chrtismas on trading cards. I may try to find some this weekend. I like that they are mini works of art. Instant art, that I know can take hours to make sometimes.
ReplyDeleteSorry you are still lost. Was that the last show of the entire series or the season finale?
denise
Steviewren, you have outdone yourself. I absolutely love these pics, they are visually stunning; just beautiful......
ReplyDeleteThe colours, the imagery, the shells....you really ought to be running an art school, you know that?
Steviewren, I've dashed over here to tell you that your photo on Willow's guest book is stunning. You are beautiful and I knew you looked like Shirley MacLaine, or may I say, better than Shirley MacLaine, and she is a beautiful lady. Your eyes are so sparkling and youthful, and your hairstyle is most becoming. You're a swan!
ReplyDeleteSee that is way we almost altogether stopped watching Lost. There is no resolution!
ReplyDeletelove them they look so pretty,marina
ReplyDeleteYour mermaids are all enchanting! I love the mixed media ones the best.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question: The designs on the dark blue Georgian door in Dublin were of pub scenes -- people singing, playing instruments, drinking stout, all done in gold paint in a wood block style. Very unusual and pretty.
Steviewren ~ very nice mermaids! I've always had a facsination!
ReplyDeleteI found my book on ATCs, 1000
ReplyDeleteArtists Trading Cards. Even though I do not consider myself an artist, I am going to give them a try. I haven't been very creative lately and this might be just what I need to get going again. Thanks for the inspiration. One more thing, what kind of paper do you use for the base? I usually just buy card stock, would that be strong enough?
denise
Denise, card stock is what I use to make the cards most of the time. Sometimes I glue 2 pieces together to make it stronger. I like my cards to be stiff. Some people make them using playing cards as the base. I have used watercolor paper too.
ReplyDeleteHave fun!
Thanks for helping me out. I looked at a few books in Jo Ann's yesterday and just could not figure out the paper issue. I have a bunch of old playing cards hanging around I will trace one for a pattern and maybe glue cardstock to one and see how it goes.
ReplyDeleteThanks again.
denise