Every year in May artists globally have been taking part in Mermay across different social media. It's an art challenge where you draw mermaids during the month. I’ve been wanting to take part in it for a few years and finally plucked up the courage to go all out with this piece in 2019. I couldn’t stop adding little bits to it and had to consciously stop myself from fiddling, or it would have never been finished. I created it in Procreate and had to fight against the layer capacity as I like keeping everything separate so it's easier to go back and edit. Traditionally mermaids can either be kind and helpful or are associated with drownings and shipwrecks, and I equally love and am terrified of the ocean so I tried to juxtapose the bright and vivid colours with a more menacing skull/death. Coincidentally this year Pantone picked their colour of the year to be ‘living coral’, which I took inspiration from and made the main colour of the mermaid.