WhatchamaDRAWit

The Naiad is a vibrant purple and pink mermaid balancing a fish bowl containing a heart-shaped flower on her nose. This drawing was inspired by an episode from the Netflix show "H2O: Just Add Water" that I was obsessed with when I was around the age of ten. The show is about three ordinary girls who accidentally end up in a magical pool where they gain the ability to turn into mermaids and each earn their own mermaid power. In the episode I took inspiration from, two of the girls craft a mermaid figurine made of solidified water to gift to their friend. I loved the look of the mermaid curving back reaching for her tail so I decided to incorporate it into my artwork. In addition to the mermaid's pose, the style of her hair was inspired from when I was younger as well. I used to adore Disney Princess Aurora, which resulted in me receiving many Sleeping Beauty themed gifts for a few years in a row. After years of admiring the princess's perfectly curled, long blonde hair, I still have a perfect image of it in my mind. So, wanting to give my mermaid a gorgeous mane of hair, I immediately thought of Aurora's bouncing curls.

To create this piece, I used a 4B graphite pencil to sketch out the design, Prismacolor colored pencils to add color, and a fine point Sharpie marker to add depth.

I began by sketching the drawing with graphite. I started with a circle to determine how large I wanted the drawing to be, then drew in the mermaid's body, the fish bowl, and then the flower. I was originally going to create a stereotypical mermaid— half fish, half human, but decided I preferred the idea of having a solid colored naiad-like creature. I started by coloring her body blue and added value by shading. I then added purple to create more depth to her body. I liked the idea of using different colors to create light and shadows, so I chose to use pink for a pop of warm color. I gave the mermaid long curly locks to create contrast in texture from her smooth body. After adding color to the fishbowl and flower, I went in with an eraser to add extra highlights in some areas and finished by using a Sharpie marker to outline the curves of the mermaid's body to make them stand out and add depth. I then chose to cut my paper down to a small square with the mermaid in the center. My next steps for the drawing would be to incorporate some form of a background and border so that my mermaid is not just floating in the middle to the paper.