It’s scenic Saturday with Amybella!

Hello Bellas!

Amy here and I’m back with another MerMay card for this Scenic Saturday. Today I’ve inked up the sweet Edna with a Manatee, where it appears that mermaid Edna is comforting her manatee friend with a tight embrace. Rather than go with another deep sea scene, like my last Edna card, I thought about the manatee’s natural environment and instead tried to capture shallow waters in this background. I began by coloring Edna and the manatee with the usual saturated colors I typically use on their heads and shoulders. I then switched to slightly lighter and less saturated marker colors from the middle of her arm down because I knew that I wanted it to look like they were both floating at the surface. Next, I colored in the sandy sea floor in more light colored earth tones, creating an abstract diamond pattern with the little dunes to mimic the look of water at the surface refracting light down below. Now I was ready to add my water colors right over top the entire sea bed and the lower halves of Edna and the manatee. I continued slightly darker blue water extending back behind them ending in a spit of land complete with palm trees blowing in the salty sea breeze. The magic touch any time you are wanting your coloring to look like it is breaking the surface of water is to grab your white gel pen at the very end and add some subtle ripples around whatever object you have floating. In this case I added white lines both around the spit of land and our sweet, hugging friends. Down in the bottom right corner I stamped this great sentiment that comes with the Huggy Squidgies. The end result is a touching, sun-kissed scene that is as sweet as they come.  🙂

Stay crafty my friends!