'We dream in colors borrowed from the sea.'
As mere humans, when we plunge into the ocean, for most of us, everything seems out of focus. There's a murky darkness, with perspective and shapes appearing blurry and distorted to the human eye. Merfolk however, have eyes far stronger than even the most powerful underwater goggles. Everything is crystal clear and bright, especially the colors.
The trick however, is swim and play far from land and far from humans. The water surrounding cities and towns is especially dark and murky, full of centuries of pollution and waste that humans so recklessly toss into the home of the mermaids and mermen. Far from shore however, the water is cleaner, brighter, the colors more dynamic when the light hits the water, a brilliant cascade of aqua an almost psychedelic rainbow of light greens and blues.
It was in this part of the ocean, that artist Roy Johnson (Badsign769) visualized and set his series of merman that began creating earlier this year. I've enjoyed Roy's work for awhile, and featured his art previously on the site. (The Illustrated Man) I knew as soon as I saw Roy's mermen, They needed to be apart of today's theme. Vibrant colors, often blues and pinks, are one of the visual lures of Roy's work. Roy's images never fail to instantly boost my state of mind and elevate my senses, something especially welcome over the last five or six months.
It was actually the events of the last year which inspired Roy to plunge underwater, not to hide, but to find the light and the aqua as things got increasingly darker above the water's surface. One of the fun parts of Instagram for Roy are the regular art challenges and Roy was looking for something to fill his downtime when the pandemic kept him home for so much of the time.
'I was already drawing Instagram guys for fun (not profit since I figured people had more important things to spend their money on at the time), so I started drawing some of them as mermen. The mermen series kept me busy until the Drawing Pride challenge started in June.'
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