Mermay 2023 (All My Drawings)

If you've been following me a while, you know I love doing Mermay every year. I love drawing pretty mermaids with flowy hair and graceful tails. So every year I also do a round-up post showing you all my drawings, so you can see what I did. So let's get started!

Day 1- Self Portrait

I tried, but I don't think this looks anything like me. She's a cute mermaid though.

Day 2- Upside Down

I attempted to make a merman based on the Reluctant Dragon, with an upside down cake, of course. It's not very good.

Day 3- Twisted

A nice over the shoulder pose. Not bad for my first attempt at a pose like this.

Day 4- Star Wars

A mermaid inspired by Padme's meadow picnic dress, which is probably one of my favorites of her whole wardrobe.

Day 6- Mushroom

A mermaid with a mushroom hat. That is all.

Day 7- Merfairy

One of my goals this year was to do one prompt as a painting. This is the first one. It's okay, but there are some things I don't like.

Day 8- Dystopian

My take on a dystopian look. I also played around with different textures on the clothes.

Day 9- Heartbreak

This is one of my favorites from the whole month. I love the composition and I think you can really feel the emotion.

Day 10- Celestial

I like the idea of this one, but I feel like it came out a little funny in the end.

Day 11- Villain

A quick sketch of Maleficent as a mermaid. I think you can tell who it is, so we'll count it as a win.

Day 12- Companion

A girl and her octopus bestie. I'd love to do this one again with more time and color.

Day 13- Old Money

An old money aesthetic inspired mermaid. Later I realized I missed a great opportunity to draw a 1920s mermaid.

Day 14- Mama

A portrait of my beautiful Mama as a mermaid. I love this one (except for the glasses).

Day 16- Celebrity

My sister suggested Blake Lively in her 2022 Met Gala gown, so I gave it my best shot. I don't think it's very good, but maybe you could guess who it is?

Day 17- Emotion

Honestly, I hate this one. I was trying to do something inspired by the Scream, but in the end, she lacks any emotion.

Day 18- Deep Sea

This outfit is inspired by deep sea octopuses. Another I think looks pretty good.

Day 19- Sunrise

Since I was using only pen this month, doing a sunrise was kind of challenging. But I attempted it.

Day 20

I didn't want to do this prompt, so I painted one of my OC mermaids- Aurelia. This is a redo of one of my first drawings of her and you can see a lot of improvement.

Day 21- Body Positive

I'm all for size-inclusivity, which means this drawing was lots of fun. Both girls are beautiful in their own way. But why I have I drawn so few freckled characters up to this point?

Day 24

Another prompt I didn't want to do. Instead, I drew this mergirl in a cute cable knit sweater. The pose is a bit awkward, but it's cute.

Day 25- Food

A kind of basic mermaid with a cupcake, because I wanted to try drawing a side profile.

Day 26- Jewel

This is my other favorite from this challenge. I had so much fun drawing all the pearls and jewels on her. I'd also love to do this one in color.

Day 28- Sailor

This is my most ambitious piece this month. It has two people with side profiles, a background, and an attempt at composition. There are definitely ways it could be better, but I'm pretty proud of it.

Day 29- Barbie

I felt inspired by the Island Princess for this piece, so that's what I drew. She's pretty cute, even if you can't tell which pieces are supposed to be mesh without color.

Day 30- Blue

I used a blue pen to draw a sad mermaid. I was feeling kind of sad this day, so drawing her was rather therapeutic.

Day 31- Goodnight

For my final piece, I was bold again and went with a gouache painting of a baby mermaid. Isn't she precious?

Have you ever done Mermay? Which of these drawings are your favorite? Tell me in the comments.