A bird May Love a Fish

But where would they live?

This quote, from 'Fiddler on the Roof', inspired this piece, which I originally did as a pencil drawing, but have just worked up as a digital 'painting' in photoshop.

Mermaid artwork

Here are two recently finished pics featuring mermaids, one an oil painting, the other digital. Now enhancing my mermaid-themed calendars on cafepress.


Mermaids have repeatedly cropped up in my artwork. They seem to come in spates, possibly being connected to nostalgia and escapism. Anyway, as a recurring theme such images are useful as a gage of my artistic progress over the years. Hopefully this comes across in this slideshow I have put on youtube, showing my drawing and paintings in chronological order...

Mermaid of the Deep.

Mermaid of the Deep by ~dashinvaine on deviantART

Finally got one of the mermaid paintings done. In the course of this I discovered the importance of painting a unified tone in the background, and this has to be done before adding other features. I made a rod for my own back painting the masts of the shipwreck and parts of the mermaid before I'd sorted the background, and had a devil of a time eliminating patches of yellowy green. The digital camera exaggerated the differences, but also helped me to identify places that needed repainting. A more dynamic/less static pose and more consistent lighting might have made this painting better. It could also have done with some more narrative elements, but it's done now.

Artist's Colony

I noticed my little work area was looking rather picturesque (if a bit untidy) with works in progress and multifarious books stacked around... Here can be seen two commissions presently under way: a Nativity scene, and a new version of Blue Mermaid.