The Hidden Gallery

It's finished!!!  And the colours are so much more brilliant than this terrible and low quality scan.
My favourite thing about this painting is how the mermaid's expression came out so serene...

Thank you to the wonderful and talented Judy Boardman, who is otherwise known as artsygoddess, for her wonderful mermaid drawing!  It's been a pleasure and an honour to have worked with you on a beautiful piece of artwork.  Thank you Judy!!!

I hope you enjoyed looking at her as much as I enjoyed painting her!

Phew!  I can now go read journals without feeling guilty about not posting art!

Okay, I guess I got carried away and forgot to make a scan before it got to this point...These are the very first layers of watercolour paint.  Things look flat at this point.  The colours, the shapes, everything.  I've started shading with cobalt blue and highlighting with some rose dore for the mermaid's skin then washed over everything with yellow ocher.  I've also started indicating some of the background elements with more defined shapes.  Whatever bleed I was losing my mind over has now been resolved.  I've incorporated the bleeding ink into the watery paint.  Thank goodness!  Judy's art looks even more amazing with colours added!

Working through the email i've neglected over the past couple weeks.   I'm down to 56 emails.  wo'hoo... back on track soon I think hope.

Part VI and the finished painting next!

OMG... is all I could think when I touched wet brush to paper... I must have been on crack when I was at the art store because I didn't buy a waterproof black marker.  D'OH!

I almost cried...then remembered all the brown ink was indeed done with waterproof ink and felt a tremendous relief!!!  phew!!!  After that, I just decided to work with the bleeding.  It's an underwater illustration anyway so a little watery-ness won't be too bad, right?  That's all I could hope for at this point.  I almost had a heart attack because I thought I ruined the Judy's art!!

OMG!  Raptors took the Nets 106-69!   o____O  wo'hoo!

Next...part V!

Phew!! No major mistakes!  I'm so relieved!  In fact I am almost pleased with the results!  There is no way I could have inked this well if it was not for Judy's gorgeous drawing and her skillz.  Her body proportions are so accurate and the mermaid's pose so graceful.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate that! 

I think I am often guilty of "manga"-ing my illustrated characters.  It's a style I suppose I've developed, however, it has turned into a very bad habit.  I think that was one of the things that really rubbed my life drawing teacher the wrong way.  I mean, not like the time he screamed, "YOU WRECKED YOUR DRAWING!!!!" at me then angrily stomped away kind of "rubbed the wrong way", but still this bad habit of mine must have troubled him quite a bit.  And no wonder.  It has certainly become a curse at times and at others, quite a lovely accident... But I'd still prefer it if I did do life drawing accurately and not so stylized sometimes....

That's what practice is for, right?

Well, now that I'm a little too far away from Toronto School of Art for open Life Drawing, I'm going to have to find another studio or skool that I can maybe bike to.  Has to be less than $10 a session.  Otherwise I might have to resort to doing life drawing self-portraits in the mirror and jeezzz... i sure don't want to have to resort to that...i already don't like posing for reference photos and i don't like painting or drawing from photos...

Our high dollar...oh how it has been a blessing and a curse!  My whole business structure must now re-adapt...

We don't have cable...I didn't care until the Raptors started playing again!!!  Here's the cracked out part...  since when the hells did I start caring about NBA basketball?!?

Next... part IV

I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to with Judy's drawing.  Because she used really heavy paper with lots of tooth, I considered using a more water-downed acrylic paint and try to use it like I do with my paintings on canvas.  But after some thinking, I thought that it would not be a good idea because I tend to layer quite heavily.  With many heavy layers, I wasn't sure if the paper could handle it and I wasn't about to find out.  Instead I went for the good ol' panned watercolours.  I figured the paper could take a lot of layering and the washes may be more brilliant with so many layers.

Painting this with watercolours means inking the drawing as well.  Of all the things related to art, I think inking is the most challenging for me.  I do tend to mess up and I've ruined many a potential painting with my lousy inking skills.  And of course, this also meant I had to pick an inking instrument.  Do I dare go old skool and use the dip pen and an open bottle of ink on this textured paper?  Too risky, I thought.  So I thought a marker would be better.

It didn't take me long to decide how I wanted to ink this painting.  I thought I would go art nouveau with brown and black marker.  So, I started with the brown sakura.  I always start inking on the minor elements of the artwork so I can find my pacing for smooth lines before attempting the figure or the main focus.  I decided to outline in black, but my black marker had died...

One of the most bestest things about my new location is that the art store is just down the street!!!  I can walk there or bike there anytime I want!  No more TTC downtown just to buy something like a black marker!  I also picked up some blank cards and an eraser.  Art supply shopping is about the only shopping I don't really mind too much...phew!

Part III next...

In the past, I've always hesitated to do any kind of artist collaboration because I found that it was filled with conflict but I realize that was a product of our maturity or lack of it...

As with my art, I think I've grown more mature and I think it shows in this collaboration with the very talented artsygoddess  I'm delighted with how it turned out and I hope she is too!



Judy illustrated her beautiful original drawing on a really heavy piece of watercolour paper.  It was very thick like cardboard and was very textured with lots of "tooth".  I've never painted or drawn on such good quality paper before and I think this is why I hesitated for so long before I actually got down to starting my half of the collaboration which is the painting part of the delicate drawing.

I really didn't want to mess this up.  First of all, it's another person's original artwork!!!  I was very nervous that I would "wreck" it somehow with my inexperience.  Second, it's a damn fine drawing!  If I goofed, then the drawing might not even be saved... you can see how concerned I was!  And third, well, it's on nice paper so I certainly didn't want to ruin the investment Judy has put in me.  Both her amazing talent, artwork, generous materials, and most of all her time.

It's hard to tell from the crappy scan but the lines are quite delicate and soft.  There's a lot of movement in the hair and underwater foliage.  I think this compliments her pose very well and I like how her tail's texture contrasts against her figure.  I like Judy's composition too and how the cave's opening frames the whole setting.  Little details like the coral and fish add to the magic and sets the tone for how all the figures relate to each other... it seems like everyone is kinda minding their own business in another lovely day in the underwater fantasy world of Judy Boardman.  All the character's expressions are quite serene and I wanted to evoke that same kind of feeling with colour.  It's like a distant and soft admiration of fantasy.

Anyways part II next...

still trying to catch up...

Sorry if I depressed you with my last post.  We are now returning to our regular programming.


Recently, I participated in a teamwork challenge!  It was very cool.  A group of mermaid artists joined up for artistic collaborations.  One person would do a drawing and another person would colour and paint it.  The results have been wonderful!  It is really cool to see how each artist's style emerges from the art!

Well, I did a drawing and inked some of it.  Then I mailed it over to geckoartist who then painted (and what an improvement!) it.


This was my original drawing.  bah!



This is my drawing enhanced and beautifully painted by the talented Aubry Chapman!



I think she really improved the face.  I like her expression so much more after Aubry painted it.  I love it!  It's gorgeous!  I secretly procrastinated on mailing her my sketch because I was so dissatisfied with it.  WOW!  I think it's beautiful now!

Go visit Aubry's website!

Then you can go check out the art of the Sea Gods group here!