Diving Deep

Its funny how art imitates life and life imitates art,

I have been delving deep into trying to understand me and searching for things that might be hidden, lurking in the deep, aware too of the association between the element of water and our emotions and my affinity for water and my emotional state of late.

Lately I have had mermaids swimming up from the deep in different art works and the first art journal I received in round 5 of the Australian Art Journal is Danie Mays  "Ünder the Sea"

I had no idea of what I would do until I started, that is often the way I work, I know many like to consider and plan and research and funnily enough that is also how many live their lives. I find I operate on a different system I work instinctively and intuitively and trust in the outcome without having to understand every step. I just let it happen.

I started with a sketch and I wanted to work with collage, texture and paint. I stamped some background layers knowing they would be sunk deep into the work along with the collage elements I added. I always use words in my art journaling, somewhere in the piece - I found an old sheet I made years ago with some good words so they became part of the collage and I wanted shimmer so I also added small pieces of aluminium foil. 

It was hard to hold down the fibres I used in her hair and for the kelp strands so I started adding tissue paper, then she wanted to go out by the pool, she is a mermaid after all-

 we found a sunny spot to dry that layer.

That is one of our cats-

Domino

on the other side of the pool stalking his territory.

My next layer was using transparent colours, transparency is a real thing for me right now, in trying to know myself and expose more of me to myself as much as others and also in my art work

- there it is again, life imitating art.

I painted her ocean out by the pool in the sunshine, its winter here right now and quite cool inside the studio. 

Next it was time to pull it all together, I painted her, and painted the kelp forest she is swimming in, I added some glitter too, that is not something I do often but she called for it and used gold and green to to find the kelp. I outlined the leaves and the page border with pens. 

Here she is all finished-

She has a few more elements - some animal companions and some beautiful rocks in her transparent watery colours and a 5 petalled white flower.

I added the quote by Anais Nin

"I must be a mermaid.... I have no fear of depths a great fear of shallow living"