The Tiny Captive Mermaid - Would you like to barter?

She'll give you amethysts and pearls in exchange for her freedom.

I've been told sketch artists, painters and illustrators can see the picture on the blank page or canvas before they even pick up the pencil. While that certainly doesn't work out for me (as soon as I place a mark on the paper, what I see vanishes! Poof!) That concept does seem to be true with me and polymer clay however. One of the lovely things about a colorfully bizarre childhood and an imagination that refuses to comply the date on my birth certificate, is that I have some rather vivid concepts and can see them clearly in the first instant.

This OOAK mermaid is about 6" and hand sculpted without molds!

My focus at present is on fairies, but when I saw a little fish bowl in the local dollar store, my mind immediately saw a sad yet fantastical mermaid hanging over the lip and holding treasures to try to barter her way back home. I imagined the child who caught her in the tide pool won't take her offerings, so the point I captured the image is her semi-resigned to her fate.

She is hand sculpted of polymer clay, hand painted with a blend of oil paints and acrylics and decked out with glass beads, freshwater pearl and amethyst. Her bowl is deceptively void of water, but contains a real Atlantic sea sponge I found at the coast a few weeks ago, and shells from that same trip, all secured in 'wet' looking glass pebbles. You'll soon find this little creature in my etsy shop.

I'd really love to know what everyone thinks!