The client asked me to paint a picture that featured Poseidon, and a mermaid, on a beach, at night, with a romantic feel to it, and the hint of adult themes that children wouldn’t pick up on. We agreed that it would be in acrylics ,on canvas and when I suggested that I use metallic paint in parts of the picture she was delighted with that idea.
I drew out various ideas and when I was happy with my working painting I showed it to the client for her feedback, and she was happy for me to carry on with it. I always like to show a client my working drawings/paintings to make sure we are on the same wavelength, and it helps me always to get in my head how the picture will look when its finished, knowing that it is always a whole lot better than the working drawing.
I drew the picture out, even though its a seascape, the main characters in it have to look right too, and there had to been some interaction between them, to make that, and I decided on the mermaid with her hand lightly touching the staff of Poseidons trident. which made it not rude, but hinting at the sensual touch!
The sky is about a third of the painting, as per traditional seascapes, and the beach was at the bottom to make it obvious there was land as part of the picture, the mermaid had to be sitting on a rock to show off her lovely tail, and there were going to be hidden parts within the picture that were part of the landscape, but not obvious. Even though there was a moon in the picture and a dark sky, and dark clouds, and the beach a few shades darker than it would be in daylight, if I had painted everything else dark then then nothing would have been obvious, so I had to give it a bit of artistic licence regarding the lighting effect in the picture so that you could see the details.
There are love hearts in the clouds above the couple, and I put in a couple of boob rocks on the right hand side of the picture, with the sea splashing over them, and the cave has a hint of a fanny hidden within it, and what I loved best was the rock tower on the horizon us a cock, and the way that the mermaids hand touches the trident staff, has manifested itself as a hint of blue electricity at the end of the trident that points towards the ‘cock rock’. So sensual, hinting at rudeness a bit, but not obviously so!
I painted the sky first, and when I was happy with that, I painted the sea, up to the rolling waves, and then the rocky headland, the cock rock, boob rocks, and then the sand. It was only then that I painted the rolling wave as it curves onto the beach, and the spume of water as it falls back from the sand, and went to a lot of trouble to put in the fine line of dark brown under the frothy sea to show that it was ontop of the sand, I used the same sand ochre colour mixed in with the turquoise of the sea to show the join of sea and sand, together, being both, and then went to a lot of trouble to make sure the white foam of the waves was put in, along with white of the foam in the waves as it curls up into the top of the wave, and also on the spume on the beach too. A lot of work went into that to make sure it worked as a seascape, before I started painting Poseidon and the mermaid.
I painted Poseidon first, doing his trident first, getting the look of it right, with bronze metallic paint, and white, and black paint, to form the shading, and detail on the trident. I wanted the whole trident to be the same colour, not with a different colour for the staff. When that was done, I then painted his crown, belt, armour, and rest of this clothing in metallic bronze. Then I painted his body, and face, making sure he was smiling at the mermaid as he rode in on his curling wave.
When I was happy he looked right, I painted the body and face of the mermaid, and made sure she looked right before I painted the mermaids tail,last. The reason I painted it last was because the rest of the picture was the obvious aspects of what they were, but the tail had to have the small scales, the hint of colours, and there was also a lot of metallic paint in it too, where it caught the moonlight it was silver, where it went down the length of it was gold, and there were copper parts too. I didn’t put any bronze in it as that was Poseidons colour, and I wanted her to have her own feminine colours to his. It took me a while to get it done until I was happy with it, as when I painted it late in the afternoon in artificial light, it looked totally different in full daylight the next morning! I had to make sure it looked right, in both light effects.
I finished it and contacted the client who’s reaction was “I’m overwhelmed, its so much better than I imagined, you’ve done a brilliant job” so I was absolutely delighted to hear that, a happy client, makes me a happy artist!!!
Its painted in acrylics, including some metallic acrylics, on canvas measuring 31 x 24 inches, and is called “Poseidon and the mermaid” . I love it. I love the cleverness of some of the technical details in it, particularly the roll of the sea on the sand, and also the frisson of electrical reaction at the end of the trident! Its subtle, and makes it a romantic picture, without being obviously so!
