Blue pencil sketch of a mermaid with shells in her hair, a starfish, bubbles, waves and a fish, drawn in a neo-traditional style on cream paper.

Mermaid with shells and fish sketch

Neo-trad · Colour · Flash

A blue pencil and ink drawing of a mermaid with flowing hair, adorned with scallop shells and a starfish, and a fish and octopus tentacles curling around her. Linework is loose and sketched, with soft shading on the face and hair and small circles suggesting bubbles. The design fills the sheet on a cream, slightly aged background, with a few faint red guide lines visible.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The tide has been wrong all week. The boats come in sideways and the kettle sings before anyone has filled it. Your mother has hidden the good scissors, so I cannot trim the lace for your veil, but I have found the shell comb at last. It was in the drawer with the tea towels, wrapped in one of Gran's sketchbook pages, and I am posting it to you with this letter so you will have something old to wear on Saturday.

You will remember the page. Gran drew the woman with her hair full of scallops and a starfish caught in one curl, and the fish swimming past her shoulder with its mouth open like it was telling her off. She drew it the summer before she married Grandad, sitting on the harbour wall with a blue pencil borrowed from the chandler. Everyone said the drawing was a silly thing for a girl to make. Gran said the sea had sent her the picture and she was only copying it down before it was washed away.

The comb is the one thing she never sold. When I was small she let me hold it up to the window, and the light came through the shells the way bubbles do when they catch the sun. I used to ask her where the mermaid had gone. She always said the same thing, that she had gone out past the breakwater to find a husband with better manners than the fish. I think she was joking. I hope you will wear the comb on the day and let the light come through it. Bring a cardigan, the church is always cold.

Love, Aunt Maud

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