"The piece known to me as “Back Into The Free Sea” has a few different sentimental reasons for me to hold so tightly onto it. For starters it was my first Mermaid of Mermay 2020. ‘And May 2020 was when the wooooooorld changed remember?’. I was feeling emotional when I made it. I was not sure what it was at the time but now I see it as some poignant expression of that strange time we all went through. It was a bittersweet time which I also see reflected in this as both parties in the painting seek one another as well as the truth. He holds her with a reverence for her freedom that seems to carry him beyond selfishness. She cant help but gasp at the feeling of her Ocean hugging her again and she grabs onto him with an emotion so beautiful it can only be viewed as the best parting gift he could hope for…. The penciling of this one took hours to get write- I even showcased it in the finished piece. This one was very much about the emotional story of the characters rather than the anything in the misty morning background. Both of them involved my ‘frankensteining’ several references together until I had it where I wanted. This was a year before I struck up a lucrative converation with Gouache paint… I always look upon it and feel a tenderness and now I am there is a special tenderness to see her off…