Building Self-Trust With Mermaid Art – Week 1

Have you heard of #mermay?

It’s an online challenge that provides prompts for folx to produce a piece of mermaid art each day, for all 31 days in May!

I’m participating this year!

Why am I signing up to do something as nutso as painting a mermaid a day???

A digital painting of a sleeping mermaid with brown skin and a blue tail. She's curled up on a coral reef with orange sponges under her head, and purple tube sponges in the background. Snuggled under one arm is a white and orange "cat"fish. — Self portrait, napping with cat fish

Why Are You Painting A Mermaid A Day???

This is really about building self-trust.

I feel stuck.
I feel like I don’t have the skillset I need to execute my project right now.
It’s an old habit to give up when this feeling hits.

Building self-trust tells me it’s ok to not have the skills I need yet, I can and will build them.

So I’m leveraging Mermay to support me. I’ll make use of its features to support the areas I’m struggling with.

I have been practicing portraits for a project I want to do. And it’s largely going well. But I’ve been feeling stuck and uninspired. I guess I got into a rut.

Mermay shakes things up for me. I will still be working on portraits, but they will be mermaids! And they’ll have other undersea things I enjoy. It gives an extra zing to my work and makes me smile. That should not be underestimated.
I’m going to make mermaid portraits of people I admire, mostly women. Ok, probably all women.
Mermaids inspire playfulness and humor in my art!

I have been feeling the need for more structure and more practice. I can see that I’m improving, and I want to push that further.

Mermay provides external prompts to push my thinking. And in doing, or trying to do, one a day, I need to be more structured and move more quickly than I have been.

I’m not running PACT in Q2 or Q3 this year, which means I feel the loneliness of being a solopreneur a little more acutely. I’m seeking community.

Mermay is a public challenge, I hope I will meet some other artists and art appreciators!

I don’t have what I need right now, but I know I will. And I know I can get it myself.

This event isn’t a magic bullet, rather it’s one of the rungs of the ladder I’m climbing.
It will support me in the areas I happen to need support in today.

I trust I will find the tools and build the skills I need as I move forward.

How It’s Going With The Mermaid Art?

We’re at the end of Week 1 and so far so good!

A digital painting of a reverse mermaid: fish from the waist up and human from the waist down. The fish portion is based on an Atlantic salmon and the human legs are vainly trying to kick in the water. — Upside Down, or Reverse Ladyfish…

I started my paintings a few days early. It’s always good to have a few days buffer (or more!) when posting daily art! I’ve felt really good working on these paintings so far. I’ve enjoyed the challenge and enjoyed the regularity of practice.

So far.

Instead of traditional mermaid art, this digital painting is of a nudibranch, or sea slug. The sea slug body is purple with light blue edges and bright orange cerata on her back. The human is a light skinned human woman with red hair and large black-rimmed glasses. — Alena, Artist/Scientist and Owner of Owl & Bear Studio as a Flabellina nudibranch!

I’m well aware that it won’t be long before I slip and don’t have a buffer anymore.
It’s a lot more stressful, and a lot less fun, when I feel the need to paint the thing and post it now, let alone yesterday.

I’ll work really hard to keep the buffer, and I’ll slip all the same. I’m human.

So I’ve put some strategies in place for me to lean on.

Strategies For Success (Not Just For Painting Mermaids)

# 1: I will miss days. This is ok. And expected. This is a big deal for me. When someone hands me a list I feel obligated to complete every single item on it. So I have to remind myself it’s ok.

#2: Plan ahead. I made a list of all 31 prompts and added descriptions of who I will be painting and how. I also drafted my hashtags at the beginning of the month, and I draft social media captions about a week ahead. If the painting changes from what I’ve written, I can edit the caption instead of having to start from scratch.

#3: Plan for skip days. On my list of the 31 prompts, there are a few that I’ve designated as “skippable.” I can skip these if I want to. There’s about 1/week of these.

#4: There may be unintended skip days. This is ok too. (see #1)

#5: Allow the art to be bad, or unfinished. I struggle with this one because I only want to put “good” art into the world. But, as I’ve written before, the road to good art is paved with bad and mediocre art. It’s ok. More than ok, it’s necessary. Let the art be “bad,” let other people see it. It’s ok.

#6: Limit the time spent on each piece. I have a tendency to get lost in details and in smooshing digital paint around. This can yield great results. But it’s one of my personal goals to be faster, and less precious about the work. If I want to make 1 mermaid a day, I have to move quickly. (see #5)

The little green creature from the Mandalorian in the Star Wars universe, known as Grogu floats in a dark ocean with little sparkles in the depths. He holds a pale orange egg. — Din Grogu as a Mer-creature, for May the Fourth

I’m hoping my reasons for participating in Mermay will be a carrot to my efforts. Carrots work much better than sticks.
And that my strategies for success act as supports as I move through the month.

It doesn’t matter too much if I do all, most, or some of the prompts. What’s most important is practicing trust in myself: to do this challenge while being gentle with myself and also building skill. That’s really the barometer of success.

I hope you’ll stick around and see how this goes!