Beautiful Oops

Artist Statement

This piece was inspired by the book Beautiful Oops, by Barney Saltzberg. I made my own beautiful oops by using a bit of tea left in my mug. I ended up with two round drops, which later became the heads, and two oval shapes which became the base of the tail of the farther mermaid, and the lower arm of the closer mermaid. When I looked at these splotches, the movement reminded me of dolphins, and the way they leap and swim in the water in graceful curves. I couldn't figure out how to make them dolphins, so I drew mermaid shapes instead. Thinking of the way water slows things and suspends them, I exaggerated the mermaids' hair, tails, and scarves. It reminded me of when I was little, reading about the sirens in Greek mythology and other books about mermaids.

I used a regular graphite pencil to draw my first lines, which I do with a lot of my work to make sure the base of my piece is done well. I start with a lot of lines, then begin to narrow them down to only one. I traced my final lines with a ballpoint pen, and began to colour with coloured pencils. I used coloured pencils to add shading and value to the mermaids' skin, hair, and tails. I used pattern on their scarves to hint at their cultures- the first mermaid is indigenous, from North America, and the farther mermaid is Latina, from South America. The indigenous people respect and work with nature, and I interpreted this with a forest green, ocean-blue, and sun-yellow in the first mermaid's tail. I subtly patterned her scarf with a traditional Native American pattern, and, using my original tea stain, did not give her a hand but left it as a disability to further increase the diversity of the mermaids. The culture of Latin America has a sort of warmth and liveliness that I included as a vibrant magenta and a bright orange. The pattern of the second mermaid was inspired by Brazilian fabrics.

If I were to take further action in this piece, I would think about adding more colour or value in the background to give the artwork more overall unity.