When my daughters were given some creative homework to do based on the book Oliver And The Sea Wigs (Amazon UK, Amazon US), Ra chose to create this beautiful Mixed Media Mermaid Collage
Materials Needed To Make Your Mixed Media Mermaid Collage
- Art Canvas
- Paper Plate
- Paint Brushes
- Paint
- Paper Mache Pulp
- Small Shells
How To Make Your Mermaid Mixed Media Collage
Painting The Canvas
We covered a canvas with a mix of blue and green water-based paint (ready mix and poster paint). I’m teaching my girls to use a mix of colours to create backgrounds at the moment and they’ve grasped it really well. Ra blended painted stripes of colour using the wide and thin side of the brush making sure she went down the sides of the canvas as well. It was then left to dry whilst we collected together some other materials to make the collage with.
Making Your Mermaid Collage
Next we mixed up some ready made papier mache pulp and with a little guidance from me she carefully applied blobs of it on top of the canvas using a knife. Then it was left to dry. The pulp will leave white marks if you drop it n the wrong place and remove it and depending on the size of the blob it can take a way the paint if you use water based like we did. Because of this I get my girls to always work out from the middle. So we started with the tummy went down to the tail then up to the head and finally did the arms. I love how she gave her a nice full body.
Papier mache pulp is fine paper dust ready mixed with a dry adhesive. You make it up a bit like you do plaster of paris by adding a little water at a time until you get a nice stodgy sticky pule. It’s great for making models with.
When she was happy with the shape she pressed tiny little shells into the tail and then we had to leave it to dry overnight. This needs to be somewhere warm and flat so we put it on the floor near a radiator.
When it was dry we then measured out lengths of home made t-shirt yarn for the hair, before painting the body, and put them to one side.
Mix up a skin colour and paint the body first followed by a bikini top and then the tail shells. We used a combination of green and yellow pearlised acrylic paint for the tail, The darker green was put on first followed by some splashes of yellow which worked beautifully.
While the paint was drying Ra drew a collection of little sea creatures and the mermaids face on paper and then cut them out. It was too difficult for her to paint the face because of the texture so we settles on the paper images which looked brilliant once they were glued on.
When the paint had dried we glued the hair in place. Ra did think about letting it hang loose but when she held the picture up it fell all over her face so we decided to curl and twist it around the sea so it looked like it was floating in the water but you do need to glue it down to make sure it stays there.
Then it was down to the detail. A mixture of little shells, some jewels and of course the little sea creatures she’d drawn were carefully glued around the mermaid. I loved Ra’s idea to put them in her hair.
And finally he seaweed that we’d collected off the beach especially for this. When we found it it was hard lumps of noted seaweed that had been thrown up by the storm but wehn we soaked it in water wen it softened again we discovered that there were a few different varieties so we straightened them and let them dry hard again before carefully drying them at the bottom of the canvas.
This is so beautiful. I need some of that paper mache pulp! Your girls are so creative!
Wow what a great job she did! The collage has come out amazingly x
Ah that’s amazing! I love the fact that there are shells on her tail! So perfect! xx
This collage is so pretty. Great job here. Your girls are creative x
oh wow your mermaid is really good! I do hope you are going to give it pride of place in your home!
This is really good, I used to love all the crafts we used to do with the kids when they were younger x
It’s amazing and such a great idea for making use of shells from our beach travels!
Oh wow now that is one amazing mermaid! I love how you have used so many different textures.
This is such a great idea! Looks like it was really fun, and the end result looks fab too. Sharing this with my sister as I know my niece would love to do this 🙂
This looks so cool. I really like how they used all of the different materials. The shells worked perfectly!
Now this is just fantastic and I am sure you are proud mum right now x
Wow this is absolutely fantastic!! So creative and I love all of the colours and textures xxx
This is so awesome, I can’t even!! Such a fab collage, and I would LOVE the girls to make me one 😀 : D 😀
The shells on the tail are beautiful! Well done girls!!
They turned out so great, your girls are so wonderfully creative! It’s given me inspiration to do something like this with my own daughter xx
This is so creative! I couldn’t even make something like this now, let alone ten years ago! Love all the different colours and the hair 🙂
What a great idea your daughter did a fab job with the picture.
That looks so good! My daughters would love a project like that!
What a great art project! Love the finished piece and the fact it’s on a canvas is brilliant 🙂
That’s amazing – what a great art project! I love that it’s on canvas too as you can hang it on the wall now x
This is just absolutely fantastic, what a great imagination to have!
Now I know what to do with all the shells we have been collecting at the beach
I loved doing stuff like this and was gutted art at school was so 2D. I also loved sticking shells in polyfilla on margarine lids -takes me back. Lovely inspiration.
Wow, that is so amazing! Wish my girls had the patience for that… think we’ll have to stick to cake baking 🙂
That’s brilliant, I like the sound of the papier mache pulp!
That is fab – so creative! I think Syd would love to do something like that – tho I think he would prob make a Squid rather than a mermaid – he loves them for some reason!
Thanks Admin Now I know what to do with all the shells we have been collecting at the beach God Bless You dear