I had this idea in my head of painting a mermaid interacting with a sea turtle. After numerous sketches, I came up with this idea. This siren is in the shallow waters near a reef so there are fish and seaweeds. when I was younger, I did quite a bit of diving with a snorkel and also dive tank and gear. I had to pull my memories of how the highlights hit the water and make patterns on the sea floor and everything else. Since this scene was totally made up, I also had to figure out how the light would hit certain parts of the mermaids body and how the shadows played with the highlights. I wanted to keep it my expressionistic/impressionistic stylings so didn’t try for realism. For instance the little fish are made from three quick brushstrokes.
The objective is to distill more emotion with luminous colorings and the sweep of the brushstrokes showing movement of the water. The seaweed fanning with the currents and bubbles floating up along with her hair give the feeling of being underwater.
“Silent Conversation” is 48′ tall and 36″ wide.

Impressionistic Details

Her face took the most time, She took on many faces until she finally appeared.


