Upcoming Painting Project: Siren of the Sea

Hey Guys!

I know. Again I've taken my sweet time on this blog.

BUT I do have something I'm working on right now to show you!

The time of the year has come again to work on the booklets for the women's society.  I've had the privilege of producing them for the group for the last few years.

This year, I'm combining my love of the sea and a vintage flair to theme the book with mermaids a la the Coca Cola ads from the 40s and 50s!
Here's a sketch of the cover illustration...

She'll be sitting on some rocks and have a string of pearls hanging from her neck to her hand. The rest of the booklet will have ocean spot illustrations with shells, seaweed, sea stars etc.  I haven't yet decided on what element I'll add to make it pop.  I've had lace and flower seed paper in previous years.  

Check back again for the final illustration photo and some progress shots!! 

Have a good weekend!  

"oh... I love... my pretty little flower... "

Have you guys seen Young Frankenstein? You know the little girl who's sitting by the well that sings that song? well, that's all the words and she repeats it over and over and over and over... and I've had that in my head the whole time I was painting tonight. So... TAG, you're IT! heehee

Tonight I was working on the cover for a commissioned booklet.  I forget how much fun watercolor can be. It can also be a bit intimidating if you try to think too much about it. But I find that if I just jump in and work from the lightest to darkest, you at least have a game plan. The rest will fall into place.

I wanted to post up some work in progress pics and then post the final image :)


This is the beginning stages, I worked up some washes of lights and since this flower was so vibrantly red, I didn't have a lot of yellows or pinks to add in. I don't normally like "local color",  which is basically light and dark of the same color hue, so I've tried to take some liberty and add in different tones of red. 

here you can see a bit more, I've used some magenta and added in some yellows on top of the red. To get the deeper tones, I did washes of pure violet on top. It doesn't change the red too much but definitely makes it richer.

Here's the final image :) after I was finished, I scanned it and removed the paper scribbles in photoshop and enhanced the red back to the original color.  The scanner sometimes tends to wash things out.

Hope you guys enjoyed this! I certainly got into the mode of painting and this project inspired me to keep these paints out!

Have a great rest of your week!!