This mermaid took F-O-R-E-V-E-R! As in, I started it well over a year ago, and finally sat down and finished it. It was a piece that i kept coming back to after putting it down for months because I knew I loved it, but I just didn't have the time to devote to it. Today I went to Michaels and bought a frame for it - this is my FIRST PIECE that I've framed for myself, and I am so excited to hang it up on my wall. Everything else that has ended up framed have been gifts for friends or parents, but nothing I've done has ever made it past the most rigorous of all tests - my OWN critique. This one has finally passed Oh, and for the record, I really hate drawing fish. But she was so improperly balanced without them. But I think I'll stick to fishy merfolk instead of plain fish.

My new best friend? My Dad's electric eraser he had in his architecture supplies from when he designed our house (yeah, my parents have some sweet designing skills!). It's almost impossible to get scales shaded without losing that small little section of white, and it's so small that the back-and-forth motion of an eraser is too broad. Solution? An automatic eraser! Second only to my paper and pencil in the artistic hierarchy of Christy Myren. Seriously, so out and get one. They ROCK.