Mermaids

I’m so excited! I found out a little early but my two mermaid dolls were accepted by the jury for the “Mermaids and Merwomen in Black Folklore” exhibit. For me it’s a big deal because I’ve never been part of a national exhibit. 

My mermaids are not traditional. Before I began their design, I imagined the story that they would tell me. Who were they, where did they come from, how did they become mermaids, when did they live what kind of lives did they live. I usually go through this same process with every doll I design. I didn’t want either of my mermaids to be just pretty girls with “fishy” tails that just floated around in the water. I wanted them to have strong characters with a purpose. Once I imagined their characters, the dolls seemed to come easy.  Their “spirits” gave me all of the details about what they should look like. Since the theme of the exhibit is based on Black History, legends and folktales it was easy to give my imagination free reign.

Mermaids

I finally finished the two dolls for my entry into the "Mermaids and Merwomen in Black Folklore". The dolls were easy compared to writing an Artist's Bio and an Artist's Statement for each entry that was limited to 50 words each. As bloggers, we all know being "brief" is a major challenge in itself. At 50 words we're just getting started but I did it. I read lots of samples of 50 word bios and statements by other artists and realized that they must have felt the same way.

I attacked this task first by just writing everything down that I wanted to say and forgetting the 50 word limit. Then, I read it and decided what was most important that I wanted my readers to know about me and then about each of my entries and then I edited it again. My last edit, I was very grateful for the word counter at the bottom of my Microsoft Word screen. I started cutting out unnecessary words and phrases while still trying to maintain good grammar. I got it down to 50 words exactly for all three documents. The final bio and statements sounded very stilted but I can live with it. I sent bio, statements, application, two entry photos of each and my fee in by "snail mail" today and then again by email as per directions. Now, I wait. I have had so much fun working on this project, it really made my summer.
I will share photos of my two mermaids in a later post.

For mermaid #1 I chose a color palette that was coppers and golds, I was inspired by some of the colors of coy fish. For mermaid #2, I used metallic shades of silver, teal, blue and charcoal for her tail. I used textile paints and layered the colors over each other until I got the texture and the color I wanted, I used an animal print stencil to get a mottled effect.

 I left the "fishy" tail untextured but I layered the paint on black Kona cotton fabric in an ombre effect using metallic teal and metallic navy blue.

Because I used about five different colors and they
were all applied in layers, each color peeks through and looks like fish scales. I love using textile paints and this came out exactly how I envisioned it.

 I clustered clear glass beads on the "fishy tail" so that they would look like bubbles.