Anything Goes at Aurora Wings

It's time for a new challenge at Aurora Wings and it's everyone's favorite, Anything Goes. (Except maybe mine, LOL)  I seem to be having the hardest time making decisions when I have no direction these days.  Must be my age.
However, with a little prodding from some of my teamies, I came up with this!

Grab a cuppa, I'm feeling really chatty now that I'm finally done!

When checking my images I came cross the gorgeous Whisper of the Sea. She's also available HERE in the newly revamped AW Digi Shop. It's been quite awhile since I played with mermaids and I thought she'd be perfect for a non card project.  It just so happened I had a canvas I had covered in ripped pieces of paper toweling I'd used to blot a Brushos experiment.  OOOH!  Perfect colors.

Here's a closeup of Whisper of the Sea. (BTW, she also comes in the no background png version Here and Here, if you'd like to merge the image or use a digital background.)   She's colored with Copics with a little bit of Prismacolor pencil action to add more depth to her hair. I've used seed beads to embellish her hair ornament, earring and hmmm, would you call that clothing?  I held my breath while applying them with Diamond Glaze, hoping not to ruin all the work I'd done coloring, but fate smiled on me.  

There is also a fair amount of Liquid Pearls and some Waterfall Stickles nearer the bottom that I figured were bubbles or sea foam.  I'd planned on using my Nuvo dimensional glitter, but do you think I could find it?  I also wanted more dimension to the shell she is holding so I added a sticker from JoLee's.  The size, however, was not quite as large as the digital one and looked funny just stuck on there so I built it up with a combo of Diamond Glaze and perfect pearls.  Gotta say it wasn't the brightest idea to add all this stuff before fussy cutting, but I managed, PHEW!

Now here's where I DID screw up.  I'd spent several hours coloring, when all of a sudden I realized I'd colored the area beneath her shell bra green like her ruffly sleeves.  EIYIYI!  It looked TERRIBLE!  I couldn't even pass it off as part of her tail, because honestly, have you ever seen a mermaid's tail come all the way up to her boobs?  

HERE'S THE FIX:  I always, ALWAYS print my images at least twice, mostly because if I ever want to fussy cut or layer, I don't have to go back and print it again (and if you do, you better have saved the size or you're toast), but also because sometimes I change my mind on the color scheme mid stream, or need to perform an emergency skin graft (or hair, or whatever else I screwed up) like the area circled above.  Recolor the offending area, fussy cut, carefully go around the cut areas with the side of a brush marker, I use Memento because it doesn't tend to bleed as much a Copic, glue, et VOILA!

Marisol (that's her name, I named her!) is in her little mermaid cove, made from hot gluing some shells together, sitting on her stretched canvas lagoon.  The netting is saved from some produce.  You can also see where I fussy cut and added dimension to her arms to hold her conch shell.

I've used a combo of dimensional sticker (JoLee's) elements and real shells to complete the scene.  The blue and tan cluster is actually an antique brooch I retrieved from one of my Mother-in-law's jewelry boxes after she died.  I'd been waiting for the perfect project to use it on.

Finally, I finished off the canvas with Scor-tape around the bottom edge dipped in sand.  The straight top edge sort of bugs me, but have you ever tried to cut that stuff?  The sentiment is from Graphic 45 and my last touch was some rope I'd dirtied up a bit with Distress Ink.  Hope you enjoyed my project as much as I did making it.  (And if you've made it through this whole post, you deserve a medal, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  xxx)

My AW teamies have all kinds of fabulous inspiration, so I hope you go visit the Challenge Blog and leave them some love.  Hope you join us too.   I mean there's really no excuse when it's Anything Goes, now is there?

You also still have until the end of the month to join in the February Red, White and Pink FB contest.

Here's how to keep up with all that's happening at Aurora Wings.

Aurora Wings Challenge Blog

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I'm entering this in the DL.Art February Linky challenge, Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #52 AG, International Art and Soul #2 Recycling, 613 Avenue Create February AG, the Alphabet Challenge "Y" is for You Choose, Creative Artiste #23 AG Mixed Media, the World Wide Open Design Team Challenge #19 AG, the February Classic Design Team Open Challenge #11, Crafty Awesomeness February AG, Delicious Doodles Anything BUT a Card, Happy Little Stampers February Mixed Media Challenge Tear or Rip ( ripped pieces of papers towel were applied to the canvas), The Corrosive Challenge February AG, Allsorts Week 403 AG, My Time to Craft Anything but a Card, Creative Fingers #125, Morgan's Art World For the Ladies and the Outawz Saturday Paper a la Mode Great Outdoors Challenge.