the art of MerMay

This year Disney is bringing the live-action version of its classic The Little Mermaid to theatres! This is one of wonder | wander | women's favourite fairytales, and for a long time we have been dreaming of telling our own version, set in medieval Islamic Spain - the grand era of the Alhambra and the palaces of Seville and Cordoba.

For those of us mermaid-obsessed artists, Disney animator Tom Bancroft started a month-long art challenge called Mermay. The Mulan and Hunchback of Notre Dame animator says he started the challenge for himself because he never got to work on The Little Mermaid.

It's both simple and easy to participate in Mermay. Every day, draw a mermaid and post it. That's all! There is a list of prompts for each day, like "Celebrity", "Twisted" or "Celestial", but they're more for inspiration. It's more fun and challenging to take the prompts and use your imagination, though.

There were some very confusing prompts this year, like "Music for a Sushi Restaurant". I drew Japanese singer Utada Hikaru, who I have indeed heard many times at sushi restaurants, as a beautiful squid. It turns out the prompt was based on a Harry Styles song, but the spirit of Mermay is that as long as it's about mermaids, anything goes. 

You can draw digitally or with pencil, pen, watercolour, crayons...anything you like! I chose to work mostly in watercolour with pen and ink, sketching with coloured pencil then outlining with fineliners, brush pens or my manga-style fountain pen.

There are even prompts like "Star Wars" for May the Fourth, or "Mama", for Mother's Day. Here in the UK it's the Mothering Sunday in March, but in the US and the Philippines it was on May 14, and as per wonder | wander | women tradition, I painted Mom a present.

This time I was inspired by Mermay, too. Because Mom's zodiac sign is Cancer, I created a hermit crab mermaid with a prawn baby. I had never drawn a crab before, much less a hermit crab...thank goodness for image search. 

But the main theme I chose for Mermay was my fantasy story. A lot of fairy tales and fantasy books are set in an imaginary version of Medieval England or France, with castles, forests and dragons. I wanted to set my story on the Mediterranean, in a fairytale version of Islamic Spain.

Like the original Little Mermaid, our protagonist dreams of having legs and dancing with a handsome Prince who lives in a magnificent palace overlooking the sea. Of course, the palace we based our story around is the Alhambra, which is in the middle of the province of Granada, so it was a good chance to imagine what it would look like if it was built on the seashore.

While painting I paid special attention to the colours and light of the subtropical Mediterranean coast. It isn't quite like the blazing brightness of our white sand and crystal waters in the Philippines, but rich warm colours, creamy sandstone and teal blue sea and the royal purple of sunset.

Painting a full illustration in a single day was like going back to school. I chose my palette, practiced mixing repeatedly and made a wheel for cool and warm colours.

I also mostly used white watercolour paper, although I challenged myself once to use blue toned paper with layers of gouache for a glowing effect.

The biggest challenge was digital illustration, something I have much less practice with. I use programs like Photoshop and Procreate often, but mostly to colour my hand-drawn sketches and linework. I rarely draw something from scratch like I did here.

Mermay isn't over yet; there is much more to come. I'm excited to see what this story looks like when it's finished.