What is the correct collective for a group of mermaids? A school of mermaids? A clan of mermaids? A muddle of mermaids? How about a miracle of mermaids?

With the stress of getting these babies drawn up, it seems miraculous that they’re all actually done now and ready for their next step.  Here’s the full cast of characters for Pearls of Wisdom:

The star of our show, Miss Surprised, who appears at the bottom right of the piece:

Her wise and experienced grandmother, centre left:

Supporting actress, Miss O-Grandma-I-Have-A-Question, who’ll be pretty much in the middle:

The beautiful cousin swimming in from the top right:

The annoying sister at the top left:

(She’s annoying because she was a bitch to draw and I’m still not happy with either her hands or her face. Expect this one to change significantly once she’s on fabric and painted.)

All of them will have their hair added separately with couched threads and/or stitching; that’s why it’s very sketchy and they look pretty bald. Once again, my dears, mermaids do not look like eggs in the usual scheme of things.  Tails will also be significantly improved with stitch and metallics.

Oh, and Miss Surprised needs gills on her neck as well; the others got them but I forgot hers and currently she’d not be able to breathe underwater, which would pretty much suck for a mermaid. (In my Humpty Dumpty “A word means what I want when I use it” rationale, a mermaid uses her gills for breathing underwater and her nose for breathing when she’s sunning herself on a rock, singing her siren songs. So there.)

So what’s next?

Well, next step is to project these images onto stretched fabric so I can enlarge them up from the A3 drawings to the sizes they’ll actually be, which range from about 18 inches for the rear couple to four feet for the mature mermaid. (Oh, what was I thinking when I planned this piece so large?)

Then I’ll trace the images onto the fabric and start painting. Painting! Probably my favourite part! At last.

I’m also chuffed to bits to report that I’ve been doing something towards this piece pretty much every day for the last week or more. Woo-hoo! Look at me go! More pictures when I have more progress to share.

Oh, and what do you call a group of mermaids? Answers on a postcard… or in the comments please!

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