Round Robin journal entry #1

Well I finished my first Round Robin spread. For this first exchange I got Lisa’s book. Her theme is The Secrets of the Sea. Lisa collaged the Waterhouse Mermaid on the front cover so of course I imagined this first spread with a mermaid in it. I thought about the subject “Secrets of the Sea” and my first question was how could anyone ever know the secrets of the sea? The sea is such a vast space filled with mystery upon mystery I’m not sure that we will ever know them all. This brought an image to mind of a mermaid keeping secrets as she looked out over the Sea of Time. About a year ago I found a great vintage art book with a beautiful painting of a nude woman seen from the back. I decide to turn this into my mermaid. I also had a great photo that I had taken from Pigeon Point lighthouse of the ocean. I decided that there needed to be some 3-D type elements to bring some depth to the collage so I used pumice Gel on the rocks and gel medium with a few drops of interference green in it to add to the waves. I made the Mermaid tail out of molding paste. I painted all the textures then over- painted the collage image to fuse the image and textures together. I really had some trouble trying to get the mermaid’s tail in the correct position. I found a position that worked but I’m still not that happy with the final result. What I really like is the way that the texture worked on the rocks and the depth that the texture created to the ocean. It does make the ocean look vast. I also really like the dreamy quality that I achieved by adding a titanium buff color all around the edges. It makes it seem like a memory. The last bit of paint was Quinacridone nickel azo gold to age the image a bit. On the whole I like the spread but it’s definitely not perfect. What do you think?