My Mermaid Paintings and Drawings

Mermaid Tales from Around the World

by: Mary Pope Osborne, Paul Werstine

Amazon Price: $117.64 (as of 02/14/2012)

Of the 12 tales, only Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" is very well known. The other entries come from around the world and from different times-ancient Greece to 19th-century America. As Osborne points out in her introduction, these selections feature strong heroines who just happen to have fish tails. Being magical creatures, some can offer wealth and happiness; others can become human, marry, and have children; and a few are evil and vengeful. This rich collection is further enhanced by thoughtfully designed color plates and page decorations. Each picture furthers the understanding of the story through content and style (e.g., authentic African patterns are used to decorate the Nigerian tale, while the Greek tale is accompanied by artwork influenced by the area's terra-cotta pottery). An anthology that will enrich any collection.

A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids

by: Margot Datz

Amazon Price: $12.89 (as of 02/14/2012)
List Price: $16.00

The landlocked mermaid is a symbol of the contemporary woman, trapped in a paradoxical dilemma of being part worldly and domesticated, part untamableand intuitive. In A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids, artist Margot Datz sees the she-nymph within, struggling to emerge, and in a swirl ofwhimsical and witty wisdom, lovingly offers tips for today's world of dating,mating, and beyond.

Margot's beautifully painted, contemporary mermaids are caught in the nets of their own comical dilemmas, circling the heart's fishbowl of romantic longingsand in the murky depths of deep emotion. Whether it's the value of cultivating an inner water garden or coping with crow's feet and fish tails, Margot offersadvice and an enchanting way of hydrating your weary mermaid soul.

Coy, sweetly mischievous, and a pinch sagacious, this is a book that, like a good glass of wine, can be enjoyed multiple times, sipped on, or downed in onereading.

Six Mermaids in Art Cards (Dover Postcards)

by: Edward Burne-Jones et al.

Amazon Price: $0.92 (as of 02/14/2012)

Six brilliantly colored cards celebrate the endless enchantment of mermaids, with vibrant reproductions of works by celebrated artists. In addition to Edward Burne-Jones' haunting The Depths of the Sea and Herbert James Draper's Ulysses and the Sirens, this compilation features works by John William Waterhouse, Howard Pyle, Hon. John Collier, and Lord Frederic Leighton. Dover Original. 6 full-color cards.

World Ocean Census: A Global Survey of Marine Life

by: Darlene Trew Crist, Gail Scowcroft, James M. Harding Jr.

Amazon Price: $5.58 (as of 02/14/2012)
List Price: $40.00

"[A] distillation of a decade of exploration, magnificently illustrated and eloquently written. Some will treasure World Ocean Census as a valuable reference, others as a place to find white-knuckle adventures."
-- From the foreword by Sylvia Earle

An insider's description of the comprehensive Census of Marine Life and what it reveals about a seriously threatened ecosystem.
The Census of Marine Life was launched in 2000 with the goal of producing the first-ever ocean census by 2010. Two thousand scientists from 82 nations agreed to the mandate to answer three important questions:

* What once lived in the global ocean?
* What is living there now?
* What will live there in the future?

This book deals with the adventures and experiences of the Census of Marine Life and the process of gathering the data, revealing the stories behind the science. The authors detail the most fascinating findings and exciting discoveries -- the thrills encountered and the difficulties overcome -- all illustrated with fabulous images captured during the project's explorations.
The text readily engages the reader, and the photographs are as beautiful as they are accurate. The information is comprehensive, compelling and current, and it represents an enormous group effort by some of the world's leading scientists.

ArtRage Deluxe 2.5 [OLD VERSION]

Amazon Price: $99.90 (as of 02/14/2012)
List Price: $49.99

Some other people's opinions:

"ArtRage is a natural media digital art software with several very nice features, some challenging those of Painter and Photoshop. The first thing that I liked was the software's graphic user interface or workspace. Given the number of features and the amount of controls to customize the tools, you would expect a complicated and intimidating GUI similar to that of Painter or Photoshop. Instead, you have an uncluttered workspace with only six panels bordering the edges. Also, as you are working, these few panels automatically disappear out of the way as your brush approaches and reappear again as you move your brush away. Other nice features are a rotating canvas and pen tablet support. ArtRage can import and export several image formats including JPEG, BMP, PNG and PSD.

Those artists who begin their artwork by blocking out the major shapes and colors in their painting will appreciate ArtRage's Tracing Image feature. This feature allows you to import a photo or sketch as a starting point for your painting. ArtRage projects the imported tracing image onto the canvas and you can control the scale and opacity of the image. For example, while tracing the outline of a rose with the Pencil tool, I set the opacity to around 80% which allowed me to see the details clearly. Later when I began to add color, I lowered to opacity to about 30% to create an "onion skin" of the trace image. For artists who like to paint from a reference image, ArtRage allows you to "pin" a reference image or images directly on to the canvas. Once the reference image is pinned to the workspace, you can reposition the image next to the area you are working on.

ArtRage has two ways to work with color; Trace Color and Normal Color. Trace Color is a feature which takes all the hard work out of choosing colors. As you paint with any of the tools, the software chooses the colors for you, based on the trace image. If you prefer to choose the colors, you can switch to the Normal Color mode and ArtRage has several color pickers including a Numeric Color Picker and the basic RGB and HSL color pickers.

With the Custom Color Picker feature, you can narrow your color choices in the color picker panel to a smaller group of colors such as complements, warm colors or cool colors. Finally, ArtRage comes with several preset Color Samples. You can even create and save your own custom color sets and color samples.

Now that we have our digital colors, we are ready to paint or draw. Each of the natural media art tools in ArtRage can simulate traditional art media including oil, pencil, palette knife, airbrush, chalk, glitter, paint roller, paint tube, felt pen, crayon and eraser. The realism and amount of custom control over the tool's properties such as wetness, pressure, hardness and angle, are surprising for the price. The natural media tools can also be used with the Metallic Paint option which gives a metallic characteristic to the media and to the canvas. In the Papers Settings Panel, you can choose a preset paper type and control several aspects of the canvas such as grain, roughness, color and opacity.

Another feature that one would expect in only high end software is layers. ArtRage's Layers panel rivals its competitors'. You can work on individual areas of your painting on separate layers. You can also copy, group and merge layers. Each layer has its own properties, such as opacity and blend modes, and can be moved, scaled and rotated. You can control the characteristics of the paper or canvas for each layer. ArtRage also supports transparency for layers, Photoshop's blending modes and has the ability to retain layer information when you import or export your artwork in PDS format.

The Stencil Picker is a very nice feature that can have many applications. The stencils and rulers work in three modes. In the Stencil mode, you can use the stencil or ruler as a mask to prevent paint from touching the canvas. In the Ruler mode, the stencils and rulers act as a combination straight edge and snap to function. As you move your paint brush along the edge of the stencil, your brush will automatically snap to the edge of the stencil giving you a nice clean edge. The Guide mode works like the Ruler mode but allows paint to spread under the stencil or ruler, giving a softer edge. ArtRage comes with a nice selection of preset stencils and rulers. You can also create and store you own.

Besides the built-in resources such as color samples, preset paper types, trace images, stencils and rulers, ArtRage comes with several video and pdf tutorials, sample paintings, quick start guide and a nice user manual.

I almost feel embarrassed to suggest additional features. But if I had a "wish list" for ArtRage it would include just a few things. For art media tools, I would like to see a watercolor brush and a drawing pen with a really fine point. As for new features, I would like to see selection tools and tooltips. Although ArtRage does have a multiple undo feature, it would be nice to have a history panel."

I should mention that the 3rd Edition, coming out soon, is confirmed to have watercolours.