Since I was a child, I loved Andersen's fairy tale about the little mermaid. Of course I always had to swallow my tears when I came to the end. Many of his tales are so bittersweet and I myself am really drawn to happy endings, if not in life, then at least in stories.
I make an exception for Andersen, though.
When the poll result for the monthly Polymer Clay Smooshers' challenge was "Oceans", I thought of fish first, but then I saw one of Dori's layered pieces and the mermaid came to my mind. I started out with a disk of blue clay and wanted to make one of my bas-relief pieces, but suddenly I had the idea of a rock coming out of the sea.
The rock was pretty lonely for a few days because when I started I had not thought about how I wanted to make the mermaid. Then I just started with her upper body and head, then continued with the fish tail, her arms and last her hair. I love long hair (ask my hairdresser, our motto is "as much as necessary, as little as possible" for my own hair) and I love how it flies in the breeze or looks floating in water. So she got a pretty wild hairstyle.
In the end I wondered if I should varnish her, but I liked her much better like this. So now she is sitting on her rock, waiting for her prince or maybe just a friend to have a chat with.
Oh, I forgot to say that the whole sculpture is 1.2 inch high - or low ;-)
She looks a little happier than the one in Copenhaggen, and so very cute
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