Mermaids - Part 2

Tonight, I blocked in the seafoam green color for the water in the background with gouache. I've started working in various shades of blues and greens into the base color:


Here is a closeup:


I typically work from background to foreground, so I'll have the water pretty much finished before I start on the girls. I like to keep colors that I use often mixed up in film canisters and I paint from the lids. I can keep a color consistent throughout a book that way. Not quite as important when doing a one-off painting like this one (then I would normally paint from a palette), but this seafoam green is a favorite color of mine.

I keep a tabouret (a rolling cart of drawers) full of my little canisters of paint. Here is one of the five drawers where you can see a variety of colors and my little notes to myself: